Doug Fine wants to save the planet by teaching humans about a regenerative and sustainable lifestyle. A lofty goal for a hemp farmer and solar-powered goat herder, but Fine persists. That’s the thing about saving the planet, it takes tenacity. It takes Evangelizing in the Biblical sense, from our mouths to their ears. They may not want or be able to walk the talk, but they will hear you.
Author of six books to date, Fine’s first effort, Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man, was published in 2004, reflecting his introduction to nature as a guy who grew up in the suburbs of New York. Another published in 2008, Farewell My Subaru, details his life living “green off the grid,” demonstrating how to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuel in order to live sustainably. This was followed in 2012 by Too High To Fail, with a focus on the regenerative side of the emerging cannabis industry at the time, and the green economic revolution—that’s now in full swing ten years later.
In 2013, he appeared on TEDx Talks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his farm, the Funky Butte Ranch, is located in a remote area hours from the nearest city. The talk, tilted “Why we need goat herding in the digital age,” is a call to arms, with the intent of luring humans back to the garden to save their soul—and health.
Fine introduced himself: “I stand before you today, a neo-rugged individualist, solar-powered goat herder.” Thus begins his humorous-yet-informative talk on how and why he supports his family by tending goats off the grid.
In 2014, he published Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural