#8 Shane Hardy

Shane Hardy is the ecology director at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. He grew up in the Hudson River town of Nyack, NY, and has worked on farms in New York’s Finger Lakes region, Orange County and Rockland County. At Stone Barns he is pursuing his passion for building soil, increasing resilience and biodiversity in agriculture and finding creative solutions to meeting our humans needs from the land as healthy partners in the natural system we live in.

Shane and his team oversee all of the compost and nutrient management cycles, tend the landscape and gardens, care for the apiaries, and steward the regeneration of biologically rich and resilient pastures and forests in tandem with the livestock team. Since 2017 he has overseen the development of a comprehensive ecological monitoring program tracking soil health and carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and watershed health across 400+ acres of working pastureland and forests managed holistically with cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.

Our conversation covered many aspects of Shane's role on the farm, including animal husbandry and soil science. Enjoy this episode, and go to Stone Barns to learn more.