Sarah King, Keynote Speaker
Sarah King is a rancher and the Executive Director of the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance. Sarah and her husband, Joe, manage their family's cattle ranch in southern Arizona. They have two kids who are the 5th generation to live on the Anvil Ranch, which was founded in 1895. Sarah joined the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance staff team in 2011 as the Community Outreach & Education Coordinator, and became the Executive Director in January 2020. The Alliance is a collaborative conservation organization founded in 1995 by ranchers in the Altar Valley to conserve the 600,000 acre watershed for future generations.
Sarah serves on a variety of boards and committees. She is on the boards of the Arizona State Parks, Arizona Farm Bureau, The Nature Conservancy - Arizona Chapter, Pima & Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, the Friends of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources Advisory Board, and the Altar Valley School District Governing Board. In January 2021, she was recognized by the Society for Range Management, Arizona Section for Outstanding Service.
Sarah received her degree in history from Davidson College in 2008. Prior to working on the Anvil and with the Alliance, she was a backcountry horseback guide on guest ranches in Montana and Arizona.
Sarah can be found on Instagram @sehking.
Rizpah Bellard, Panelist
Rizpah Bellard is a graduate of Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (BS '15). Raised on a Black Angus cattle ranch, Cornell was the perfect fit. Through both lived and academic experiences, Rizpah has combined natural sciences with social sciences. In her professional experience, Rizpah has tackled many socio-biological issues such as human trafficking, mental health illnesses, homelessness, global health, and education. After many years working with socially disadvantaged populations, Rizpah has pinpointed a major source of imbalance between the social and biological worlds - a widening gap between humans and their food.
As an entrepreneur, Rizpah founded Nova Farming to educate and expose members of society to the American and global agriculture sectors, and to build a bridge to agriculture as a pathway to higher education and career opportunities, to eventually even out the imbalance between society and nature. Rizpah also has experiences in global agriculture in Changchun, China; Cali, Colombia; and Akure, Nigeria.
Rizpah is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award (2020), a member of COWGIRL Magazine’s 30 Under 30 Class of 2024, announced as CAFF's New Farmer of the Year (2024), and is the Board President of Magdalena's Daughters, an anti-trafficking nonprofit in San Bernardino County, CA. Recently, she has been featured in the Fresno Bee, The Fresno Business Journal, KVPR/NPR, ABC30 (twice), KSEE24 and the Western Landowners Alliance for her work in agriculture, housing and community service. In October 2024, Congressmember Jim Costa visited her Fresno Ranch and awarded her a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for her work with Nova Farming. Lastly, she has won Operator of the Year under the Fresno County Independent Living Association for the third year in a row due to her dedication to housing and advocating for members of the unhoused community.
Rizpah will share her experience educating the next generation on the panel. She can be found on Instagram as @calicowgirl_riz and her website is https://www.agnovafarming.com/
Debbie Lyons-Blythe, Panelist
Debbie Lyons-Blythe is a dedicated cattle rancher in central Kansas, nestled in the heart of the Flint Hills. Debbie embraces ranching as a fulfilling way of life that extends beyond mere livelihood. Their operation focuses on producing quality genetics that help other ranchers raise beef. Debbie also served as the 2022/2023 chair of the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (USRSB), Debbie champions the importance of sustainable practices within the beef industry. She emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and innovation, aligning ranching with the evolving demands of consumers and environmental stewardship.
Debbie will be sharing her experiences and successes in partnering with agencies and focusing on succession. She can be found on Instagram @kidscowsandgrass or on her website https://www.kidscowsandgrass.com/
Nancy Calhoun, Panelist
Nancy Calhoun Mueller is a fifth-generation Livermore California rancher, rangeland manager, conservationist and marketeer of 30+ years at Livermore Valley wineries and Performing Arts Center. She launched Circle H Beef in 2019, direct-marketing grass-fed, grass-finished Angus beef to local customers and restaurants. Her work centers on regenerative ranching and building strong local food connections.
Nancy has long been active in her community, with involvement in the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association, the Livermore Valley Education Foundation, and the Las Positas College Presidential Advisory Council. She has also served on the boards of the Tri-Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau and Livermore Downtown Inc.
