Doug Fine

Fresh from a standing room only talk at SXSW, Doug Fine (Author of Farewell, My Subaru, Hemp Bound and Too High to Fail), brings frorth this call to action about what anyone can do to ensure our great grandchildren have a habitable planet. And yet this keynote is fun the whole way through with wild tales of Fine’s remote regenerative life in New Mexico.

For Earth to remain habitable, an area the size of North America must be converted to regenerative modes immediately. That means we’re all soil farmers now - sequestering carbon in soil and supporting farmers who do so in the field, is the best way to ensure breathable air for the coming century. This talk offers three ways every human can actively become part of this overtime victory for the species. The best part is, getting outside to farmer's markets, reading labels on all your food & getting dive-bombed by pollinators planting a garden, is about the most fun life you can live.

Even in our busy Digital Age lives, it benefits everyone to be a soil farmer. Your own food will be healthier and tastier from the underground network. You’ll come away from the terrific, energizing and funny talk with a practical action plan for your own carbon sequestering home superfood garden. Doug Fine-bestselling author, regenerative hemp farmer, goat herder and food security advocate, lives and write on his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico--42 acres of paradise, except for occasional wildfire and mountain lions. The great Willie Nelson calls his book Hemp Bound, “a blueprint for the America of the future.” Building on Conan and Tonight Show appearances and dozens of keynotes, Doug's talk is as timely (and funny) as it gets.

Doug Fine, Bestselling Author of Farewell, My Subaru and Hemp Bound When a bear fleeing a wildfire killed all his goats and terrified his family a decade ago, Doug Fine set out to find whether one family can make a difference in humanity’s climate change mitigation project. The answer? Yes, indeed. In a gripping, funny and slide-accompanied keynote, Fine discusses the soil building and regenerative food cultivation techniques that he practices on his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico. There he milks goats, homeschools his children and generally lives a rugged individualist’s dream life. But Doug grew up in the suburbs, and can explain to all audiences (from urban to rural) the concrete steps we can all take to be part of humanity’s thriving for coming generations. This includes solar power tips, driving on alternative fuels and thinking about regenerative products and packaging, as well as raising food on the smallest or largest of properties.

Bestselling Author and Speaker Doug Fine, author of Farewell, My Subaru and American Hemp Farmer.

“Humanity is in the bottom of the ninth, two outs,” Doug Fine writes in his latest bestseller, American Hemp Farmer, “And this time the farmers are In charge.” Fine has established himself, in the words of Eric Steenstra, Executive Director of the industry group VoteHemp, as “not just our preeminent hemp author, he is one of the most important authors of our time. He doesn't just pant hemp, he wears it he lives an independent, food-secure lifestyle.”

Hemp is one of the hottest careers in the digital age (and one of humanity’s longest utilized plants). This event is a soil-to-product, comprehensive, and edge-of-your-seat rundown of what it takes to join the worldwide hemp renaissance not just as an entrepreneur, but, concurrently and lucratively, as an earth saver. Doug Fine is an acknowledged worldwide leader of the regenerative hemp entrepreneurial movement.

Fortunately for humanity, hemp’s return coincides with the reawakening of a global awareness that the Earth is a system like a store’s shelves. We either begin mitigating climate change in the soil, or we die off. Here’s the real win-win: The regenerative, top-shelf craft model Doug outlines in this event nearly always results in products superior to mass-produced ones, the way fresh-squeezed orange juice beats frozen concentrate. Without that marketplace superiority, merely saving humanity would be a tough sell to folks entering the industry as economically stressed family farmers. The essential point is that regenerative values can still be entrepreneurial. Everyone wants to make a living.

Also important to keep in mind is that hemp is merely leading the way in this wider migration back to biomaterials as our primary industrial feedstock. Soon, if we’re successful in our execution and messaging, the processes hemp’s pioneers are developing will seed the industrial pipeline in areas well beyond one plant. Regenerative hemp will be the leading brand, the way that craft beer is taking over market dominance from mass market beer.

We’re talking about an economy-wide regenerative entrepreneurial renaissance. So this is an event for everyone interested not just in hemp, but in a regenerative enterprise, a regenerative community, a regenerative society. That means one that will be thriving seven generations down the line. In the event, Doug even discusses end-of-life planning for product packaging, and the scope of a regenerative enterprise’s distribution radius. “It’s all about building communities in our enterprises and mitigating climate change. It can still be super lucrative to be regenerative.”

This event is also ideal for hemp customers and supporters as well as interested farmers and producers. And this keynote is also perfect for any regenerative themed event, even if it’s not a cannabis/hemp specific event. Regenerative hemp is a cornerstone of the rebirth of the biomaterial era and Doug Fine is on the frontlines: he has printed hemp-derived compostable plastics (Goodbye Pacific Garbage Patch). His own hemp seed genetics have been used to heal polluted soil in a New Mexico University study, and his own hemp product is a farm-to-table, organic superfood. And he tells us all about it, dressed from head to tow in hemp and other natural fiber clothes, some of them made by his sweetheart back on their Funky Butte Ranch.

General audiences, business groups and conferences, and universities (general, plus ag, business and law schools and sustainability programs) are all ideal audiences for this event. The entertaining event’s connection with Fine’s new book American Hemp Farmer and sustainability classic Farewell, My Subaru makes it ideal for an all-class or all-organization read.

Bestselling Author and Speaker Doug Fine, author of Farewell, My Subaru and American Hemp Farmer.

Suddenly everybody is thinking about food security — many for the first time. Michelle Obama’s TV show, Waffles + Mochi, for instance, deals with growing and eating healthy food. Doug Fine is a leader in this movement – in fact when not performing his live events and investigating stories on five continents in his comedic journalism and book writing career, he’s been sequestered on his remote Funky Butte Ranch since 1999, growing food, driving on vegetable oil when he can, and getting outsmarted by goats.

But as Doug shows in this keynote, achieving food security doesn’t have to be difficult, and it can be downright fun. That is, if you can keep your goats out of the rose bushes and your solar panels from electrocuting you, something Doug has never quite accomplished. In fact, you can do it in your backyard, on a city roof, or on the lawn outside your workplace.

Based on Doug Fine's new book, American Hemp Farmer, which launched as Amazon’s #1 new release in agriculture and immediately was nominated for the 2021 Santa Fe Reporter’s prestigious Book of the Year, with elements from Farewell, My Subaru, Doug’s local living classic, this delicious live event is both a practical and feel good one. Best of all, the event brings attendees, via wildly colorful storytelling and slides, right inside Doug's fragrant, permitted hemp and vegetable field on the Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico.

With large numbers of people wanting to understand food supply chain security, there is suddenly a critical mass of prospective first time gardeners in all demographics eager for knowledge about where to start. Step by step, Doug (dressed in homemade hemp and linen clothing, of course), explains why it makes sense to plant hemp (and other protein- and nutrient-dense crops) now. He gives practical soil building tips, seed sourcing advance, and tales of being outsmarted a locavore coyote he named Dick Cheney.

A strong appeal of this event is that Doug walks the walk: he is equipped to offer food security advice to non-professional farmers (regular folks), because he is one himself. Raised on Long Island long before becoming a goat-and-hemp rancher out West, he's written about his efforts at food security in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post and NPR. He’s even done a TED Talk and appeared on Conan O’Brien to talk about it.

Home-schooling his kids in a ranch in the middle of nowhere, Doug walks the walk, talks the talk, and looks every inch the regenerative hemp farmer that he is. He is out to teach us how to save ourselves and humanity, or die trying (especially when his solar panels nearly electrocute him).