Doniga Markegard – Regenerative Agriculture

Business-Organization: Markegard Family Grass-Fed LLC

Author of Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild and regenerative rancher Doniga brings a perspective rooted in nature. She has a background in wildlife tracking and permaculture. In her youth she was mentored by some of the leading wildlife trackers, naturalists and Native spiritual elders. She spent years alone and with a small group of passionate youth in the Western Washington Wilderness learning the ways of the ancestors, immersing in nature, bird language, survival skills and wildlife tracking.

Along with her husband and four children, Doniga owns and operates Markegard Family Grass-Fed LLC raising grass-fed beef, lamb, pastured pork, chicken and dairy supplying the Bay Area with local, nutrient dense foods. The family ranch leases coastal ranches throughout the Bay Area spanning over 10,000 acres.

She is dedicated to finding ways to regenerate lands and community through ranching practices that build soil, sequester carbon, capture and purify water and enhance habitat. 

20080 Cabrillo Highway S.
Half Moon Bay, CA
USA

Ph. 650 670 7984

Website: https://www.donigamarkegard.com/

Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/donigam

https://www.instagram.com/dawn.again/

Workshop(s)

Workshop 1: Regenerative Agriculture: Mimicking Nature to Find Our Path

Doniga Markegard, owner of Markegard Family Grass-Fed, shares her expertise in Holistic Land Management as a pathway for large-scale grassland restoration. Blending principles of nature and permaculture, Doniga weaves a journey of raising healthy livestock while also increasing plant diversity, building soil, and providing nutrient dense foods for thousands of families. By mimicking patterns found in nature, communities can cultivate food with greater nutrition while providing carbon sequestration and returning biodiversity and abundance to the land. Through her direct experience in stewarding 10,000 acres of rangeland in California, Doniga offers real-world stories and lessons in regenerative ranching.

There are a wide array of people, organizations, businesses, nonprofits, and others that are interested in shifting systems to reflect a generative, ecological set of values. While the interest is there, all too often do groups work in isolation, and even collaborative efforts get stuck in hierarchal thinking patterns that limit their ability to pursue and distribute truly innovative interventions. One approach, network weaving, looks at how emergent systems in nature function, and uses a set of principles and values to uncover connections, interests, passions, and resources within networks of people who care about the same issue. By facilitating thoughtful connection, the practice of network weaving works to understand how systems work and then stimulates self-organizing for solutions. This workshop will: 1) discuss what network weaving is and how it is different than traditional approaches, 2) lead participants through interactive self-organizing activities to illustrate network weaving principles, and 3) provide essential tools for participants to use to further their practice of building resilient, system shifting networks.