The essay by Rebecca Tarnas has been withdrawn from publication.
When I was eighteen years old my life was changed by a profound yet simple experience: I learned how to grow my own food. Working on a biodynamic farm in Northern California, I learned how to build healthy compost piles, prepare beds for planting, nurture lettuce, garlic, cucumbers, melons, and an abundance of other crops until they ripened to maturity, to prune and train tomato plants to maximize their fullest succulent potential, to feed and care for cows who produce milk, sheep who produce wool, chickens who produce eggs, and draft horses who worked the land with us. Perhaps, most importantly, I learned how to work hard in the hot sun over long days, and to take responsibility for my own ecological footprint upon this planet.
This experience was the inspiration for the ecological program I helped develop, now widely implemented in 2050, which radically changed the way food is produced in the United States—an effect that has since spread to many other countries. Back in the earlier decades of the twenty-first century, the majority of food grown in the United States was not produced in the manner I have described above. The food production system was dominated by industrialized commercial agriculture, which produced a small number of crops on large tracts of land cultivated as monocultures, enriched with petroleum-based nitrogen fertilizers, and continuously sprayed with deadly chemical pesticides and herbicides. The bulk of these uniformly produced crops were distributed by a minimal number of multinational corporations. At the time, both the number of farms and the number of corporations were rapidly decreasing as all aspects of the food system were consolidated into a few large conglomerates. Back then, when so few corporations were allowed to amass such a monopoly on trade, smaller scale producers, such as the farmers with whom I worked, could no longer compete in the market, and consumers were given fewer choices in what kinds of food they could purchase.
Up until the changes we implemented in 2024, the prior half century saw the number of farmers decrease while the size of the farms increased. In the 1960s, government policies pushed for fewer farmers working larger tracts of land because technological advances in farming equipment could make farms more efficient than human labor alone.[1] As of 1997, 61% of agricultural products grown in the United States were produced on only 163,000 farms. Of these farms, 63% were contracted to larger corporations which processed and distributed their products.[2] In 2024, the number of farms were continuing to decrease because the same policies had continued to push for greater economic efficiency on farms. The former U.S. farm system, which was heavily subsidized by taxpayers, would not have survived if it were not for the support of government policies.[3] Changing government policy in regards to food production was the key to decentralizing and reforming the system to make it more sustainable and resilient for both the land and its farmers.
Food was a particularly compelling issue on which to focus because it is a symbol and daily reminder of our dependence upon a healthy Earth. The food we put into our bodies is comprised entirely of other species, whether plant, fungus, or animal, and is nourished by the complex interactions of solar radiation, the hydrologic cycle, bacteria, minerals, insects, and many other factors. The quality of our food determines the quality of our health, and, in the long run, our ability to survive. In the development of our program, we asked ourselves such questions as: How might food be produced if the plants, animals, soils, and waters on which we depend each had their own right to health? What if agricultural land had rights? For example, the right of soil not to be eroded, of aquifers and ground water not to be depleted and contaminated, or of land to be free of contamination by pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers? What if human beings were given the right to always have access to healthy, uncontaminated food with higher nutritional value?
There are many different ways these issues could have been addressed, but it seemed that implementing some kind of shift to universal production of organic, regenerative agriculture was necessary in order to grant the right to health for agricultural land, and the right for human beings to have access to clean food. Organic agriculture can be a sustainable and regenerative endeavor when it is designed to mimic a natural ecosystem on a small scale.[4] Examples of such biomimicry techniques include animal husbandry (using composted animal manure to fertilize fields) and intercropping (in which multiple plant species are grown together in harmonious symbiotic relationship), among many other practices employed on organic and biodynamic farms. The costs of transitioning to organic production, and of acquiring organic or biodynamic certification status, once was borne by the producer, which often was a barrier for many small-scale farmers and therefore opened the door for large corporations to come in and take over the organic niche market.[5] Scale is an important factor, because the larger the farm the less likely it is that the farm will be able to maintain ethical, sustainable, and regenerative practices in the long term. Land cannot be cared for if efficiency is the bottom line, and large-scale farming production tends to prioritize short-term efficiency over long-term attention and care. Our program sought to change that trend.
