In February 2008, Zoë Bradbury left her job at Ecotrust, where she was a regular contributor to Edible Portland, to start farming on Oregon’s southern coast. Right after leaving, she wrote, “I pulled up to my new greenhouse on Floras Creek with a riot of saw-toothed artichoke divisions in the back of the truck, teased them apart into one-gallon transplant pots, and officially began my first season farming for myself, next door to my mom and sister.”

Can you tell me a bit about the book–how you got involved, who the writers are, and why you think it’s a good read?

The idea for the book hatched about three years ago when [co-editor] Severine von Tscharner Fleming and I were at a food and farming conference together. We got Storey Publishing interested in the idea and spent the next couple of winters–during our “off” seasons–putting the book together. The essayists are from all corners of the country, and all of them are beginning farmers, meaning they’ve been running their own operations for fewer than 10 years.

When you’re just starting out farming, the heartaches and breakthroughs are so acute. It’s a rocky road for most of us. We’re short on cash, short on sleep, short on time, and long on optimism and pure buckle-down grit. A lot of the essays in this book shed light on that–some funny, some exuberant, some sad. It’s a great medley of stories for that reason, all woven together by a singular passion for growing good food.

What gives you the most hope for the coming generation of young farmers?

The fact that public awareness has shifted so much in the past ten years. I remember a time when I would strike up a conversation with a stranger on an airplane, and when they asked me what I did, and I replied that I was a farmer, they looked puzzled/unimpressed/dismissive. Now when I have that same conversation, people’s eyes light up and they say, “REALLY!!!?? That’s awesome! My sister is part of a CSA farm…” or something to that effect. More and more folks are learning about alternatives to industrial food, supporting local family farms, eating more seasonally, trying kale.

Still, there’s a lot working against beginning farmers; access to capital and land are the foremost. Money and credit are hard to come by, and buying affordable land is maybe even harder. It’s why you see so many creative arrangements–non-conventional leases, incubator farms, etc.

A few years ago, you used to write your own dispatches for Edible Portland as you began farming, Diary of a Young Farmer. How has your perspective changed in the years since, and what has remained constant?

I’m in my fifth season of running my own farm now, and things have definitely stabilized—thank God! Financially, the farm is on solid footing, and the big push to build and buy all the infrastructure we needed—barns, irrigation systems, equipment—is largely behind us for now. I’m able to focus more on fine-tuning and improving my growing practices and my marketing strategies. It’s still a roller coaster–unpredictable weather, crop failures–but the ride feels less bumpy now, I think in large part because our community of loyal customers and CSA members provide such a foundation of financial and moral support. With them behind us, things feel less catastrophic than they did in the first year or two of scratching out this little farm and getting established.

I wonder about the phrase in the title “New Farmers’ Movement.” What about new farmers today has created a movement? What is the movement and what are its goals?

I imagine every single one of the essayists in this book would have a slightly different answer to this question. Personally, I think it feels like a movement because it’s not just the farmers themselves talking about these issues, spreading the message, and doing the work. It’s a larger community of eaters, advocates, policy-makers, and everyday newspaper-reading citizens who are connecting to it. People want clean, green, fair food. They want family farms, not factory farms. And the farmers in this book want to create just that kind of world.

What are you most excited about that’s growing in your fields right now?

Other than my one-year-old, who is doing a lot of her growing in our fields right now, I’m pretty excited about the new rhubarb planting. It’s been doubling in size everyday, which feels like a little nod from the plant world that things are A-OK out there.

Originally published by Ecotrust

Two million young people—many of them from rural backgrounds—have served in the U.S. military since the attacks of 9/11. These veterans are facing extremely hard times, with very high rates of unemployment. Farming can be their ticket to a bright future and they could help solve our nation’s severe shortage of new farmers.

Join us in conversation with Michael O’Gorman, a pioneering organic farmer who leads the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. He will bring a few veterans with him and share a preview of the program he will deliver at the 2011 Eco-Farm conference (The Ecological Farming Association’s Annual Conference).

When: Monday, January 24
Food and drink at 6:30 p.m.; Discussion at 7 p.m.

Where: Viracocha, 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street, San Francisco

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons , a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Manny Howard’s new book, My Empire of Dirt, is haunted by the living ghost of Wendell Berry.  First there’s the epigraph by Berry in which he instructs us on how to “use land well,” and it includes knowing and loving the land, and using the right tools. (To paraphrase a master, poorly.)

Then, early on in Howard’s recounting of a season spent trying to turn his south Brooklyn backyard into a homestead, the voice of Wendell Berry comes to him, offering further wisdom. Only problem is, Howard confesses in the epilogue that “On the Farm, Wendell Berry girded me.  Not that I had ever read a word he’d written until I was back at my desk, trying to make sense of the year.” Huh?

As a gimmick for a magazine article—which this book started out as–I suppose this premise makes sense. “You like locavorism New Yorkers, well locavore this!” Smart, quirky journalist, looking for a new drug, seeks quixotic project sure to provide (mis)adventure and a cover article, all while basking in the local-food-cum-DIY zeitgeist.  If the piece that resulted a few summers back in New York magazine made you squirm, then I hate to think what you’d make of the long version. Howard enters into his project recklessly, voraciously, cluelessly. Many animals were harmed in the writing of this story. He sawed off his own finger, too.

