When Peter and Virginia Sargent stepped into regenerative agriculture, they weren’t just starting a business—they were stepping into a life that reflected who they wanted to be. They dreamed of raising their children close to the land, of taking on climate action not only through policy but through the mindful stewardship of the soil beneath their feet. Every decision, every chore, every season was a chance to integrate family, work, and purpose—a counterpoint to a society that often asks us to compartmentalize.

Both came to this work from outside traditional agricultural paradigms: Peter from climate studies, Virginia from law and ecology. Years spent as organizers left them disillusioned by how quickly policy progress could unravel and the toll of city life behind a screen. Working with animals on the land offered a different path—one where change was tangible, immediate, and intertwined with the rhythms of life they longed for.

As UVE’s 2025 EOV season comes to an end, our EOV crew is reflecting on all the miles traveled, landbases surveyed, land steward conversations, and the unexpected challenges we were able to overcome. Monitors Rachel Lohof Larsen, Sarah Choi, Megan Weeber, Chris Hart, Dylan Boeken, West Lambert, Spencer Tregilgas, Turie Norman, and Madison Throop performed Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) monitoring on 45 landbases, in 7 states, covering over 500,000 acres. To be able to complete this amount of work within the span of a few months requires amazing teamwork, stamina, perseverance, a good sense of humor, and a piece of technology known as Bart.

This article is a gift from the talented UK journalist Marianne Landzettel. She traveled to the San Joaquin Valley last year to profile the place, its challenges, people and hope. We, at UVE, share a love for this valley that (who) deserves so much better than the way we have treated it (her). We are grateful for the time, care and talent Marianne dedicated to this place that is the source of food for so many. -Abbey

“Food grows where water flows” is a slogan you come across frequently in California’s Central Valley. There are few regions in the world where as much food can be grown as here. Out of the 10 US counties with the highest agricultural production (according to value), nine are in California. The top three, Fresno, Kern, and Tulare County are in the San Joaquin Valley, the southern part of the Central Valley.

I used to think regeneration was about fixing land. Moving cattle, building soil, restoring native grasses — and it is. That work matters. I still do it. But when I look back at the years I lost myself, at what nearly broke me, I see now: none of that matters if we don’t also regenerate ourselves. If we don’t treat ourselves as part of the land, too. We must tend ourselves with as much care as we pay to the landscapes we steward.

I’ve always been a deeply emotional person — big feelings, soft heart, high sensitivity — and I grew up in a culture that didn’t always know what to do with that. Talking about your feelings wasn’t exactly central to ranching life. I remember getting so overwhelmed as a kid that I’d burst into tears and couldn’t stop. My dad would gently coach me through deep breaths, trying his best. He loved me deeply — though those weren't words he said aloud — he just didn’t know how to meet me in those depths. So I learned to minimize. Mask. Put on a brave face. Make the best of it. That mostly worked — until it didn’t. Until those bottled-up feelings would surface in the middle of the corral, boiling over into a shouting match between me and my dad. Both of us hurting. Both of us hating the conflict.

“Hey, Beth, that's good fu*&^%  work. I swear to God, you guys do so many good things for this dysfunctional ass  fu*&&%  family. I gotta thank you guys.”

That’s what a rancher from Chiloquin, Oregon we work with, said to us not long ago. We took it as high praise.

Because when you’re doing the kind of work we do—sitting in the messy middle of inherited wounds, operating family ranches and land-based enterprises through multi-generational stories, trauma, and pressure-cooked change—that is the feedback that sticks. That kind of raw, grateful honesty only comes after people have sat in Circle, stayed in the fire, and chosen to lean in, rather than walk away.

Last year, we wrote about the idea of Harmony Under All Conditions—that if we want to move from disconnection to relationship, from fear to trust, we have to be willing to do the deep, often invisible work that makes that possible. Read that article here.

What we’ve learned since then, through a year of apprenticeship with Jessie Kushner of Collective Voices and dozens of hours in Circle with families, teams, and communities, is this:

Holistic Management is only as effective as the people practicing it are whole. And wholeness isn’t a checklist. It’s a process.

Tony Malmberg passed on April 5th, 2025. He had miraculously survived a dissected aorta three years earlier and endured two years of cancer. In that time, never leaving a job undone, he completed his memoir "Green Grass in the Spring: A Cowboy's Guide to Saving the World," deepened the bench for Holistic Management trainers and practitioners, and created strategies that enable equity for aspiring land stewards.

From the time he first shimmied up the leg of a horse at age four in the Nebraska Sandhills, Tony knew he was a cowboy. But what that meant changed through the arc of his life. He ranched for 35 years on Twin Creek in Lander, Wyoming, regenerating the landscape before moving to Eastern Oregon with his wife, partner, and fellow soil and community builder, Andrea. His daughter, Katherine Dawn, and her husband, Rhett Abernathy, along with three granddaughters, Antonia, Alexandra, and Isadora, continue ranching in Tony’s old stomping grounds: the sagebrush steppe of the Wind River Mountains and the Red Desert of Wyoming. 

There is a side of the EOV program at UVE that people rarely see, but can feel its impact. EOV Monitors and Hub Verifiers are in the field, working with stewards, meeting to walk the land and interpret data, but all of that is possible because of UVE’s “mission control”.

Mackay Gibbs, who leads the EOV program at UVE, is mission control. She prefers to be behind the scenes making sure everything runs smoothly and that monitors have what they need to do their field work. 

If her career accomplishments and degrees indicate anything it is that she has a love of learning, continuous improvement, creating efficient systems, running businesses, and most importantly committing to having a positive impact on the world. Mackay’s background is in Operations, she has an MBA, owned a bike shop for 11 years in Oakland, CA with her husband, moved her family to the northern coast of California to be closer to nature, and began (an almost complete!) degree in marriage and family therapy, while improving the systems behind UVE’s EOV program.

In the rolling hills south of the San Francisco Bay Area, TomKat Ranch is an educational hub for regenerative agriculture, advancing land stewardship through its three initiatives: Regenerative Ranching, Fork to Farm, and Gathering for Action. I had a delightful conversation with Kathy Webster, the Food Advocacy Manager at TomKat Ranch, where our conversation intermittently wandered to our shared love of dogs and cats before circling back to the ranch’s mission.