“Pay the farmer or pay the hospital.” – Birke Baehr
About Birke Baehr
Birke Baehr – Speaker, Author and Youth Advocate for Local/Organic Food and Regenerative Farming. An Internationally recognized speaker and youth advocate for sustainable food and agriculture, Birke has visited and volunteered at farms around the United States and published his first book in 2012, “Birke on The Farm”. Birke has spent the last five years traveling around the United States and Italy visiting organic farms and learning from the farmers who steward those farms. He has attended numerous organic agriculture seminars and workshops; including one with renowned farmer and author, Joel Salatin who Birke looks up to in his pursuit of new thinking about food and agriculture.
Birke continues to educate himself in this genre and intends to be a sustainable organic agriculturist in the future. He has a passion for educating others, especially his peers, about the destructiveness of the industrialized food system and the enlightening alternatives of sustainable and organic farming, food and practices. Birke was the youngest presenter at TEDx Next Generation Asheville (Aug. ’10) where he gave the talk entitled, “What’s Wrong With our Food System” which became an internet sensation with millions of cummulative views.
His TEDx talk is also featured on TED.com. Birke is passionate about continuing to spread his message for change, as he says in his TEDx talk, “one kid at a time”. Since then he has had the privilege to introduce his hero and mentor Joel Salatin, who was the keynote speaker at the Nevada County Grown Sustainable Food and Farm Conference. (Jan ’11) Birke Wowed, the audience at the Organic Growers Association’s IGNITE! Agriculture event in North Carolina (’11), spoke at the Tennessee Organic Growers Association, appeared on the Italian television show, “Il Senso Della Vita” with Paolo Bonolis (’11) and given a talk to the students of John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. Birke has also spoken at TEDxRedmond, the 1st Annual Bonfire Heights Event near Monterey, CA (Sept. ’11), TEDx Asheville 2011, appeared on ABC’s The Revolution Daytime talk show with Ty Pennington and has continued speaking and traveling throughout 2013. In the fall of 2013, Birke traveled to Russia where he met Russian school kids, participated in an international round table with teens about good food and participated in numerous other events.
Birke has been featured on numerous blogs, websites, newsletters and podcast interviews sharing his knowledge and passion about food. He enjoys getting his hands dirty on chemical free farms, growing his own vegetables, checking out local farmers markets, farms and locally owned restaurants that support local farms, history, reading, writing, doing research, traveling with his family and spending time with his self proclaimed best friend, his 80 year old Grandfather. Birke’s children’s book, “Birke on The Farm – A Boy’s Search for Real Food” tells the story of his journey of discovery about food and farming. Birke is also one of 75 young activists to have his story included in the ground-breaking anthology Stand Up! This book was released in September 2013.
He is also one of the contributors to the book, Future Chefs by Ramin Ganeshram, 2014 Rodale Press. 2015 Birke has been interning with Buchi Kombuch traveling to fairs, festivals, events and retailers with the Buchi tribe #cultivatingtheculture with Buchi’s non-alcoholic healthy probiotic beverage. Birke is excited to be interning with a company that embodies the elements and whose products and business practices are in alignment with his message and values.
(Source – birkeonthefarm.com)