Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Doug Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net>]

Might be kind of nice...
doug

http://chihuahuavalley.net



Begin forwarded message:

From: The  Contrary Farmer <no-reply@wordpress.com>
Date: March 1, 2010 6:48:55 AM PST
To: willhite@bigfoot.com
Subject: [New post] Crop Mobsters in North Carolina Donate Farm Labor

Crop Mobsters in North Carolina Donate Farm Labor
Dave Smith | March 1, 2010 at 6:48 am | Categories: Around The Web |  
URL: http://wp.me/pG9Uq-ZH


From NYT

[...]The Crop Mob, a monthly word-of-mouth (and -Web) event in which  
landless farmers and the agricurious descend on a farm for an  
afternoon, has taken its traveling work party to 15 small,  
sustainable farms. Together, volunteers have contributed more than  
2,000 person-hours, doing tasks like mulching, building greenhouses  
and pulling rocks out of fields.

“The more tedious the work we have, the better,” Jones said,  
smiling. “Because part of Crop Mob is about community and  
camaraderie, you find there’s nothing like picking rocks out of  
fields to bring people together.”… The Mob was formed during a  
meeting about issues facing young farmers, during which an intern  
declared that better relationships are built working side by side  
than by sitting around a table. So one day, 19 people went to  
Piedmont Biofarm and harvested, sorted and boxed 1,600 pounds of  
sweet potatoes in two and a half hours. A year later, the Crop Mob e- 
mail list has nearly 400 subscribers, and the farm fests now draw 40  
to 50 volunteers…

One of the biggest issues facing sustainable agriculture is that  
it’s “way, way, way more labor-intensive than industrial  
agriculture,” Jones said. “It’s not sustainable physically, and  
it’s not sustainable for people personally: they’re working all  
the time and don’t have an opportunity to have a social life. So I  
think Crop Mob brings that celebration to the work, so that you get  
that sense of community that people are looking for, and you get a  
lot of work done. And we have a lot of fun.”[...]

More at NYT→
~~