In the earlier world governed by these ideals of capitalist efficiency, the initial costs of converting a conventional farm to organic production could be quite high and discouraged farmers from changing. One major drawback to organic agriculture was the need for more human labor if the practice was to be sustainable and regenerative. Organic farms that tried to remain competitive in a corporate market usually relied on machines to till large tracts of land and suppress weed growth.[6] To decrease fossil fuel use and implement regenerative practices, farmers would either have to pay their workers a higher salary for more labor or employ more farm hands, both of which were a high increase in expenditure.
Unavailability of arable land was another obstacle to organic farming, but we were able to partially overcome this issue with the use of urban plots and green roofing on city buildings. Green roofing is a method of covering the roofs of urban buildings with gardens. It is a simple and effective idea that keeps cities cooler in summer by converting much of the cities’ carbon dioxide emissions back into oxygen and helping clean the air of other pollutants. The gardens also contribute to the food consumed by urban dwellers, which otherwise would have to be transported across the country. Green roofing cuts transportation costs and energy usage, and is a form of carbon sequestration as well.[7]
Food is essential to all human beings in a way that no other commodity is. Therefore, reconnecting people to food production was vital to changing attitudes toward farmers and the cost of food. In order to overcome the shortage of farm workers necessary to convert conventional industrialized farms to organic agriculture, we implemented a required civil service system in the United States for all young people when they graduated from high school. This plan was not dissimilar to earlier European civil service policies, called Zivildienst, in such countries as Germany and Austria, where conscientious objectors to the required military service could opt to do community service instead. Such a solution was radical and required a fundamental transformation of values, but it brought about the kind of change needed to fix the food production system in the United States.
Under this policy, when U.S. citizens turns eighteen they are required to submit a form demonstrating eligibility for farm service. The young citizen works either on a farm in a rural area, or on a green roof plot in a city. On the service form, citizens indicate their future plans, such as whether they will be attending college or university, or working at a job outside of their farm work. They can also show preference for an urban or rural working environment. Distribution is based on state, so that people are not taken far from their families. If someone wishes to work out of state that can also be arranged.
Each citizen serves the equivalent of at least two years, with the time distributed according to one’s school and work schedules. A person can work full-time on a farm project and complete their required service in two years. Those who choose this method receive a living-wage salary based on the income of an average job in their locality. This salary is provided by the government from the funds that used to be spent on crop and fossil fuel subsidies. If the farm workers already have employment to which they would be returning after their service is complete, they can also opt to be on a sabbatical at those jobs to secure their positions.
A part-time arrangement is made for those currently holding half-time civilian jobs, so that they do not need to leave their work positions. On the other hand, full-time students are able to work every summer for four years, or make other comparable arrangements. Those who choose to work in a rural area usually work full-time, whereas those working in urban areas can work either full or part-time depending on their preferences and skills. If a person wishes, they can serve one year and then spend their second year training new farm hands. After two years, those who wish to continue farming can do so on a full-time salary.
Living arrangements are made according to each person’s lifestyle, work, familial situation, and marital status. Those who farm in a rural area tend to live on or near the farms. Those who farm in the city have the option of living anywhere in or near that city. When possible, arrangements are made for workers to live in the building under their allotted green roof. Persons or families who have houses with green roofs or personal vegetable gardens have the possibility of exemption from the farm service if they fulfill a certain quota of food production.
An increase in gardens and workers had the positive effect of making U.S. cities into partially self-contained ecosystems able to provide much of their own food. A larger proportion of the carbon dioxide and pollution in city air is now converted to oxygen or decreased, and more green spaces are available for citizens to enjoy. Furthermore, the universal availability of organic produce has made the overall population healthier, and it undermined the corporate control of the majority of our food system. The current generations of young farm workers in 2050 are now given the same opportunity I was at age eighteen, of learning to use the skills of my body, mind, and heart in service of the Earth and a healthier humanity, connecting not only with plants and animals, but with soil, water, and weather as well.
