THE LAND TRANSITION:
ACCESS FOR REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
with Justin Bruch, Will Holloway, Monti Lawson & Kristina Villa
Justin Bruch
Cofounder-President & CEO, Clear Frontier
Justin is a born and raised 5th generation Iowa farmer. He has actively farmed on 4 continents and has spent his entire career working in agriculture across North America (USA/Canada), South America, Europe, and Africa.
Clear Frontier is a leading organic farmland investment manager, driving measurable impact through the transition of conventional U.S. farmland to Certified USDA Organic.
Justin started working on building Clear Frontier in 2018 and officially launched the business in 2019 after spending 4.5 years as the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Canterra Capital. Canterra Capital is the exclusive manager for the Canadian farmland portfolio owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). During Justin’s tenure in Canada the portfolio grew by 57,000 acres to 175,000. Justin was responsible for due diligence on new land acquisitions as well as land divestments for the fund. He also was responsible for working directly with farmers to negotiate new land leases as well as managing active leases in place with tenants.
From 2008-2014, Justin lived and worked in Ukraine. From 2010 – 2014, Justin was the Chief Operation Officer at Agrokultura Ukraine (traded on Nasdaq Stockholm). He oversaw the buildup of farmed acres to a height of 135,000 acres as well as refining the portfolio to eliminate the less productive acres.
Justin earned his bachelor's degree in Agronomy from Iowa State University in 2000. In 2007, he completed his MBA from California State University-Fresno. Justin is the Co-Founder and Chairman of AgFunder.com, one of the largest agriculture crowd funding businesses in the world with a 100% focus on funding agriculture projects.
Justin has remained active in their family farming operation in NW Iowa which has transitioned the majority of the farmland to certified organic in the last 5 years. This allows him to stay very active in day to day changes in the production of crops and industry changes.
Will Holloway
Co-Owner, Longer Table Farm
Will is the co-owner of Longer Table Farm and first-generation farmer with over a decade of experience growing organic produce in Sonoma County, California. On the farm, Will prioritizes the environment and local community via living wages, sustainable farming and accessible organic produce. Will is also a Faculty Guide at the FARMpreneurs program.
Monti Lawson
Site Supervisor & Farmer in Residence, WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village
Monti Lawson is Site Supervisor and Farmer-in-Residence, leverages his urban farming expertise from NYC to enrich WILDSEED’s farming ecosystem. He is a Black, gay farmer and an advocate for community-driven agriculture who founded Catalyst Collaborative Farm. Monti graduated from Farm School NYC and is an active member of the FSNYC alumni community.
He is also a member of Black Farmers United of NYS, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, NYS BIPOC Grower Support Network, and a member of the Leadership Advisory Committee for the Equity Fund of the Berkshire Taconic
Community Foundation. In 2023, he was honored to serve as the inaugural representative for Manhattan and Staten Island on the USDA Farm Service Urban County Committee for NYC. Monti’s role involves promoting agricultural diversity and innovation, aligning with WILDSEED’s nature- harmonious farming practices and food forest cultivation. Monti’s commitment to providing access to land for BIPOC farmers supports our liberatory economics and ecological guidance. Monti loves working at WILDSEED tending to the land with care, building community rooted in justice, and stewarding a vision for Black and queer liberation. He cultivates deep relationships—with the soil, with people, and towards a more liberated future.
Kristina Villa
Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Farmers Land Trust
Kristina Villa is a farmer, communicator, and community coordinator who believes that our relationship to the soil shapes the health of our bodies, our economies, and our communities. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Media Studies from Kennesaw State University and brings over a decade of experience in farming, storytelling, and fundraising to her work.
Kristina lives and farms in Middle Tennessee with her husband and their six-year- old son, where they grow vegetables and raise cattle and meat chickens using organic and biodynamic practices. Their farm is a place of production, stewardship and self-reliance, where they can, freeze, and dry much of their own food as part of a deeper commitment to living within and caring for the ecosystems that sustain them.
She came to agriculture through an early interest in food access and food security, seeing farming as a tangible pathway toward a more just and nourishing food system. As a young farmer, however, she encountered firsthand the barriers to land access—struggling to afford land herself while witnessing many aging farmers around her face limited, often extractive options for transitioning their land. These experiences led her to focus her work on farmland access and succession, with a commitment to creating models that keep land in active stewardship and out of speculative markets.
Over the past several years, Kristina has dedicated her professional career to helping protect farmland from development and secure it within nonprofit land-holding structures that provide farmers, ranchers, and land stewards with long-term, affordable access and tenure.
In addition to her farming and land access work, Kristina serves on the board of Tennessee Local Food, contributing to statewide efforts to strengthen local food systems and support farmers.