For me (a first-time grower trying her hand slowly at windowsill tomatoes and basil as well as some Kentucky Colonel Mint) the core lesson here is about new farmer development.  What does it take to learn how to farm and do we have a system in place right now for people to do so? One can try to learn to farm Howard’s way, flailing about with expensive hydroponic systems but no instructor, or one of his other trials and subsequent errors.  It’s no surprise, though, that at the end of the book he is no farmer.  He has relinquished most of the endeavor and is a man with a couple of backyard chickens and a vegetable patch. I am somehow reminded of something I heard Will Allen say: that he wanted apprentices at Growing Power who plan to be farmers. That he doesn’t want people there dicking around for a summer (once again, to paraphrase a master, poorly).

A person who truly wants to learn how to farm in this country has some pathways to begin, but I think we can all agree that there are not enough of them.  Apprenticeships are a good start for many new farmers–but they are just a beginning, and in some places, like California, they are under threat. How can we help new farmers find mentors? And find the time to continue their pursuits until they have not only found knowledge but also the meaning of their work?

Berry’s final words to Howard are about the place of knowledge, the importance of work, and the necessity of taking one’s time while working and then again afterwards to understand the work’s meaning and worth.  Howard’s experience bears out the need for mentorship (knowledge, work) and the need for duration (time).  He was a stranger in a strange land and because he did not have knowledge, instructors, or an experienced growing community to support and guide him in his work, he was not able to sustain it (nor sustain himself; for a variety of reasons, including a freak Brooklyn tornado, his farm produced little food).

I wish he had found Berry before he set out in his backyard.  But there is only so much you can learn from a book.  Even beginning with a conversation with a knowledgeable friend can help—that’s how I got this windowsill experiment started. Perhaps I wish Howard had found one or more of the many Brooklyn urban farmers and gardeners who have spent years now learning their way and teaching it to others. It would not have made for an article or book full of escapades and hijinks but he may have begun to root himself to the land and to the rich traditions of growing in that once-rural Borough, in that county of Kings.

Step out of the realm of thought, get on your hands and knees and start building. Set poetry in motion. You can start your first draft and I promise the poem will grow increasingly interesting.

My poem is about a tiny farm I’m starting for a couple of farm smitten NYC non-farmers who own a restaurant, cafe and grocery store in Brooklyn, and who want to grow some of their own produce. My goal is to set in motion year-round, efficient, ecologically sound and manageable growing systems to help them reach their goal of farm to table. Oh, and to keep the seedlings alive. Without the challenge of turning a profit this first year, and with support for low-budget experiments, I’ve landed in a great place to learn and grow alongside my adventurous employers.

The following is an email excerpt to some farmers north of here, who are seasoned winter growers and supportive of this project. I wouldn’t blame anyone for skipping over it. Until recently my eyes glazed at the mere mention of greenhouse details and planting specifications, though in theory I was interested. Perhaps because starting ‘my own farm’ was an imaginary leap into a pit of venomous snakes. Despite the terrors inherent in committing to farming, now that I have my own project, I find the details riveting. You might too, if you are on the verge of growing food for people.

…the greenhouse has transformed since I emailed you. A proper swale has finally been dug and I don’t expect more flooding. I put aluminum flashing along the sides to deter voles, mounded earth against it for insulation, and left extra frame plastic hanging over for drainage. I’ve decided we should not invest in a heater, fan or shutters. I’ll do what I can to avoid reliance on unsustainable energy sources and expensive technology. I may look into affordable solar alternatives and grant availability for our minimal energy needs. For heating we have a double layer of greenhouse plastic and double row cover over the beds, which will not be raised. For air ciruclation we have doors and vents so large that opening them is essentially like removing the end walls. Considering our dimensions (26x12x60), later in the spring I think we’ll need more ventilation. I hope we can build at least one 4×4 vent into the ceiling, with an automatic, thermostatically controlled arm. I’ve amended the greenhouse soil with lime, composted horse manure and bloodmeal, although I’m still concerned about low phosphorus. This winter I’ll be growing in four 4′x50′ beds with 2′ pathways (covered with cardboard and straw). It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago this patch of earth was complete sod. Equally as hard to believe is that next week thousands of spinach and mizuna seedlings will be getting established here. The greenhouse will double as a nursery, but not until May, since the field won’t be ready for planting until June. I had wanted to plant a cover crop in the greenhouse during the summer, but some farmers do not think this is a good or profitable idea. I haven’t decided how flexible this greenhouse will be in the summer. I don’t want to overextend the soil OR myself…

If a new farmer gets to the point where an apprenticeship is too basic, and wants to take their vocation to the next level without tying the knot, in addition to farm management, I recommend looking into funded pilot projects, and going so far as to advertise for them. Starting a farm for someone can be very rewarding. With an understanding of your basic needs – such as your bottom line needs, what you seek to learn, what you have to offer, needed materials and support, etc., you can draw up a rough employment contract.  When you find what seems like a good match, you’ll be prepared to negotiate an arrangement.

And yes, young, anonymous farmer, when you find yourself standing in the middle of a new field, you will be able to set the farm wheel turning with the same, mighty force that moved the pen of the poet, songwriter or artist who inspires you.