The implementation of these changes over the last few decades has remade the United States into a country with partially self-sustaining cities and small-scale rural farms producing organic food that is both less expensive and safer to eat. This plan was not easy to implement within the prior world system, and was adjusted in many ways to fit the diversity of this country. However, major, radical changes needed to be made to revolutionize the practices of food production and transform the education of most citizens in regards to their food. The education now provided to youth by working on farms has fostered a more Earth-centric world view that has helped nurture in young individuals a deep love for our planet.
When we first began implementing this program, we started on a smaller scale to test out how it worked in certain areas. The San Francisco Bay Area was an ideal location in which to attempt such an experiment, not only because the Northern California climate is ideal for growing many kinds of produce but also because San Francisco has been called “the place where new ideas meet the least amount of resistance.”[8] Furthermore, several organizations in the Bay Area were already doing work in this field, and were open to experimenting with such a program: for example, the EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park in San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point, a project of Literacy for Environmental Justice,[9] and the Food First organization in Oakland.[10] At a different level, the farm service proposal also supplemented the work being done by such programs as Americore and Teach for America. The slogan for our campaign was “Empower You(th), Feed A Nation!”
Despite the welcome our program received in the Bay Area, implementing it on a national scale was met with much more resistance, which was to be expected. We learned that rather than implementing a mandatory national farm service program, it was easier to begin with a paid volunteer program. Youth who chose not to attend college, or who were taking a gap year, were the most inclined to join our program. We also had many younger volunteers between the ages of sixteen and eighteen who had dropped out of high school, who found the program to offer a gratifying and meaningful direction for their lives as they figured out their next steps. Interestingly, the areas where we met the most resistance were in the older generations, especially among parents, rather than amongst the youth themselves who were doing the farm work. Fortunately, as more young volunteers signed up for the farm service program, integrating it into their educational and career plans, the more national attitudes began to change about regenerative agriculture and food justice.
Ultimately, instituting a youth farm service program was to change the way Americans, and then citizens of other nations, were interacting with the Earth. Introducing every young person in a country to the means by which their nourishment is created empowers them to be self-sustaining and to know that their survival is in their own hands. The education provided by such a program is literally life-saving. Furthermore, it also fosters a care for other species, for the plants and animals with which these youth interact. Learning to farm also fundamentally changes the human relationship to waste, teaching that there is no such place as “away” to which waste can be thrown. Rather it brings ideas such as composting and re-use into the everyday rhythm of life.
We had created a program for youth to directly combat the myriad ecological crises, and this paid opportunity for engaged action gave them an empowered sense of hope, which in turn inspired the development of many new programs addressing a variety of environmental and social crises. It was the enthusiastic participation of the youth that began to transform collective attitudes towards the human relationship with the Earth community as a whole. After a few generations of such a program, the policies enacted by the adults who learned to grow their own food are now far more Earth-centered than our policies were back in the early decades of the twenty-first century. The farm service program, which grew from a local to a national scale, inspired many other countries to adopt such policies. Furthermore, the model of the youth service program was applied to a wide range of other ecological challenges, from reforestation and fire management to wetland restoration and ocean clean-up, leading to radical planetary change and socio-ecological rejuvenation. By first implementing this farm service program, we got to a resilient, sustainable, and regenerative flourishing world we have in 2050.
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[1] Frederick Kirschenmann, “The Current State of Agriculture,” in The Essential Agrarian Reader, ed. Norman Wirzba (Washington D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004), 101.
[2] Kirschenmann, “The Current State of Agriculture,” 102.
[3] Kirschenmann, “The Current State of Agriculture,” 117.
[4] Kirschenmann, “The Current State of Agriculture,” 113.
[5] Laura Raynolds, “Organic and Fair Trade Movements in the Global Food Networks,” in Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food System, ed. Stephanie Barrientos & Catherine Dolan (Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2006), 52, 57.
[6] Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 159–60.
[7] “Green Roof Benefits,” Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, accessed February 7, 2024, https://greenroofs.org/.
[8] Brad Newsham, “The Spiritual Center of the Earth,” SF Gate, November 23, 1999, accessed February 7, 2024, http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/The-Spiritual-Center-Of-the-Earth-2894518.php.
[9] “EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park,” Literacy for Environmental Justice, accessed February 7, 2024, http://ecocenterheronshead.blogspot.com/.
[10] “Food First,” accessed February 7, 2024, http://foodfirst.org/.