Welcome to The Global Food & Farm Community

About Us

An ad-free, learning platform & video streaming service led by Dr. Jill Clapperton. We help you harness the power of nature to improve soil health & explain why it matters to consumers.

Why Join?

The health of nearly everything gets its start in the soil.  Understanding the science and practice behind building soil health and how to measure the impact that healthier soil has on our food and our planet is one of the most important areas of study in our time.

That is what membership in our community helps you to do.  People join us to have ongoing access to vetted and original content that helps them improve soil health or bring healthier food to customers.  We accomplish this mission in multiple ways:

• In-depth interviews with proven soil health DOERS
• Regular opportunities to seek advice from Jill Clapperton on any food or farm issue you are dealing with
• Discussion events with a global community of soil health experts on topics ranging from soil health to nutrition to marketing.
• Private chat directly with any member in our community
• Access events and recordings in our digital library through our mobile app or from your computer desktop.

Why Pay for Content?

Have you ever heard the phrase, "You get what you pay for"?  

While there is certainly a lot of valuable free content out there, it's important to remember that nothing is really free.  Whether it is trying to sell you on a service or a product, if someone spent the time and money to put together quality content, chances are good they are selling something.

The only thing we are selling you is the knowledge that we work hard to bring to you.  The hard work comes both in the vetting of the content and the creation of it (interviews, editing, etc).  We aren't trying to get rich by any means, but these things do take time and money to provide.  We feel that being honest about that expense and asking for members to help pay for it is the best way to go.

You Are Who Your Friends Are . . .

And while there are many "free" resources to help farmers go further on their soil health journey, it is hard to know which "experts" have a real track record of results.  The farmers in our community -- and those who we regularly interview, are part of Dr. Jill Clapperton's long-term network of people with proven results -- the "doers" of soil health as she calls them.  

Isn't that who you want to be learning from?

No Two Fields Alike

Making changes in a system as complex as the soil is hard, slow work.  There are many trials and errors that are going to be necessary.  That's why a core feature of our online community is the ability to ask your specific soil health questions directly to Dr. Jill Clapperton (a top soil health and plant scientist).  

During Jill's Office Hour each week, you can chat directly with her on our Zoom conference call and apply her knowledge to your field!

Do you know what makes learning a lot harder?  Negativity!

Free social media networks make it easy for anyone and everyone to criticize and tear down results.  We don't allow that.  Our community is for people who want to keep getting better -- who focus on continuously improving and helping others to do the same.  

It's a lot easier and faster to learn in a space where the negativity is kept out and the focus is on learning, not gaining social status from making the perfect the enemy of the good.

If this sounds like you, please join us!

Your Hosts

Jill Clapperton, PhD is the Principal Scientist and CEO of Rhizoterra Inc., and the founder of the Global Food & Farm Online Community.

Jill has decades of experience helping farmers and food companies solve problems.  She is a leading researcher in measuring the nutrient density of food and helping farmers to improve soil health through regenerative farming principles.

Rhizoterra Inc is an international food security consulting company guiding people, organizations, and corporations as they endeavor to create healthy productive soils that grow tasty nutrient-dense food in a way that honours our farming culture regenerates arable lands and sustains environmental integrity.

Jill is an internationally recognized educator on how to create, measure, and maintain healthy productive soils that produce tasty nutrient-dense food. With a PhD in Plant Ecophysiology, she worked as the Rhizosphere Ecologist for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for 16 years before founding Rhizoterra Inc (a USA-based company).

Joining Jill as a host is Sara Hessenflow Harper, founder of Grounded Growth, a network dedicated to helping regenerative farmers and food companies bring better food to market. 

Born and raised in rural Kansas, Sara's farming roots run through both sides of her family.  Over the past 20 years, Sara has added to that personal experience with agriculture, environment and energy policy and advocacy positions in the U.S. Senate, with the national non-profit group Environmental Defense Fund and as a consultant in the private sector.

In late 2017, Sara launched Grounded Growth, LLC — a one-of-a-kind, online membership platform designed to help fix our food system through regenerative agriculture -- a way of farming that embraces nature rather than attempting to control it.

In 2021, Grounded Growth became part of The Global Food & Farm Network.  Members can access Grounded Growth's work and resources through a Paddock (private space) inside this network.

We are your resource to turn to as you navigate the toughest issues in the food and agriculture space.

What Do You Get?