The tilling and planting work is done for now. The irrigation system, a vast network of drip lines and timers and snakes of multicolored hoses, is up and running. Trees are pruned, weeds are pulled, deer fencing is enforced, and the huge job of removing crowded tan oaks is done for the time being, unbelievably. We await the massive, juicy results that will soon burst from the vines, stalks, branches, and stems. We planted everything we could think of, and everything we had saved in our seed box, some in their third generation. Where dirt reigned on the ground there is now something edible growing; the places I always thought would just be overgrown tangles of poison oak and dry twigs have transformed into beds of tomatoes, radish, lettuce, tomatillo, peppers, carrots, cucumbers, squash, onion, and too many herbs to list. Ongoing maintenance of the orchard, planted by Margaret, the homesteading single woman who lived here before us, will hopefully keep presenting an abundance of figs, apples, plums, grapefruit, Meyer lemons, hazelnuts, chestnuts, and pears. The only thing to ponder now is why did we plant all of this, and who is all this food for?

A good question indeed. Unless I quit all my jobs and stay at home full time, canning, pickling, and preserving like mad, we will soon be drowning in food, barely able to keep up with the harvest. Our ideal plan, perhaps not fully developed or implemented at this point, is to sell our produce to make this land financially viable, and to chunk down the mortgage payment while eating our own goods. And of course it goes without saying that we believe in growing your own food, in self-sustainability, in promoting healthy local food systems and seed saving, in the DIY movement and preserving traditions. We wouldn’t be doing all this work if we weren’t committed to that deep within our entire beings; plus there may be just a touch of obsessive experimentation and passion for what random variety of interesting edible thing can we actually grow next? The problem lies in our size. Our one-acre plus is not big enough or productive enough to realistically supply various markets, grocers, and restaurants with consistent product. But it is now too big to just feed the two of us, and we would love to make a little bit of income on all of this wonderful food.

Not all of us small-time farmers are lucky enough to be boutique plots who sell directly to a single source. Some of our similarly sized neighbors have made it big, getting the golden ticket by way of a fanciful chef who happened to pay special attention. Down the road, Love Apple Farm is the personal biodynamic playground for Manresa chef David Kinch. And up a hill from there is Lindencroft Farm which sells almost all of their beautifully terraced produce to our local Gabriella Café. Don’t get me wrong, we would jump at the chance to be in a partnership with a kitchen that was as proud and in love with the bounty as we are; but it isn’t a realistic goal, especially when I honestly don’t have much time for some of the marketing and legwork involved.

Another idea would be to start a CSA, definitely something that other farms in our position have found as a wonderful solution. Again, it is a great idea and I fully support the theory of it, but the time involved in organizing, marketing, delivering, and coordinating is prohibitive at this time in our lives while we have to work away from our home to make a living. And so, for anyone out there who is reading this and understanding the quandary in a personal way, here is my solution: Start your own farmstand!

First of all, zoning laws and governmental food safety issues put a big black X on any public sale of non-certified edibles. Legally, you can’t just set up a table on some random corner and sell your stuff. That’s right — those little kids with their lemonade for twenty-five cents are criminals. It is sad that we have come so far from the friendly farm stands of yore. In an effort to protect the public from E.coli and other food born illnesses, the laws have become restrictive. However, our research here in Santa Cruz County at least, indicates you can sell if you remain on your own property. That means that with a little bit of neighborhood networking, you can still potentially make some money within your own community. This can also bring you together and act as a social bonding time while spreading consciousness about healthy eating practices. Of course, discretion is advised regardless of location because every city, county, and state has its own business tax regulations and rules. If you wanted to go completely legit, multilayers of certifications, fees, inspections, and ordinances would be the long road ahead of you. To have your own farm means you must face the chasm between legitimacy and being underground. It’s your choice, just be sure to know the risks. That being said, I’ve created some simple steps to set up the Bonanza Springs Farmstand 2009:

• Choose a day of the week when I will have the most time, energy, and visibility to make this farmstand worth my while.

• Create and distribute a simple announcement flyer and put it in my neighbor’s mailboxes. It will cover the basics of day, time, and what will be on offer.

• Organize my décor: a folding table, one of my grandmother’s vintage tablecloths, baskets and wooden crates, a mason jar for flower displays, recycled cardstock for product labels, some extra bags, a calculator, and a box for all the money I will make!

• Explore ideas for community collaboration: offer neighbors a way to contribute their own goods to sell with a percentage kickback to me for hosting it or a trade for goods and services I might want.

A fun project that I hope will yield some bounty for our bounty!

As has been reported here before, choosing to farm sustainably is not a call to forsake technology, lower your productivity, and mortify your flesh. Far from “returning to the 19th century” (the straw man that some critics love to first erect and then tear down), contemporary sustainable farming methods are rooted in a careful balancing of the old and the new. In other words, we will no more blindly accept tradition than we will heedlessly race after the newest fad, simply because a someone swears that the latest model will solve all your problems and wash the dishes too.