After inheriting their family ranches, Nancy and her sisters—the 3 Calhoun Sisters—took their first step by creating a comprehensive Conservation Plan in partnership with the Alameda County Resource Conservation District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Point Blue Conservation Science. Their conservation journey began through education and training at a California Women for Agriculture conference, where they learned about initiatives such as the Healthy Soils Program and Perennial Grass Seeding through the California Department of Food and Agriculture. They have also participated in numerous workshops and courses with California Farmlink.
Through these efforts, the sisters developed the first Carbon Farm Plan in their county and became the first in their region to receive Audubon Conservation Ranching Certification for Bird-Friendly Land. They are also donors and advocates for the Alameda County Agricultural Fair Educational Farm.
Conservation projects include the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) tools for wildlife monitoring; establishment of a Western Monarch Xerces Pollinator Garden and California milkweed plots; installation of Western bluebird and owl boxes; oak tree restoration and drought-tolerant oak projects; and multiple NRCS initiatives. These include Conservation Stewardship Projects involving wildlife camera traps for upland habitat management, as well as EQIP projects supporting rangeland management, cross-fencing, solar agricultural well and water system, wildlife conservation and threatened species protection.
The 3 Calhoun Sisters have been recognized as Women in NRCS Conservationists of the Year, Livermore Rodeo Foundation Cowgirl Honorees of the Year, Alameda County Agricultural Fair’s Fields of Gratitude: A Tribute to Local Farmers, and the Carl Zwissig Award.
Brandi Buzzard, Advocacy Panelist
Brandi Buzzard is a rancher, cowgirl and pioneer for modern agriculture. In 2019, she was selected as a Top 10 Industry Leader Under 40 by Cattle Business Weekly as well as the NCBA Masters of Beef Advocacy Advocate of the Year. She has spoken on MSNBC, FOX, CBS, The Weather Channel and Newsy addressing issues such as conservation, beef sustainability and nutrition. She has also visited the White House and spoken to senior White House officials about agriculture and sustainability.
Brandi, her husband Hyatt, and their daughters Oakley and Quincy, live in southeast Kansas and own High Bar Cattle Company, a Gelbvieh/Balancer seedstock operation.
Brandi will be sharing how she advocates for the ranching lifestyle. You can find her on Instagram @brandibuzzard and on her website https://buzzardsbeat.com/
Kim Brackett, Advocacy Panelist
Kim Brackett and her husband, Ira, operate Brackett Ranches Limited Partnership, a cow-calf and stocker operation based in southern Idaho on the Idaho/Nevada border. The ranch participates in third-party verification programs to provide consumers with more information about how their food is raised. The primary goal of her operation is to produce superior quality calves, while also improving the range of health on the ranch.
Kim has a long history of service in the cattle industry and has chaired the 2020-2025 Beef Industry Long Range Plan Task Force, served as president of the Idaho Cattle Association, chair of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, chair of the Beef Quality Assurance Advisory Group. In 2018, Kim was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship which provided her the opportunity to study abroad and research sustainability issues affecting the cattle industry.
With her proven leadership experience and passion for the industry, Kim aims to never forget that she is only a temporary steward of their family’s ranch. Her children are the sixth generation of her husband’s family to manage the ranch, and she hopes to pass on an economically and environmentally viable operation for them to thrive.
Kim will be sharing how anyone can be involved in advocating for livestock industry. She can be found on Instagram @beefmatters.
Cole Bush, Advocacy Panelist
Cole Bush, known as ‘The Urban Shepherdess,’ is an entrepreneur, advocate, and creative liberator in the fields of climate-beneficial agriculture, land stewardship, and prescribed grazing. She is the founder of Shepherdess Land and Livestock Co. - a prescribed grazing company with hundreds of sheep and goats based in Ojai, California, Holistic Hides - a purveyor of mindfully sourced sheep hides from the American west, and Grazing School of The West - a non-profit 501(c)3 multidisciplinary vocational training program that has trained over 200 people.
Cole has been featured in over 40 media outlets, including ELLE France, The Guardian, and The Conversationalist. Cole sits on the targeted grazing committee for California Wool Growers Association, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protections’s California Range Management Advisory Committee, the advisory board for the California Climate & Agriculture Network, and she is the co-founder of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council’s Community Supported Grazing Prog ram, and she is an eligible member of The Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Cole has spoken at over two-dozen industry events, including Bioneers Conference, Regenerate Conference, and Groundwork: Symposium, Farmer Campus.
Cole will share how she advocates for proper grazing management at many levels. She can be found on Instagram @bcbshepherdess or at https://www.brittanycolebush.com/.