→ 20 % discount available for Roots of Change Network. Please request the discount code via [email protected].

TICKET LINK: https://bioneersconference.regfox.com/2025-bioneers-conference

The Bioneers Conference has always, since its inception 36 years ago, had Food and Farming as one of its core domains of interest, realizing that the impacts of agriculture on our ecosystems, of the food we consume on our health, and of the dramatically unequal access to food on social inequity , are so immensely consequential that without radically reshaping our food systems we will never solve some of the key fundamental crises we face: climate unraveling, biodiversity plummeting, hunger still far too prevalent, and epidemic levels of diseases attributable to poor diets and environmental toxicity.

March 26th | 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (pre-conference day long tour)

Bioneers is delighted to be once again partnering with Bay Area Green Tours, who will be offering another of their immensely popular East Bay Foodscape tours as a pre-conference day-long outing. These inspiring and immersive excursions visit select some of the most innovative social enterprises and non-profit urban farms stewarding the land, supporting their communities; providing education and job training to help nurture living wage jobs; generating local solutions to the climate crisis, food waste, and healthy food access; and much more. A locally-sourced lunch is provided. Note: A separate fee and pre-registration is required for this event.

March 27th | 9:00 am to 12:30 pm (DAY 1)

This year, one of the keynote speakers is Doria Robinson, Executive Director Urban Tilth in Richmond, CA, one of the most exemplary community-based organizations dedicated to cultivating a more sustainable, healthy, and just food system in the nation. Doria, who is also one of the most respected longtime social and environmental justice activists in Richmond and is currently serving on its city council, has a long history in healthy food production, having worked on organic farms in Western Massachusetts where she attended college and later at Veritable Vegetable, the groundbreaking, women-owned organic produce distribution company, as well as at Real Food Company and the Mixed Nuts Food Co-op. A Certified Permaculture Designer, Bay Friendly Gardener, nutrition educator and yoga instructor, Doria also co-founded the Richmond Food Policy Council and was formerly co-chair of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance Western Region and a member of the Climate Justice Alliance, Food Sovereignty Working Group.

March 27th | 9:00 am to 12:30 pm (DAY 1)

March 27th, 3:00pm to 4:15pm (DAY 1)

Bioneers is also showcasing the work of some visionary food entrepreneurs from very different parts of the world working in very different domains in two afternoon workshops and one special interactive event.

—Chocolate Rebellion: Creating a Global Value Chain Based on Economic Justice  (3:00 pm to 4:15 pm)

Chocolate is a pleasure, but the cultivation and harvest of the cacao bean is hard, skilled labor, a labor most often undervalued by an international commodity market that rewards middle-men and end producers while exploiting the cacao growers of Africa, South America and the Caribbean. In this session, Gillian Goddard, founder of The Chocolate Rebellion, will describe how she has helped bring economic equity to small growers in Trinidad and Africa by developing a network of value-added chocolate enterprises. She will be joined by Laura Ann Sweitzer, Director of Sustainability and Strategic Sourcing at TCHO, a Berkeley-based, organic, Fair Trade, certified B-corporation that produces a full line of quality chocolates and invests in the communities where cacao is grown by partnering directly with technicians and scientists worldwide and paying premiums to farmers to create better quality cacao. There will also be a Delicious Allure of Chocolate Tasting.

—Food entrepreneur extraordinaire: Reginaldo Haslett Marroquin (3:00 pm to 4:15 pm)

An innovative farmer and President of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, a Minnesota-based organization that creates partnerships throughout agricultural supply chains, will explain his model in this session: Tree Range Farms: Stewarding a Regenerative Future.

Friday, March 28th (DAY 2)

Food and Farming-related films

—Food Justice in LA (6:45pm)

This 15-minute pilot episode of the upcoming documentary series From Soil to Soul delves into the heart of food justice and community-led food sovereignty initiatives in Los Angeles, highlighting case studies, including a community garden in Compton, a food forest in a former abandoned alleyway in Fullerton, and the planting of native edible and medicinal plants in lawns for local food resilience. The From Soil to Soul series will present powerful stories of Black, Indigenous and People of Color farmers, regenerative practitioners, food activists, thought leaders and communities reclaiming their right to control their food systems and transforming their relationships with food, land, and each other. The From Soil to Soul co-founders, Ankur Shah, Margaret To and Jahnavi Mange, along with producer Rachel Allen and cinematographer Eldon Arena, will be on hand to introduce the film. (Running time: 15 minutes)

—Common Ground (7:15pm)

This powerful film by award-winning documentary filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell and their company, Big Picture Ranch, fuses journalistic exposé with deeply personal stories from those on the front lines of movements fighting for healthy and equitable food systems to unveil the dark webs of money, power, and politics behind our toxic, destructive, and dysfunctional agriculture. The film, which features many past speakers at Bioneers, reveals how unjust practices forged our current system in which farmers of all backgrounds are literally dying to feed us and profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, Black, and Indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilize America’s economy…before it’s too late. (Running time: 105 minutes)