Jared Kerst is a fifth-generation Colorado agrarian who is passionate about regenerative livestock systems and fascinated by planet earth. After receiving a B.S. in Business Management from CU Boulder he began his agriculture career in 1999 as office manager of Rivendell Sod Farm located in the Roaring Fork Valley between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. He assumed general management of the farm in 2001 and split his focus between bluegrass sod production and building a horticultural supply business, Rivendell Distribution & Sod Farm, Inc. By 2007 the operation sold over 3 million ft2 of bluegrass sod annually and employed twenty-two people, generating over $2.7 million in sales.
In 2012 he and his wife, Jenny, bought the business and farm land, renaming it Plus Lazy K Ranch. That year also saw the birth of his first of two daughters and marked the beginning of a transformative journey of discovery focused on renourishing the land that nourishes our communities. What began as an effort to learn about restoring soil health expanded into a quest to explore how holistic management practices can regenerate ecosystem function. Recognizing the pernicious, extractive effects of monoculture turfgrass production and confirming his preference for working in natural systems over mercantile sales, Jared sold the distribution business in 2021 to focus completely on farming and began a transition to replace turfgrass with diverse forage production and grass-finishing cattle through adaptive grazing.
In order to capitalize on high local land values, Jared recently put the ranch up for sale and is developing plans to transition the business, now called Rivendell Farms, Inc., into an agricultural land management company utilizing livestock grazing services and holistic planning to regenerate degraded or otherwise underutilized lands throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. Jared is actively engaging his community through the local chapter of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, Roaring Fork Farmers & Ranchers, as well as the Western Colorado Mycological Society. His dream is to help form a local cooperative organization providing aggregation, processing, marketing and distribution to facilitate a strong supportive link between those working on the land to grow food and fiber with those wanting to be nourished by the fruit of that work.