First, to the charge that sustainable ag is populated with luddites, techno-phobics, and hippies: good farmers love new ideas and technology and gratefully integrate them into a financially and environmentally sustainable system. They check weather reports obsessively the better to anticipate rain, frost, or drought—armed with this warning system, they are able to start growing earlier and end later, thereby producing more food. They use floating row covers (what looks like long, thin white sheets) to create a nonchemical barrier between crops and pests, to warm the earth for earlier planting, and to hold moisture in the soil. They employ portable electric fencing, without which intensive grass-based grazing systems could never have achieved the land restoring successes of farms like Joel Salatin’s Polyface. The type of farming practiced by today’s best farmers could never have happened in a previous century, because it takes advantage of recent inventions and a great deal of scientific knowledge that did not exist previously.

It is critically important to remember, however, that science and the scientific method are not a replacement for nature. Giving preference to one over the other is like hopping around on one leg when you have two perfectly good feet: you can get around for a while, but you’re liable to fall over eventually.

Last week, the young greenhorns of the Western Massachusetts CRAFT program visited Natural Roots Farm near Shelburne Falls, MA. Natural Roots is unusual in New England in that it is a strictly horse powered farm; the majority of the remaining draft horse farms in the U.S. are either in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Indiana, where large Amish populations still exist. Farmer David and his partner Anna are not Amish, however (though David’s outstanding beard might suggest otherwise); they are simply a farming family that finds horses both a pleasurable and practical part of their farm system.

To me, inexperienced with draftwork, the harnesses seemed a indecipherable web of buckles and leather, but apprentices Rachel and Dan deftly moved the horses from implement to implement, first discing a field, then mowing a cover crop, then lightly cultivating a bed. Their vegetables were immaculate in the field, their cover crops tall and strong. Watching David drive the team across a freshly turned field, you could easily form a Romantic (or skeptical) impression of their work. But if all you took from the farm was the idea of draft power versus tractor power, you would fail to capture the full lesson of Natural Roots. David farms with horses, but he also manages his cover crops intensively for weed supression and takes soil samples monthly to see how fertility levels fluctuate throughout the season. He feeds his crops a foliar spray of organic amendments for elements he considers insufficiently present in the soil, in hopes that healthy plants will ward off pests and diseases. And as we gathered to begin the tour he showed us the washing station in their new barn, which had been carefully designed for maximum efficiency and minimal waste. This is not your grandfather’s hobby farm.

Afterward, as I spoke to Rachel, one of the apprentices at Natural Roots, she described how visitors had once come to the farm wanting a photo op of teamsters at work. “Make it look hard!” the photographer requested, as Rachel drove the team through the field. She laughed at the memory, “That’s the whole point,” she said, “the horses do the hard work so that we don’t!” Indeed, the apprentices at Natural Roots never hoe and rarely weed by hand—cultivation with horses and cover cropping keep weeds to a minimum.

Sustainable farmers want results—good food, certainly, but also a healthy biological system—and we farm in a way that fulfills us personally. Some of us (yours truly) like to hoe, but simultaneously appreciate the thoughtful use of a tractor. Some others of us prefer the clinking of horse harnesses to the belch and roar of machinery. The beauty of farming is its great flexibility. There are a great many paths from seed to salad mix, which respect the soil in equal, though different, measure. “Sustainable agriculture” encompasses environmental impact, but also finances, practicality, and a farmer’s well-being. The myth of industrial ag is that we have everything—more food than Americans even eat, successful family farms, safe food, and dirt cheap prices. The reality is not so simplistically cheery, but nor is it a dismal tale of hunger and societal collapse. As Natural Roots declares it its existance and success, we can grow into our future without denying our past.

We Americans can be notoriously self-centered when it comes to, well, everything. In the environmental and food-justice movements, voices from Europe or Africa struggle to be included in the American discussion. But as a young country, we would do well to learn from other countries who never stopped plowing, harvesting, and eating in a sustainable way.

Recently I joined 200 other young people to participate in a pilot agriculture-experience program in Japan. Here’s the very simple idea: send 18 to 40-year-old city slickers to rural communities for a free five-day trip to learn farming, meet local people, and perhaps be tempted to adopt that way of life for themselves. Administrated by an environmental nonprofit group, a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture paid our food, bullet train fare, lodging — everything (and I’m not even a citizen!). Seems extravagant, but compared to the amount of money spent on recent bank bailouts it’s a very cheap form of stimulus — and benefits rural areas, young people, and the agricultural sector simultaneously. We were dispatched to rural communities across the country — I went to a tiny village called Kanna-machi (“God-Flowing Town”) a few hours north of Tokyo. Over half its 2600 residents are over 65 years old, reflecting the aging of the farming sector that is occurring all around the world.

Still, Japan remains a lot closer to its agricultural roots than the United States. Elementary school children take day trips to rice fields to practice planting and harvesting, and kitchen gardens are less of a novelty than common practice for many people. Walking through suburban or rural neighborhoods in the summer or fall it is easy to find a roadside shelf heavy with Welsh onions, potatoes, or squash and a battered box with a slit: “Leave 100 yen here.”

For those of us who are sincere about changing American food systems, we may learn a lot from books and the Internet. But nothing quite matches learning how to plow the earth from an experienced human teacher.

