Building the Future of Food Starwalker Field Day 2026

I want to read this specific quote so I get it right. Good ol' would use the image of a dark tunnel with a light at the end. The light did not come to you. You had to crawl toward it, over obstacles and under them, because hope is rooted in action. And that's what's present here today. We can think in our hearts about how much it matters to us to do the right thing and to encourage other people to do the right thing, but what change comes from is when we get out there and we actually take action. You know, Field Day this year was just so amazing. The different people that came in and from all over the country, from chefs to creators to certifiers, you know, just all the people supporting us and the conversations that were taking place. That's what is the most important piece of what we're doing right now is the conversations of what is moving forward in Regenerative Organic and how we can take steps forward together. And I just thought, this can't be the way that you have to make food. Like, why are we using poison to make food? And I didn't know if it was possible to make food without poison or not, but that was where the journey began. Watch nature. Like, watch the birds. Watch the wildlife. Watch the wild. It's, like, extremely abundant. It's alive. It's vibrating. It is energetic. It is creating. When people start wrapping their head around that and understand that there's so much living below us and all of that is going into the food that we're eating, we really have to figure out how to take care of that, how to best treat that. The community around Regenerative Organic, it involves so many people. In order to grow a movement and to create a ripple effect, you have to link arms with people who have the same mindset as you and want to learn and grow together. How can we get more healthy organic food into schools? If we could bring farmers an offer instead of an ask, we're going to see traction like you guys can't believe. It pays. It pays in multiple ways, not only in efficiency and improved yields, but in higher quality and higher density. Most people think all farming is the same and all farmers are the same. Getting folks to vote with their dollars is the biggest challenge we all face. We don't cook enough in this country anymore. People don't know how to cook. So that is a way to vote for your food. I'm going to cook. What about going to a farmer's market? What about committing to a source? I want to buy from this ranch. I want to buy from this farm. I know them. I have a relationship with them. One of our favorite pieces of field day is when we have Chef Thomas Drury and his team come out and actually cook a five-star meal on the land. And people are experiencing, they're seeing the land, they're seeing the animals, and then they're watching it actually be cooked in front of them. And then they're tasting the food. So I think that chefs that want to really bring that message and take their talents and show what it's like to cook nutrient-dense food and people can experience the taste of it, it takes it to a whole other level. We want to be able to prove that the practices that we're doing on the farm, whether it's taking care of the soil, the animals, moving them around from pasture to pasture, what we feed our pigs, all of that's going to translate to nutrient-dense protein. And if we don't have nutrient-dense protein that people are fueling their bodies with, then how are we any better than any other system out there? I think in the United States, we've kind of pounded our chest for about seven or eight decades saying we can feed the world. And there was truth to that. But we did it at a cost to our soils. And now we've got this awakening through regenerative understanding. We're sick. Chronic illness is on the rise. Heart disease is on the rise. And there's a direct correlation proven time and time again through so many studies, that it's based on what we're eating and what we're putting into our bodies. I think that in the next 20 years, we won't see fast food restaurants go away. We'll see them evolve with us. Because they'll have to shift with how we're spending our money and how we're fueling ourselves. We're seeing the demand there. We're seeing the people coming. We're seeing the retailers, many of them here in the room today, the buyers, they want it. The consumers, they want it. This movement is no longer in the early stages. The movement is undeniably growing. And we are heading towards that tipping point. There are now actually choices wherever you go shopping to shop for regenerative. Something that really didn't exist only a couple of years ago. We need to move from these small islands of good to a unified force of change for this stuff to work. And I think this is a good example of that in action. Star Walker in 10 years is a lot of farmers across the country that are linking arms together to create healthy, nutrient-dense, regenerative organic products and providing protein to households across the country, to schools, to retailers. I believe we do what we do so that we can help make more kitchens across the country a healthier place to raise the next generation of kids. I really wanted to make sure I was putting the right things into my body for the health of my children. That really stimulated reading ingredients, looking to the right farmers for my food, and making sure that everything I put into my body was going to help this child I was growing. It's about building legacy in the soil for my kids to carry that on generations on. The reason I get excited is because I know for sure this is right. I know for sure. There is so much abundance available to each one of us if our soil is biologically active. So what can you do? What can you guys do? What can we do? Our mission really is about making healthy soil. After we make healthy soil, we make healthy animals, and those healthy animals nourish our bodies and our customers' bodies. And if we have a healthy community, I think it's a win overall.