Innovative Small Farmers' Outreach Program Team

Mary Keeter comes from a long line of farmers in the Midwest and grew up learning about farming from her grandparents’ farm in Nebraska. After studying Environmental Science at the University of Nebraska, she worked for the University of Missouri Extension Family Nutrition Department for seven years, teaching gardening and cooking classes to the public. Mary has always had a garden and enjoys growing her own food. Along with her husband, Brian, Mary owns and operates Harmony Hills Farm near Leslie, Missouri, in Franklin County, where she is working to create a silvopasture and practices rotational grazing with cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs. Harmony Hills Farm specializes in direct-to-consumer grass fed beef and lamb.

Susan Jaster began a career in dairy farming in the early eighties in Arizona on a large commercial dairy. She continued dairy farming in Missouri on the 150-cow dairy she co-owned with her family. She was also a radio broadcaster and farm news reporter for a small radio station in southwest Missouri during her dairy career. Susan and her family participated in the 4-H program for many years, celebrating 25 years of service in 2017. She has always had a garden and cared for many livestock species throughout her life. In 2010, she began raising American Blackbelly sheep and practicing adaptive grazing techniques for soil health and water quality conservation. Jaster has been assisting farmers and ranchers in West Central Missouri with practical, biological, resilient solutions to agricultural issues and product marketing since 2009 for Lincoln University Cooperative Extension Innovative Small Farmers’ Outreach Program and Missouri AgrAbility Project, in Lafayette, Johnson, and Ray Counties.

Izula Maximillen is a Farm Outreach Worker in the West Central Region. She is also the CEO of SOULutionary Wellness, LLC, Chapter Organizer and Activist for HIP HOP is GREEN in Kansas City. Additionally, Maximillen volunteers in the Kansas City area as a community and home garden outreach coordinator, bringing her passion for social justice and 20 years of experience in community herbalism, urban organic agriculture, permaculture, beekeeping, and holistic wellness into recovering green spaces and fortifying urban gardening to restore the community from the roots up. Since 2018, she has been active in the local food systems, organizing Black and Indigenous growers for racial justice and food sovereignty as well as tending a medicinal herb garden for pollinators.

Lesa Queen is a Farm Outreach Worker for the Southwest Region where she and her husband, Mike, live on a Missouri Century Farm.  Lesa has spent her lifetime in agriculture both on her farm and in the corporate world as a Sr Buyer and Warehouse Manager.  As co-owner of Queen’s Family Farm, she has experience with greenhouse and high tunnel production and market gardening, marketing their fruits and vegetables for the past 15 years at local farmer’s markets.  She enjoys being outside and has always had a garden and livestock.  Recently she has started beekeeping and soap-making. Lesa has been working for Lincoln University Cooperative Extension Innovative Small Farm Outreach Program since July 2023, serving the small farmers of Barton, Dade, and Jasper counties. 

Jack Spurlin, a former criminal justice professor, retired from Missouri Southern State University in 2019 and began researching and writing “The Purpose Pursuit: A Living Journal” while continually centering on his foundation PLANT Permaculture Learning and Naturalist Teaching.

Jack is passionate about community development and marketing and partnering with area institutions in the advancement of area agriculture.

In addition to teaching and studying legal systems, social norms, and horticulture design. He served as President of the master gardeners and completed the master naturalist program blending the two into the conceived practice, Natural Gardening. 

Penny Wilson is a Small Farm Specialist for Lincoln University’s Innovative Small Farm Outreach Program. Located Cape Girardeau County in the southeast region of Missouri. She has a Bachelors in Agribusiness: Animal Science from Southeast Missouri State University and a Masters in Agriculture Leadership, Communication and Education from Missouri State University. And a Certified Master Gardener.

She and her husband live on a few acres where they have raised rabbits, dairy goats, chickens, horses. She has experience in cheesemaking, canning, hydroponics and is a former beekeeper. They currently raise pigs on their farm as well as a large garden and a small greenhouse.

Bryan de Valdivia grew up in Compton, California, where he eventually discovered that city life wasn’t the life for him. Seeking a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle, he moved to the Sierra Nevada and embraced off-grid homesteading in the high desert. During his time there, Bryan honed his skills in sustainable living and resourcefulness. In 1999, Bryan relocated to Missouri in search of greener pastures. He fully immersed himself in rural living, heating his home with a woodstove fueled by trees he felled himself and hauled with a pair of bottle calves he raised and trained as oxen. Over the years, he has continued to expand his knowledge and expertise in sustainable agriculture.

Following an 8 year intermission in Germany and England, Bryan is currently focused on developing a permaculture homestead that integrates innovative practices for sustainable living. He is also a partner in Birds and the Bees Farm, a thriving one-acre market garden in mid-Missouri. Through his dedication to regenerative agriculture and homesteading, Bryan has become a firm believer that we must take care of the land so that it can take care of us, not as masters but as servants and partners, as the ground will outlive us all. He currently wrangles several thousand head of red wigglers and a similar number of bees.

Dr. Giuma Abusrewil, originally from Tripoli, Libya, grew up on a farm where he gained firsthand experience in crop cultivation and the raising of livestock, including sheep, goats, cows, camels, and poultry. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Plant Production from the University of Tripoli in Libya, before pursuing a Master of Science in Horticulture, with a focus on Viticulture, at the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Abusrewil continued his academic journey by earning a Ph.D. in Horticulture, specializing in Fruit Tree Physiology and Biochemistry, from Washington State University in Pullman. Following this, he spent several years teaching and supervising research in the field of horticulture.

Recently, Dr. Abusrewil relocated to Columbia, Missouri, where he began working with the Horticulture Program at Lincoln University. He then joined the ISFOP program as an Extension Associate specializing in Fruit Tree Production, where he contributed for nearly two years.