In my case, that teacher was Kurosawa-san. His family has been growing potatoes, cucumbers, sweet peas, and other row crops for generations in a sloping valley overlooking the Kanna river valley. When my teammates and I from the “Inaka de Hatarakitai!” program (loosely translated as “Countryside Working Squad!”) showed up at his farm, he regarded us skeptically. We were pale, skinny, and sneezing uncontrollably from the spring pollen, which rose in yellow clouds from the hills behind us (partially a result of 1960s monoculture timber policies, but that’s another story). Typical useless city folk, dressed in too-clean work clothes and fluorescent rubber boots.

Still, he patiently guided us through a spring clearing and planting day. Using hand plows and pure muscle, we started by turning over a dry crumbly field that had been left all winter. Stab its front tines into the ground, use feet and thigh power to get a deeper mouthful of soil, heave everything out, sling it to the side. Repeat. Repeat. After about two straight hours of crunching through this field, I started to realize a few things. One was that my flimsy city body needed a rest and probably accepted too quickly when Kurosawa-san’s wife invited us inside for a midmorning break of hot green tea, homemade manju (rice cakes filled with sweet bean paste), homemade pickles, and other treats. (Kurosawa-san refutes the image of the overworked, overstressed Japanese: “In the old days, we always had a 10 a.m. snack break, a one-hour lunch time, and mochi and tea at 3 p.m. The 3 o’clock break-time is very important, as is the homemade sake at night.”)

The second thing that working in Kanna helped me realize is that all sustainable farms have families somewhere in them.  Plants can be cranky and cantankerous; their care demands patience and knowledge built up over good years and bad years.  Farms cannot be run by economists, nor worked by undocumented immigrants in exploitative conditions, as is increasingly the norm in many parts of the U.S.

But the New York Times criticizes Japanese family farms as “tiny and woefully inefficient,” and American pressure is relentless for Japan to “reform” its agricultural and trade policies towards large-scale monoculture farming. But that would crush the thousands of small farms being tended with love by people like Kurosawa-san. When the sun started to set over the stunning Kanna valley, we surveyed our work with satisfaction: a neatly furrowed field of potatoes, waiting for the spring rains and a hot summer.

The next day, we took a tour of an organic agriculture farm owned and worked by the Okamotos, a couple in their 80s. With help from a local economic development advisor, they’d transitioned their entire farm to certified organic but were desperate for young people to help them work it. Perched on two flat portions of a hillside, their family gravestones overlook the fields, a traditional practice largely abandoned in modern Japan. How does someone treat the land differently when generations of ancestors are sitting right next door?

Many of my farming colleagues were recently laid off or otherwise adrift on a perennial sea of part-time work, casualties of a 1999 deregulation of Japan’s lifetime employment system. Some were obviously depressed over their lives not living up to an image of prosperity and consumerism projected 24 hours a day by Japanese mass media. Yet, in Kanna-machi I saw awkward computer boys and shy secretaries came out of their shells doing farm work and experiencing the pride of tangible achievement.

We cheered when the cooks at the city-run inn we were staying at served each evening’s meal and described its provenance: shiitake mushrooms from Nishimura’s farm, wild butterbur-blossom tempura, locally made konnyaku jelly, and on and on. By the conclusion of the program, we had all gained a few pounds and become fast nakama (tight friends). We set up a Kanna-machi group on Mixi (Japan’s largest social networking site) with the goal of returning next summer to help Okamoto-san’s harvest. In our debriefing session, everyone was surprised to discover that the most notable part of the program was meeting great people and learning from farmers like Okamoto. We had come to learn about the land and possibly jump-start a new career — and had ended up experienced a healing we hadn’t realized we needed. When we commit ourselves to taking care of forgotten corners of the land, we also commit to taking care of forgotten members of our society. What is more efficient than that?

The Japanese model is just one option. As Daniel Duane recently pointed out in Mother Jones magazine, the proliferation of farmers markets in the U.S. has not been matched by an equivalent expansion of small-scale, organic farms. This could lead to an undermining of the very concept of farmers markets. We need massive young farmer training programs, especially ones that focus on low-income Americans, the unemployed, people of color, the formerly incarcerated, and immigrants. Besides the glory of weeding, prospective young farmers need information on purchasing land, dealing with the USDA and other bureaucracies, and the basics necessary for any business: sales, distribution, taxes, and staffing. If the green movement is serious about expanding sustainable agriculture and healthy food for all, programs like the one I experienced in Kanna are a great place to start.

One of the complex questions I have been living is the question of education. This is a question that has grown within me from my own education in the public school system and now ripens as I have the stewardship of nurturing my own four daughters. For their sakes, I have waded through the war-zone of educational philosophies with the cross-fire so thick that I could not clearly see who was wrong or who was right. At last I came upon a place of peace, where Dewey, Montessori, Steiner, Mason, Rousseau and Froebel all seem to call a truce. I have found a place where public schoolers, home-schoolers, and private-schoolers can amicably co-exist. This higher-ground is in the garden. It seems that educational experts through the ages and across the globe have all cited the garden as a master teacher. In the garden we learn first-hand about nurturing and caring, patience and discovery, stewardship and respect, beauty and life. We also learn practical skills such as mathematics, science, health and nutrition. Perhaps even more relevant today is the opportunity that gardening gives us to reconnect with nature. Research and anecdotal evidence tells us that when this connection with our natural world is established and nurtured, the child’s mind becomes centered and focused, eager to attack other areas of academia.

