MEET THE FARMER: Gail Fuller

An Article from our partners Farmers Footprint

In the summer of 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, considered one of the “most polluted waterways in America,” caught fire. Frightening images of a towering wall of flames, engulfing an oil-covered, industrial river, shocked Americans and flabbergasted an impressionable six-year-old Gail Fuller.

“I just couldn’t imagine it,” Fuller, now 58, says, “As a young kid living close to a river, how the hell can a river burn? Rivers are made of water.”

The historic event ended up in the annals of U.S. history, a lightning rod for the emerging environmental movement of the early 1970s. For Fuller, a 3rd generation Kansas farm kid, it was a singular life impression. An experience that would merge with many more to shape the farmer, partner and man he is today, fueling his passion for regenerative agriculture and rebuilding farm communities.

”Regenerative agriculture isn’t about earthworms or cover crops, it’s about regrowing communities. What we’re talking about is a paradigm shift. In order to regrow communities, we have to have more farmers.”