About
I’m Mari Jyväsjärvi Stuart.
I work at the intersection of regenerative agriculture planning, systems design, local food advocacy, and storytelling. In this space, I write about local food, foraging, gardening, and the connections between people and place.
I hold a PhD from Harvard University and in my former life taught Asian religions and environmental ethics at the college level. I bring to my work a pretty unique interdisciplinary background.
The (slightly) longer story:
I grew up roaming the boreal woods of rural northern Finland, in a culture where sourcing at least some of one’s needs from the surrounding landscape was a given. Summers spent at my grandparents’ farm further strengthened my connection to land. As a college student, I moved to the U.S. and ended up traveling, studying and volunteering on 5 continents while pursuing an academic career. I hold a PhD from Harvard University and in my previous career incarnation taught Asian religions and environmental ethics at Reed College and the University of South Carolina.
After about a decade of nomadic living, I started to feel the pull back to a more down-to-earth way of life. I ended up quitting my tenure-track university job and enrolling in a six-month ecological landscaping training in California. I spent several years building skills in landscaping, landscape design, carbon farm planning, project management and regenerative enterprise development. In recent years, I have worked as a regenerative agriculture and supply consultant at Terra Genesis International and as Head of Regenerative Agriculture at Materra. I also co-founded Carbon Harvest, a regional regenerative carbon offset project in Southern Appalachia. I cultivate my own and others’ connection to land through gardening, freelance writing, homesteading skills teaching and edible landscape design work.