Garden-Based Learning

The modern term that describes the methods of experiential education as taught in a garden setting is “Garden-Based Learning” or GBL. Garden-Based Learning is not of course new. In its most primal forms it is older than the means to document it. Throughout the last century plus, the school-garden movement has ebbed and flowed in the United States according to trends in educational reform. During World War I, with many farmers called away, school children were actually relied on to help grow food for the nation. The most recent resurgence seems to have come about as an antidote to the rampant rates of childhood obesity, nutritional deficiency, and what author Richard Louv has poignantly termed “nature-deficit disorder.”

My own introduction to GBL came about through a teacher-friend who invited my daughter to attend a summer program with her daughter at the Life Lab Garden Classroom in Santa Cruz, California. To my delight I discovered that the Garden Classroom is one of those places where you go and find yourself again. The Garden Classroom is set up on a hill where the sultry smells of the earth blend with the salt-mist smells of the ocean. You walk up the footpath and find yourself drawn in by trees and fields and cows and happiness. The children spent the week planting seeds, harvesting vegetables, cooking garden-food, composting scraps, watching worms, holding chickens, studying bees, sighting birds, singing songs and loving life. Watching my daughter alive with learning, I began to feel the inklings of the answer to the question I had been living for so many years.

The next year I sent two of my daughters to the Life Lab Garden Classroom program. My younger daughter, Olivia was only 6 ½ years old. I decided to enroll her because she had shown a peculiar, I thought, difficulty in surviving any formal school setting. As a three year old I withdrew her from preschool after two weeks because her attitude when I picked her up each day was dramatically sullen and filled with anger. In the first grade she insisted on going to public school. After three days of post-school raging and trembling episodes, I brought her home again with disconcerted wondering. That summer I sent her to the Garden Classroom. As I had hoped, she positively blossomed in the Garden Classroom. She came home happy and singing every day. She was able to enjoy peer relationships and learning without undue stress and social anxiety. The natural setting seemed to provide the nurturing she needs to thrive. She was always learning yet never feeling rushed or pressured. This experience has convinced me that the garden truly is a master teacher. GBL advocates all have personal experiences that keep them committed to the cause. John Fisher, Garden Classroom Director at Life Lab Science Program, shares this story.

“Marco was a third grade student who recently moved to California from Guatemala. He came to the garden with a small group of classmates and a special aid. His shy disposition was not unusual for a visitor to the garden but I soon learned that the garden setting was not the reason for his shyness. While asking the children questions about the garden, identifying plants, recognizing scents and insects Marco’s classmates were quick to let me know that Marco has never spoken a word at school. We continued to tour the garden. We sat in the grape vine covered dome and ate our six plant part “burritos,” we looked at the composting worms and opened up flower seed heads. All along Marco seemed to gain interest, doing what all the other kids were doing. Then he found the strawberries. He stood by them and looked at me. I kneeled down to his level and picked one and motioned for him to do the same. He did. I said “fresa,” I said it again encouraging him to repeat me. A small fearful moment of silence passed then Marco said “fresa” followed by a faint smile. His aid was astonished, I looked over Marco’s head and saw her huge smile and tears in her eyes. That was the best strawberry I ever ate.”

Martha Deichler, Principal of Borregas Springs Elementary School and avid school garden advocate, points out that though a garden curriculum has obvious benefits for children with such labels as ESL and ADHD, its fruits are for every child.

It seems that garden-based learning reaches into a very deep part of us, beyond all the things that divide a group and into our very humanity.

It takes commitment from the staff and parents and an openness to see things in a new light but success stories are sprouting up in many school gardens around the country. The great news is that for those wanting to get started the groundwork is already in place. A thriving school-garden program is something that can be done now to make our schools a more nurturing and healthful place for our children.

I say “thriving” because not all schools that claim to have gardening programs are reaping the fruits of what a garden program can be. One friend of mine, who is a retired teacher as well, confided her frustration after volunteering in her first grader’s school garden. She spent hours preparing the plot and gathering supplies and was excited to spend time in the garden with the children. Her disappointment came when she was instructed to lead the children in groups to the garden where they would each plant a bulb and then line up to wash hands and return to the classroom. She was given 20 minutes total with each group, which when you consider the time it takes to line up, walk to and from, and wash hands is desperately insufficient for any real impact.

Throughout so much of their day children are being told what to think. In the garden, as with all experiential learning, children learn HOW to think. Carol Hillhouse, Director of the Children’s Garden at UC Davis and mother speaks from experience when she tells me that “Children are led by the magic of discovery. This discovery-mode is intrinsic to a child’s development.” One of the first things that a garden-educator will do when bringing the children into the garden is to give them time (ahhh the gift of time) to explore. Martha Deichler begins her garden sessions with an invitation to “Look around and see what you see. See what has changed since last week when we were here.” The children sometimes become so enthralled by discovery, says Deichler, that this becomes the entire lesson. There is so much happening in the garden.

This post was excerpted from a longer article written for the Life Lab Science Program, UC Santa Cruz.

Last month I reconnected with my southern roots and traveled to my hometown, Atlanta, Georgia for a week’s immersion into the current developments around the local food movement and school garden education, particularly with my family’s organization, Seeds of Nutrition. My trip, however, was filled with much more than a visit to a few school gardens. I would soon be surprised by the South’s progress in the sustainable food movement.

