08/26/2026
Gillian was our very first Project Avalanche coordinator, launching the program in New Mexico last year. We’re excited to have her back for another year. Thank you, Gillian, for all that you do to help make Project Avalanche possible!
👉Why did you want to participate in an Ecdysis Avalanche cohort?
"Taos has so many passionate producers implementing regenerative agriculture principles and practices on their land. The regenerative approach to food production is very much in line with the ethos of how producers in our region have always grown and raised food in relationship to land and water. What regenerative agriculture brings to the conversation is 21st century science applied to millennia-old stewardship principles.
The data Ecdysis is providing, as producers refine how they read their land, is like a language translation app between producers and ecosystems — allowing the land to speak to its stewards at a much deeper level.
Over time, I think we can learn to deepen and expand the way we read land health qualitatively, but as we're learning new ways to understand the land, this data is a powerful way to triangulate between what we know how to observe and what the land is trying to show us."
👉What was your experience like with the Ecdysis team?
"The Ecdysis team is amazing. The training they provided was beyond anything any of us have had the privilege of learning before. We've done a lot of field days in the past, and learned lots of sampling and assessment protocols, but this was next level.
They have done an incredible job making their protocols easy and fun to learn for all of us who do not have academic backgrounds in science.
And the data itself, our producers find incredibly empowering. To quote one of our Avalanche participants, 'this data what is making it possible for the rubber to hit the road for our regen producers.' "
👉What is one thing you wish more people knew about regenerative agriculture?
"Regenerative agriculture isn't new. People have been meeting human needs for food, fiber, and natural resources in ways that are in dialogue with ecosystems and aiming to have net neutral or net positive impact on them for as long as humans have been making tools, domesticating animals and planting seeds. Most of us drifted from that relationship over time, some of us farther than others, but we're finding our way back, and regenerative agriculture is a beautiful avenue for doing that.
Regenerative agriculture offers a way to move beyond the common paradigm of being a consumer of nature, or hopefully a steward of nature, toward becoming an intentional, active, participatory citizen of an ecosystem, a hydrological system, a landscape.
It has the potential to break down the barrier we have invented between humans and nature — and the more we can do that, the more we can help our ecosystems heal and thrive, while also addressing something just as urgent: our societal and cultural alienation from the natural world, which is at the root of so many of the problems we face today."
Alianza Agri-Cultura de Taos
Gillian Joyce
