Principles like these inspired the day of work. One of three founding members of Crop Mob Atlanta, Kimberly Coburn, read about the original North Carolina Crop Mob in a New York Times article last February. She thought the concept was brilliant and contacted the original founders for guidance in establishing a subsidiary group.

After kicking off Crop Mob Atlanta with a Website and a recruitment meeting at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market last March, over 50 “mobbers” attended the first workday at a farm in Douglasville on May 5. Tewksbury Farms marked their sixth farm event.

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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.

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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.

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Stealthy Crop Mob forges local agrarian bonds: Grassroots Press

Like a stealthy tomato, hidden beneath the camouflage and chaos of leaves, Crop Mob is a rogue (well, sort of) grassroots group, rich and potent with a passion for local farms, local foods and the connection we often miss with those who do the growing. Crop Mob is primarily a group of landless and wannabe farmers who come together to work on and build an interconnected agrarian community.

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On a recent Sunday, my farm was host to a new example of the old timey “barn-raising” phenomena that is sweeping the country.

It is called the Crop Mob. It consists of a group of folks that just like to get involved with a farm and with others that have the same aspirations. Many of them live in the city and just want to learn and some are actual farmers themselves.

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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.

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[...] 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. [...]

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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

The context in Spain generally and Catalunya specifically has to be understood against the twin backdrop of Franco’s dictatorship – which came to an end with Franco’s death in 1975 & the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1978 – and Spain’s incorporation into the European Union (formerly EC) in 1986. In addition, it is worth considering the adoption of the Euro in 2002 and the current financial crisis, which has driven Spain to ~20% unemployment on the back of a real estate bubble and increased immigration.

As explained by Gripia, being part of the EU has led Spanish farmers to subsist through centralised funding, rather than thru production, and has led to stagnation in the agricultural sector. To understand this, note that the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has historically represented almost 50% of the EU’s budget. The policy was intended to maintain minimum prices and allow for some Keynesian intervention in what was effectively a forced market; however, by rewarding larger producers – effectively ignoring economies of scale – the policy has come under increasing fire both from free market and alternative economy perspectives. It was against this backdrop that Vanessa & I were invited to speak about Crop Mob to the incoming class on their first day.

Our preparation had consisted in reading the detailed notes that Trace and Rob had sent us, as well as the anthropology article by Alice Brooke Wilson. However, rather like this article, we found it necessary to give a little context up-front. Given that the class was made up for the most part of Catalan agricultural professionals, many of whom had not spent time in the US, there were two key elements we wanted to touch on – the overall food market in the United States, and the shifting contexts over the past few years. The former was characterised as a spectrum from locally produced food primarily obtained via farmer’s markets, CSAs and co-ops, to the hulking Wal-Mart and endless aisles of plenty … with a shadow organic economy sitting over the top which could be considered as occasionally a marginal improvement but more often part of the problem. The latter was characterised in terms of the more recent ‘revolution’ in food origins and small farming, the authenticity or viability of such can be discussed ad nauseum. We followed the opening comments with some statistics and commentary regarding the North Carolina specific context and the growth of small farms – particularly with reference to other states and communities where similar demographics may be more challenging.

We then took the opportunity to explain Crop Mob in more detail, starting from initial origins to the current working model;  here we were, as commented, very much dependent on the excellent notes that Trace and Rob had provided us, particularly with reference to some of the pitfalls, some of the learnings, and other areas which we have neither the experience nor the authority to comment upon. We translated directly from English to Spanish, so we do not as yet have updated Spanish language versions of the handouts.

After having laid out the details and functional logistics, we closed the presentation with commentary which was intended to close the circle a little on the initial contextual remarks. Three key points were teased out – the importance of ‘community’ as a driving force for Crop Mob, which could be contrasted by our audience with their own understanding as such; the political existence of Crop Mob as aligned to and derived from various ideologies including Critical Mass, Food not Bombs, etc – however not an explicitly political or ideological group; and the importance of alternative food economies in which the notions of cyclical produce and human involvement are brought to the fore.

Questions and comments were multiple, and revolved around a number of recurrent themes.

Seems at odds with the usual portrait or image of the US

• Since neither of us presenting are from the US, we were able to take this one without any level of defensiveness. Yes – there is a level to which Crop Mob is at odds with the standardised image of the uS beyond your borders. At the same time, it is our shared belief that this type of activity is not atypical. A long heritage of praxis-driven silent revolt is not incompatible with most of the external US myths and arguably embodies quite specific elements of the hegemonic weltanschauung.

How to change from being ‘just a day in the country’ to something more [political, politically aligned]

• This drove a lot of debate and in the case of the presenters, also provided a significant learning. From the perspective of politicised Catalans, whose perspective on the US is not likely to be kind, a politically mute movement bringing largely socially similar people together in an occasional and idealistically driven workforce … is just that: a day in the country. The question hinged closely on another that was brought up – ‘is this something that you can talk about with others’, or, is this a socially acceptable activity. We had several chances to answer this question, from numerous angles. In essence we concluded that the lack of an explicitly ideologistic aim (no unifying banner or flag – or even flag color!; no insistence on allegiance with any formalised group or party) is a powerful selective force for the Crop Mob meme. We underlined several times that the activity, while not bucolic / utopic / politicised, is expressly ideological in nature; that underneath each and every barrow pushed or bed built lie collective forms of radical subjectivity; and that this invisible politics (c.f the Invisible Committee) is key to Crop Mob.

What is the model for growth (ie how to make sure that the movement doesn’t stop in NC?) – How can you stop people from becoming disinterested and ‘drifting away’

• We referenced the additional Mobs in Maryland / Colorado / etc; however, we also noted that there are a number of factors to bear in mind. Trace’s most recent post at Cricket Bread highlights a good example of this:

It is hard to evaluate how many people have chosen not to come back to Crop Mob.  There is no way to really measure their reaction since we are not setup to do exit interviews with every participant.  Reasons for not coming back are probably extremely variable – not feeling welcomed, the work was too hard or too easy, the weather was horrible, expectations were not met.

• Does it matter if people don’t come back? The question becomes critical through the life of the group. As activity begins, matures, and changes, peoples’ attitudes and experiences will also undergo change. As Crop Mob changes from an innovative activity to one that has fostered community and interdependencies between people and activity, it will acquire a different experience-value (use-value?). For the time being, Crop Mob works; and, critically, the notion of praxis as spontaneous action was well received and discussed by the extended group

This is nothing new … movements for agrarian reform of this type have a long local and global history

• Between 1936 and 1939, Anarchist Catalunya chose ‘a lesser evil: participation in government rather than dictatorship’ (Goldman), and associated collectivisation of land as well as other activity was a key element in the struggle against Franco. There were those in the audience who equated this with Crop Mob; little discussion was had over other, related elements altho the Argentinian factory recoveries were mentioned.

Key here was as has been stated – that Crop Mob does not, itself, assume an innovatory stance, but instead, an innovatory application. Furthermore, the existence of an increasing number of links to Transition Towns in the UK, Slow Food in Italy, UPP in France and MST in Brazil suggest a burgeoning movement that must be accorded increasing respect.