This newer leg of the Mendez Foundation, Seeds of Nutrition, has developed into a school-based education program offering experiential learning through gardens and cooking. Prior to Slow Food Nation, I worked with the Mendez Foundation to create a scope and sequence for this curriculum that teaches elementary children about where their food comes from. Now based in Atlanta, Seeds of Nutrition has taken hold in three Atlanta public schools. It involves school children in every step from planting to harvesting to chopping and tasting. Teachers and administrators are filled with excitement as they have seen the Seeds of Nutrition lessons reinforce their day-to-day lessons in math, science and language arts, rather than pull time from these core competencies. In Atlanta, schoolteachers and parents are asking for school gardens and recognize the importance and potential of the school garden as the logical venue to teach the year’s curriculum through experiential learning activities.

My week in the South was to end with the 12th annual Georgia Organics conference. This year’s conference was a record-setting success, drawing more than 1,100 attendees. Overall, it was very impressive and featured workshops by Slow Food’s Erika Lesser and Josh Viertel, Will Allen of Growing Power, Will Harris of White Oak Pastures, and the famous Barefoot Farmer, a biodynamic farmer from Tennessee, among others. The workshops covered the usual topics: from biodiversity to institutional purchasing to young farmers, with a panel of elementary and high school students making changes in their communities, young farmers, and Severine Fleming of the Greenhorns. And, the closing feast featured beautiful, southern food from local farms and chefs. With Michael Pollan’s closing keynote address, the energy in the tent was undeniable.

The conference weekend ended with a Slow Food Southeast Leaders regional meeting at Love is Love Farm, a CSA farm in metro Atlanta operated by Joe Reynolds and Judith Winfrey. When not working the land at Love is Love, Judith puts in her time as the co-leader of Slow Food Atlanta, and Joe is the farm educator with Seeds of Nutrition. The South is truly doing it and there is quite a wave of momentum and excitement flowing through Georgia right now. People are moving and shaking.

That was supposed to be the end of my trip — an inspiring conference with like-minded people. But, a temptation to stay for a reggae show kept me in the Atlanta area for a few more days. Little did I know that I would miss hearing the Original Wailers for a surprise adventure. At the conference, I met Daron “Farmer D” Joffe. In retrospect, knowing now that we have mutual friends out here in California, we were destined to meet there. Farmer D sits on the board and was previously Vice President of Georgia Organics. I had heard of his many ventures and accomplishments, and was soon able to take a look at some of them firsthand. With aligned missions of spreading the work and word of sustainable agriculture to all, we embarked on a journey through coastal Georgia to visit some of his farm projects.

Our first stop was historic Savannah where he is consulting with the Bethesda Boys Home, the oldest boys home in the country, to install a biodynamic farm, which will provide not only produce, but educational and micro-enterprise opportunities for the boys. As with most of Farmer D’s work, he maintains a perspective of social justice and giving back to the community. After stopping at a local restaurant in Savannah, Cha Bella, that is exercising the farm-to-table protocol, we visited the restaurant’s farm, also a Farmer D project. This little farm not only grows food for the restaurant, but also offers educational opportunities to youth. A group of college students from Vermont’s Middlebury College came to the farm for a volunteer day to contribute their time to the Planting Community Project, a community food project (CFP) grant from the USDA, spearheaded by Farmer D in partnership with Union Mission, a Savannah shelter for men, women and families. The project focuses on connecting homeless individuals with limited resource farmers; and in addition to providing access to local organic produce, participants learn about organic growing, cooking and entrepreneurship.

Our next stop was Cumberland Island, the nation’s largest National Park Island, complete with wild horses, gators, wilderness and turn-of-the-century architecture. The Greyfield Inn on the island hired Farmer D to install an organic vegetable garden for the inn’s restaurant. Eventually the Greyfield Inn will also use the gardens and its produce to bring in chefs from around the nation to offer guests a complete farm-to-table experience. In one 13 hour day we transformed overgrown beds of weeds filled with legless lizards and sand gnats into ripe and fertile beds replete with Farmer D’s biodynamic compost (a certified biodynamic product that he makes from the compostable waste gathered from Whole Foods Markets all over the southeast) and his organic fertilizer, ready to be planted with greens, herbs, root veggies, and flowers. In alignment with biodynamic principles, and on the new moon, we prepared the beds with a biodynamic prep so they could begin their transformation.

A few islands north would be our last stop. The farm on Hampton Island provides produce to the island’s Culinary Program, and more impressively, is a venue to bring school children through for agricultural learning. Seventy-five kindergarteners arrived from the Savannah Country Day School to spend the day learning about where food comes from at this pristine farm. Farmer D and his co-educators lead the children through explorations of how plants and animals grow. From having their own school gardens and rich field trips such as this, these little Georgia kindergartners were quite literate about food origins.

This was my first exposure to the South’s sustainable agriculture uprising. It was a refreshing feeling, one of pure joy. I’ve lived away from the South for 14 years now, and noticed a major shift on this trip. The sustainable food movement wave is spanning across the country into pockets we may not have expected a decade ago. Not that sustainable agriculture is new to the South. Will Harris’ family-owned grass-fed beef operation in Bluffton, GA, White Oak Pastures, has been in operation for five generations. But I witnessed for the first time a shift of awareness in Atlanta and beyond. Schools, parents, institutions, and communities are ripe for change. Their arms are open and they are ready to take the steps. The South shall rise again!

