Richard perkins, Co-Owner, director & Lead Designer
Richard is an internationally regarded teacher, innovative farmer and Permaculture leader, and Author of Making Small Farms Work. He has worked professionally in every major climate zone across several continents consulting to projects, farms & industry, and has also led over 45 solo Permaculture Design Course's as well as dozens of other specialist courses, practicums and seminars. Richard's project work includes design and site visits on over 100 varied projects in various climatic zones as well as contributing to over 1000 course participants’ site plans. Richard is a certified teacher with the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (Certified Trainer No. 24) and the Permaculture Association of Great Britain. Having studied up to MSc level (IESD- Gaia U), leaving to establish the effective Integralpermanence (Design Consultancy & Education) internationally. Richard also holds a Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design (UK), HND Organic Crop Production (UK) and has studied extensively in the fields of Keyline® Design, Holistic Management®, Ecology and Anthropology. After leaving Organic Crop Production studies at Agricultural College in 1999 with more questions than answers, Richard began studying Permaculture and other ecological design systems alongside bio-construction in various vernaculars’. Now focused primarily on helping others with Regenerative Agricultural design work, Richard has worked on varied farm and project design and implementation projects from CSA production to whole- farm planning; agroforestry to water catchment & irrigation systems; regenerative business design to Keyline planning, Holistic planned grazing/ decision making/ financial planning to community building work. Building up a very diverse & rounded experience over the years, Richard also had the honour to run the first internationally accredited PDC training programs in Dominican Republic, Poland & Luxembourg; introduced concepts of Regenerative Agriculture in Poland, Belarus, Latvia and Finland as well as pioneered Keyline Design and aspects of Regenerative Agriculture in cold-climate Sweden. Known for his dynamic teaching, down-to-earth pragmatism, efficient project management and organisational skills, he is now primarily focused on establishing ridgedale PERMACULTURE. Richard is still sometimes available for trainings & consultancies internationally, especially in our winter season. Please be in contact well in advance to express interest.
yohanna amselem, co-owner and Director
Yohanna's passion and search for beneficial holistic solutions has led her studies to stretch broadly into the fields of ecology, gardening, Permaculture, medicine, massage, nutrition and care for people with special needs. Yohanna has a degree in Gardening specialized in Health and Design from the Swedish University of Gävle and has specialized towards perennial polycultures for extensive cropping. She also researches the historic and modern uses of wild Swedish indigenous plants as food and medicine. The last four years Yohanna has been a prominent figure in the pioneering eco-village initiatives happening around the commune of Gnesta, south of Stockholm and has valuable experience building community relating to social organization and economy. Yohanna was a key initiator and manager in the establishment of Gnesta Lanthandel, a cooperatively owned & managed local organic/ beyond organic food outlet in downtown Gnesta which also serves as a networking platform. Her tight accounting and planning serve as a solid and reliable foundation for the business. Yohanna is also a masterful chef, and has single-handedly catered the best food we have ever had on any of our trainings, surpassing even professional catering crews with her approach to wholesome, balanced and delightful dishes.
Niklas Kullik has been part of the farm ever-since the first season in 2014: First as an intern, as a core-team member, than as the first employee and winter farm-sitter. He is now taking the next step to become a profit sharer and co-manager. Amongst sharing responsibility for all farm enterprises he is also taking on the farms book-keeping, co-managing sales, marketing and is involved in general decision-making. He is mostly excited about life-long learning, solution-orientation and local food production, so Ridgedale is the perfect fit: Woodwork, welding, animal husbandry, team-work, planning, basic carpentry, fixing things or simply doing whatever needs doing to keep the farm running and produce high quality local food - he loves to have an overview and to contribute to the whole as an all-round wizard. Niklas holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from Leuphana University Lüneburg (GER). During his studies he found an amazing network of like-minded inspiring people. Although his studies were mainly focused on sustainable entrepreneurship, transdisciplinary research and ecosystem functioning, he dedicated his practical learning to the pathway of regenerative agriculture and enterprises. His bachelor's thesis was based on P.A. Yeomans Keyline Design and community development. He is experienced in Permaculture Design, Holistic Management as well as skilled in the Art of Hosting to facilitate group learning. Within the last years, he got deeply inspired by Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication and the concept of Holocracy Organisations. Furthermore, Niklas loves good wine, coffee, sourdough baking, rock climbing, dancing, meaningful conversations and building tiny houses. Getting clearer with his own holistic context, being pro-active and solution-focused were some of his key learnings at Ridgedale.
Carla Behme Carla spend her childhood in Germany and her adolescence on the west coast of Norway. After school and some aimless but fun travelling in a van, she decided to become an "organic farmer". With this rather vague concept in mind, she packed her stuff to study at a bio dynamic agriculture school in the Netherlands. She soon learned that she did not want to farm the way it was taught in the classroom there. Witnessing the short sighted compromises for the sake of large scale food production, made her rethink and question the way we approach our existence on this planet. What was supposed to be a four year study ended one and a half years later, when she decided to move on exploring more sustainable and innovative ways of farming. She joined the Ridgedale core team as a Marked Garden Manager in 2017. Returning this season to build on her learning from the previous, Carla is excited to keep growing both in person and on the land.
Rosa Schultes is a student of environmental and educational sciences at the Leuphana University, Lüneburg (Germany) with a great interest in the fields of ecology, agriculture, environmental education and global justice. So far, she has worked at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, at the department of chemical transport modelling, where she - within the scope of her bachelor thesis - examined the impact of vegetation fire emissions in Europe on atmospheric pollution. Subsequently, as part of an internship, she was able to gain some practical knowledge on the topic of agroforestry. Currently, Rosa works in the carpentry of friends. Amongst other things she likes good coffee, food and books, fresh peppermint tea, long walks with her dogs in the woods, board sport on the street and in the sea, convivial evenings and van life at the Atlantic coast.
Tobi Kamphoff is driven to learn about, and contribute to regenerative agriculture. I started traveling 2 years ago and gathered experience in several Farm enterprises around New Zealand including Roebuck Farm. This opened the door to spend a growing season with Curtis Stone in Canada at Green City Acres. There I learned a lot about efficient small scale vegetable production. Now I'm looking forward to developing my skills in diversified regenerative agriculture.