Meet Our Farm Family
We would love for you to get to know a little more about us and our farm. We each bring something uniquely different and complementary to the farm, just like the many elements in nature itself.
Hans Li
Hans is the guiding spirit behind Six Dutchess and the foundation on which the farm is built. As an architect, Hans designed most of the farming structures at Six Dutchess—both animal housing and people housing—and landscaping, too. He photographs and documents day-to-day life on the farm, which remains an ever-changing visual backdrop for stories of the seasons. He also shepherds the sheep daily, tends to hundreds of thousands of honeybees year-round, and provides infinite creative management, visual poetry, thoughtfulness, respect for nature and people, and unending reserves of curiosity and wisdom.
Growing up as a child in Hong Kong, Hans was inspired by his mother’s stories of cross-breeding flowers and high-yield grains on a large research farm she managed. In efforts to feed the growing population, she was one of just a handful of women to graduate with a degree in Agriculture in the 1940s! Her pioneering stories planted the seeds for a life-long journey listening to the land and caring for the earth. Today, nothing brings Hans more joy than connecting people to the land that nourishes and sustains them.
Jennifer Kouvant
A native of New York City, Jennifer arrived at farming by means of marriage and never looked back. She turned her passions for nature, food and service into a full-time farm business and currently runs Six Dutchess in partnership with her husband, Hans. Moving upstate to the Hudson Valley, she joined a thriving network of small local farms and set to work transforming Six Dutchess from a boutique horse farm to a regenerative, bio-diverse model of small-batch production farming and education.
Through the seasons, Jennifer wears many colorful hats. She is the farmer-florist at Six Dutchess, regularly posing with abundant armloads of beautiful blooms, all grown sustainably on the farm. She is also shepherdess to frolicking flocks of fluffy Swedish sheep, baker, beekeeper, writer, wool advocate, and the force behind the farm’s education programs.
Some of Jennifer’s greatest pleasures include collaborating with partners near and far on fabulous food and nature-based workshops, baking with the seasons, sharing the warmth and beauty of Gotland sheep, and spreading pure joy (and lots of big smiles) through gorgeous, locally-grown flowers.
More about Hans
Prior to Hudson Valley farm life, Hans worked as an architect for Richard Meier and Partners, and he continues to consult on private architectural design projects as an Independent Consultant.
Always the visual storyteller, Hans is also a published photographer and author of two books: The Ancient Ones: Sacred Monuments of the Inka, Maya and Cliff Dweller (City Light Editions, 1994) and Salk’a, Wildness of the Heart: The Language of Stones in the Native Americas (City Lights Edition, 2000).
Since 1997, he has served as the Founder and President of Waka Foundation, a charitable family foundation dedicated to bringing healing modalities to the modern world and fostering a greater understanding of the earth’s natural resources. Hans holds a Masters of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Tufts University and a Diploma in Photography from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
More about Jennifer
Before entering the food and farming community, Jennifer worked for more than a decade in war-torn regions of Former Yugoslavia and the Middle East as an international humanitarian worker and United Nations officer, focusing on post-war reconstruction and food policy.
She credits her career shift to an infectious love of food in all forms, the warmth of kitchens and cooks across the globe, and the deep-rooted influences of her father—a New York City restaurateur for over 40 years. While Jennifer’s father taught her the beauty and grace of serving one's community through food and hospitality, her Danish mother and grandmother passed on their Nordic sensibilities for finding joy in the simple pleasures of life—fresh field flowers, natural fibers, knitting needles, and lots of hygge.
Jennifer holds professional certificates from the French Culinary Institute's Bread Baking and Pastry Arts programs and has apprenticed in the bread kitchens of Per Se and Bouchon Bakery. She began her sustainable farming journey through certificate programs at Ballymaloe Cookery School & Organic Farm in County Cork, Ireland and Floret Flower Farm. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University.