Well over a thousand farmers, activists, educators and homesteaders descend on Asilomar State Park in beautiful Pacific Grove, CA to attend Eco-Farm. For the old-timers (this was its 29th year), the event is an annual tradition, a sacred ritual; for the newcomers, it is an odd and wonderful time to learn and absorb. For me, a green second-year attendee, there’s no better place to meet the old and the new, the seasoned heroes of organic agriculture and the spirited soldiers of today’s burgeoning food movement.

At our first breakfast this year, I sat down next to Tom Willey of T&D Willey Farms in Madera, CA. He asked me if I was farming. I told him that right now I teach middle schoolers to grow vegetables but that I dream of having my own farm someday, though it often doesn’t feel like a very realistic option. His eyes widened above his white beard. He looked right at me and said “It’s the most realistic option. Especially now. Just rent some land. That’s what I did. Then, in ten or twenty years, you’ll know better what land to buy.”

To my surprise, many voices echoed Tom’s words. “Amigo” Bob Cantisano welcomed the new faces at Eco-Farm by declaring us a whole new, significant generation. He spoke to the older folks, telling them to nurture and foster this relationship in order to minimize the obstacles for the next generation and help us find access to land, credit and knowledge. “We haven’t figured out how to make this transition,” he said, “but we’re getting there.”

“Transition” was a word I heard in nearly every workshop I attended. One such workshop, “Organic 101 for New Farmers,” was a crash course in starting a farm. Eco-Farm has offered this workshop every year for the past decade, and this year’s was the biggest crowd yet. I could hardly keep up with the presentations on cost-sharing programs, intergenerational transfers of farm land, grants, loans and business planning tools. I furiously took notes on forming a cash-flow plan, analyzing a soil test and managing gopher damage (3 cats/acre, fed every other day in the morning).

Carl Rosato, farmer and owner of Woodleaf Farm, was very clear in his advice: either work for a year or two to save up $25,000 to put down as a deposit on a piece of land, or go in on the purchase with a few people. It’s that simple. Like every other presenter, he said emphatically that the need for new farmers is one thing the entire agricultural community agrees on. Then, as the workshop ran out of time, the presenters all gave us their phone numbers, urging us to come to them with questions. “Give us a call, we can talk.”

I tried to take a break from farm planning by attending the session on Artisan Cheese, but Dee Harley and Donna Pacheco ended up telling more stories about starting their farms than about their passion for cheese-making. Neither of these women had any experience making cheese before they began their operations, and they both relied heavily on grants and loans that are specific to small-scale, female run farms. They left us listeners with a sense that starting a creamery is a bold adventure and a life’s work, but very possible. “If you’re going to do it,” Dee advised, “do it right from the start.” With a nod to all of us young folks in the room, she added, “start small, learn it deeply.”

All this talk was rewarded with living proof: there are young people who, at my age, are already farming. One young man I met was growing olives on McEvoy Ranch. A year ago, he’d been leasing his own land and now, as he builds capital, he’s planning to buy a place to raise sheep and grow grapes, olives and vegetables. I heard a presentation from Toby Hastings, a young farmer who had no farming experience until a year ago, when he leased one acre from the Center for Land Based Learning; since then, he’s established a 30-family CSA and sells vegetables wholesale to restaurants. When asked if he ever gets tired, he smiles and says it’s hard work, but fun, and that he looks forward to going to the farm every day. “I think I’ll be farming for a while.”

On the last day, the whole Eco-Farm congregation packed into Merrill Hall for a final, boisterous call to action. Four of Eco-Farm’s founding fathers and mothers spoke on the topic of the “Final Frontier of Organic Agriculture.” Mr. Willey, the farmer I met at that first breakfast, happened to be among them and in his final words on stage he declared that now is the time to “pass the torch to a new generation of cultivators… I hope my generation has sufficiently inspired you to assume this immense and challenging task.”

And so we piled into cars for the trip back to our farms, schools, cities and townships, ready to share our sense of hope, our bright faces and our big ideas. I had the strange feeling that over the course of those three days, some of my dreams had become a little less wild and a little more tangible. I went into Eco-Farm with a burning question: can I really do this, can I really become a farmer? I went home with the grounding knowledge that, when I decide I’m ready, I can start a farm tomorrow.

P.S. In Eco-Farm’s generous spirit, here are some of the resources farmers and policy-makers shared with us new and aspiring farmers:

- Growing New Farmers, a community of new farmers and farm service providers managed by the New England Small Farm Institute.
- USDA Farm Service Agency, which provides information on loan, conversation and other relevant programs.
- The National Farm Transition Network, which connects organizations working on farm transfers all over the country.
- The Rodale Institute’s Classifieds and New Farm resources.
- The Beginning Farmer Rancher Blog by Poppy Davis of the USDA Risk Management’s Agency.
- CASFS (UCSC Agroecology), where you can download worksheets for creating small farm business plans and monthly cash flow spreadsheets.
- The ATTRA’s wealth of information (they’ll do research on pest management for you if you have questions!)