As interest in locally grown, organic food increases, a new way to get involved is sprouting up all over the country and it’s known as a crop mob. During these events, a group of volunteers converges on small and urban farms and lends a hand on specific projects. Lynda-Marie Taurasi recently joined a crop mob in Hillsborough, North Carolina – where the initiative started. She files this report.

At 8 a.m. on a Saturday under a blue summer sky, Denise Sharp, co-owner of Sharp’s at Waterford Farm in Brookville, Md., is preoccupied with a sick goat. On top of that, she’s preparing for visitors.

“Usually there is pandemonium the first time a volunteer group comes here, because they don’t know what to do or how to do it,” she says.

Full story…

Our generation, and the generation behind us have this blatant sense of entitlement. I think we’re realizing that everything has come a little too easy for us. So putting our hands back and actually sweating a little bit is a lot more fulfilling than just being able to look something up on Google.

Full story…

The first U.S. crop mob was formed in North Carolina in 2008, and now there are more than 30. “It’s going to explode,” predicts Kirsten Santucci, organizer of a crop mob in Washington, D.C., that’s in its first season and has about 200 members.

Full Article

[...] This is the face of neo-agrarianism — a shift toward a more earth-friendly and community-conscious approach. Ironically, it tends to play out as a way-back-to-the-roots style of farming: Like the seasons themselves, farming is proving to be cyclical. [...]

Read the full story.

If you wish to start a crop mob in your area, a good place to begin is our “get involved” page. There are a few key guidelines listed there and helpful organizing tips in the Getting Started Guide. And also as a very helpful bonus, I’ve created a map in collaboration with Rob which we hope will facilitate the networking of those interested in mobbing with those of like minds in their areas. 

View Crop Mob in a larger map

let’s join hands
across lands
tie our hair
in rubber bands

dig up soil
share our toil
compost
in wheelbarrows
pickaxes, pitchforks,
and shovels.

if these tools had eyes,
they’d stare at each other
asking,
“did I really do that?”

you see,
this tree’s
gonna grow

and we’re
gonna eat its
fruit

together.

-Nicole Strachan participated in Crop Mob for the first time at Ofuskee Farm. She helped plant a pecan tree.

There are a few words and phrases that were exchanged on our NPR program that make me cringe. In particular, the terms, “farm chores” and “work for free” I never associate with Crop Mob.

Chores are, menial, routine tasks that must be done. They remind me of rules and responsibilities. This can be a bit of a drag. Even people who are not actively farming have chores to do.

At a Crop Mob, we do what we want. We tackle projects, which are on-going and unpredictable and unique to farming. Like the American Heritage Dictionary defines a project as “an undertaking requiring concerted effort,” is how I feel about the type of work accomplished at a Crop Mob. And to see the outcome of one or several more projects get well underway or completed in one day is incredibly uplifting.

After spending a day with the Crop Mob I feel enlightened. This is my church. Sunday is my day off. I have faith in a new generation of farmers.

Let’s get this straight. We do not work for free. It is reciprocal.

These things are what make the Crop Mob a success. This how we make a statement. We do it ourselves without any exchange of money or formal documents. This is how we make it fun. There is next to no pressure at a Crop Mob; no pressure for time, and not for profit. We have goals and objects but, we have also many skilled or able hands, eager minds, and passionate hearts that lead us through them. We bring power in numbers and one farm of like-mindedness receives all the benefit.

And then each Crop Mobber may benefit, too. Either on land of their own, or leave with an increased desire for something, a new idea, and most definitely, in all hopes, a full belly.

“Food should be celebrated.”

Thank you to all who participate.