On an particularly bitter cold day for New Haven, Connecticut, I arrived at Yale University to give a lecture and meet with students who are working on understanding modern food production and logistics. They are looking specifically for ways to integrate innovation in production and develop new markets to meet emerging trends in consumer demand.
The students I spoke with throughout my time there had an impressive mix of academic talent and practical experience. About half a dozen of the students who I talked to had actually worked on holistically managed ranches around the world. Some were involved in impact investing, looking specifically at large scale land restoration projects and how to attract more people to diversifying their portfolio into real estate that facilitated regenerative agriculture.
The invitation to have someone from the Savory Institute speak to the university came from Jenaleah Clark, a grad student with an extremely impressive background. Between her bachelors and masters work, she had worked on a ranch in Australia that managed over 40,000 head of beef cattle. She was at the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef this year where she met our COO, Tré Cates, and started the conversation about putting on an introduction to Holistic Management at Yale.
It was an absolutely fantastic trip and we look forward to exploring many of the collaboration possibilities that arose from it.
