JAY RUSKEY
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Agricultural Innovator,
Organic Farmer Good Land Organics, Goleta, CA
Ruskey began his farming career in high school, studying geology and working long hours on flower farms during the summer. While obtaining his degree in agricultural business at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, he began managing his family farm, Good Land Organics, and selling avocados and cherimoyas at 4 or 5 farmers markets each week.
After graduation, he took on a leading role in California’s fledgling 1990s sustainable farming movement while contributing to scientific plant research and expanding the range of rare fruits on his farm. Since planting his first 40 coffee seedlings in 2002, Ruskey has developed coffee cultivars that thrive in the region, produce unique coffees that rival the world’s best, and enable California farmers to create a new coffee industry in the state.
Ruskey’s farm has set the example of a layered agricultural system that offers new opportunities for many California farmers but is not being utilized yet at scale. This layered system improves climate resilience by including other species of plants to protect the coffee from turbulent weather conditions. At the same time, it builds healthier soils and uses valuable water and nutrients in a more sustainable way.