With over 25 years of experience in agriculture, Donna Kilpatrick specializes in pasture-based livestock production, ecosystem restoration and land stewardship. She leads Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas where she serves as an Accredited Professional with the Savory Institute, the world’s leading regenerative agriculture organization, and directs the ranch as a Savory Global Network Hub. The 1,200 acre ranch is a thriving, living ecosystem with stacked enterprises that include beef cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry, raised in an integrated, holistically managed system. Heifer Ranch contributes premium grass-finished and non-GMO meat to the Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative of small-scale livestock farms, where Donna deploys and tests the Savory Institute’s science-backed regenerative farming methods.
Donna has worked with Heifer USA since 2007, and currently leads an all-women’s team of livestock and horticulture regenerative farmers. She strongly believes that at the heart of regenerative ecosystems and communities is diversity, and she has intentionally created a prosperous environment that promotes the health of land, animals and people.
Prior to returning to farming full-time at Heifer, Donna was a volunteer for the Peace Corps in Ecuador where she worked with cattle and dairy farmers, and later held positions in college admissions throughout the United States. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sustainable agriculture and literature from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC, where she worked on the college farm, and a master’s degree in non-profit management from The New School in New York, NY. Donna lives at Heifer Ranch with her wife Liz and corgi puppy Austin, who she is raising to be a trained cattle dog.