We began this year's Perennial Farm Gathering by honoring members of our community with the Deep Roots and New Shoots Awards. The Deep Roots Award honors the life and career of someone who has made significant contributions to the advancement of agroforestry and perennial agriculture. This year's award recipient is Dr. Don Wyse. The New Shoots Award honors early-career individuals who are already emerging as leaders in the advancement of agroforestry and perennial agriculture. This year's award recipients are Dan and Jacque Enge.
0:00 Welcome - Keefe Keeley, Savanna Institute Executive Director
5:00 Fred Iutzi, Savanna Institute
8:00 Colin Cureton, Forever Green Initiative
15:18 Deep Roots Award
16:00 Dawn Wyse-Pester
18:35 Keefe Keeley, Savanna Institute
20:50 Philip Matthews, Wormfarm Institute
26:18 New Shoots Award
27:07 Dan & Jacque Enge
Deep Roots Award: Dr. Don Wyse (posthumously)
Dr. Don Wyse, a beloved leader in our community, passed away unexpectedly this past July. Earlier this year, Don celebrated 50 years of teaching and research at the University of Minnesota. Don was the visionary and co-founder of the Forever Green Initiative, which serves as a platform and model for developing alternative crops and cropping systems that provide longer-living cover on the landscape with additional economic and environmental benefits to rural and urban communities. Several of these crops have achieved commercial success and the Forever Green Initiative has gained global recognition and support. He was instrumental in bringing together individuals across the entire agriculture infrastructure to work on the most challenging issues affecting agriculture, the environment, and society. We are grateful for all of his contributions and are honoring his memory with a gift to the Dr. Donald Wyse Memorial Scholarship Fund.
New Shoots Award: Jacque and Dan Enge
Jacque and Dan are founders of the Veggie Emporium: a regenerative microfarm growing nutrient dense produce while promoting soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. They hosted a hands-on workshop / agroforestry mini symposium on their family land in 2022 in collaboration with Nearby Nature Milwaukee, Savanna Institute, Grassland 2.0, and Rural Urban FLOW. Jacque has also served as the rural coordinator for the FLOW network, facilitating important exchanges across the region - including the creation of the Outdoor Land Theatre at last year's Fermentation Fest, which showed a seed exchange documentary. They are both movers and shakers with one foot in honoring the agricultural / familial lineage of the past, and one foot in transitioning toward more sustainable models of the future.