Community?

I’ve been thinking about community and what it means to me lately. I have been called a community educator. I’d maybe prefer being called someone who has established a community learning center on her farm.  Does the farm day group constitute a small community?  Maybe. Some of the participants tell me it does. That is encouraging.

I’m not alone in wondering. Many of us in the United States are not sure what a sense of community is. When I was young, back in Ohio, I had some sense of community. The South End. The Church. Neighbors and friends.  Vague for sure.  Inherent in the search for “community” are parochialism, racism, and misogyny, all masquerading as regionalism and as community.

Many people have been scarred by joining totalist spiritual communities and many have experienced brutal politics tearing down their efforts to build community. Personal politics among communities of practice, including within the intentional community movement, have soured some people on the possibility of creation of any strong, supportive, and encouraging sense of community; even the sadness that emanates from deeply dysfunctional family groups leads many people to despair of ever finding any life-affirming sense of community.

Centuries of hyper-individualism have caused many Americans to mistrust or to not know how to touch any true sense of community. Those who may have lifestyles conducive to more interdependence (e.g., farmers, ranchers) sometimes end up settling for a shallow kind of community. There has been a bleak side to the American agrarian ideal which has been not only racist and ethnocentric, but exploitative of minorities, women and children.

Some are able to forge a sense of community that is deeper, more meaningful, and resilient. Indigenous and traditional communities around the world may be beset by similar problems, although, in general, their lifeways may be the world’s best models for people living sustainably with the land and in community.

Maybe people could begin a movement toward community by examining what their local cultural commons are, how to access them, and how to encourage their maintenance. We could begin by investigating racist, sexist, ageist, classist, ethnocentric, or other exclusionary or prejudicial elements that exist in our cultural commons.  For me, that would begin with the farm day events.

More to follow…

An Earth Day gathering

Quick-built adobe oven by farm day community group.

Frame-building together

Recipe for a farm-based learning center

Working Principles for Farm-based Pedagogy

(1) Begin with children and teens.

We have discovered in this research that memories from early years with gardening/farming seem to lead to life-long interest in caring for the local environment and a strong sense of embodiment in nature (Cajete, 1994; Louv, 2008). Learning “the language of nature,” which includes the language of creating sustainable local food systems, may be acquired in ways that are not dissimilar to learning any spoken human language. In fact, the language of nature is best learned by people in ways that they acquire most knowledge: in social and cultural context and in the context of their own natural environments (Cajete, 1994; Rogoff; 2003; Rogoff & Lave, 1999). While I feel it is important to begin with children and teenagers, I am certainly not saying that socioecological intelligences cannot be developed and fostered in adults.  Farm/garden pedagogy is an intergenerational process.

(2) Maintain a collaborative process.

As this research has shown, farm pedagogy thrives in situations of strong and committed collaboration, imbued with deep listening and respectful dialogue. Remain open to diversity: in people, in crops, in farm practice, and in learning topics and strategies. Trust people who are working in an environment of mutual respect to solve problems skillfully and creatively (Bohm, 1996a, 1996b; Freire, 2000; hooks, 1994, 2000, 2003; Vella, 1994).

(3) Remember that socioecological learning in farm pedagogy is, at its best, an intergenerational endeavor.

All ages, from children to older adults, have something to add and much to learn from one another (Armstrong, 2005; Bateson, 2010; Wheatley, 2007; Peña, 2005). People have always learned best in multi-age groups in community (Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff & Lave, 1999). Farm pedagogy is ideal for this kind of learning toward sustainable food systems.

(4) Find your garden/farm space and genuinely observe it.

Garden/farm pedagogy may take place anywhere: it may take place on rural acreage as this research did; likewise, it may be accomplished in the suburbs, the exurbs, or an urban setting – perhaps especially urban centers (Waters, 2008). Before you begin any farm/garden pedagogy, it is wise to get to know your land. Sit with it and listen to it. This is the way that sustainable food systems have been developed for millennia (Anderson, 1996).

(5) Allow for incremental growth.

Learn patience with your land and with yourself as a gardener or farmer. Some land has been deeply disturbed and it may take time to reestablish land health. Some land is inherently more difficult to work with than other pieces of land. Rainshadow Farm was a challenging piece of land, churned up by bulldozers to build the farm house and in a harsh and semi-arid locale. In difficult circumstances, if you do not want to resort to use of chemical amendments, it may take up to ten years to develop healthy soil for food production. As you “compose your landscape” keep agrobiodiversity in mind; use your garden and farm margins to encourage biodiversity (Janke, 2002, pp. 209-219; Lockyer & Veteto, forthcoming). Remember to add livestock mindfully; do not be in a hurry. These are living beings deserving of respect and mindful care. In any situation it is no shame to start small. Good things can take time to grow. Do not be afraid to start small. People can learn a great deal from growing even a single tree (Fukuoka, 1978; Smith, 1950).

(6) Expect difficulties but stay the course.

Learn to view difficulties as challenges that can move you along in local knowledge and can bring you, if you exercise patience and determination, to the next step. Apply patience and compassion to yourself, to those working with you, and to the land you are working with. Valuing people in all of their diversity, valuing the natural world as the matrix we exist within, and valuing all communities of life, not just the human, is integral to overcoming our difficulties. Deeply respectful and participative dialogue and an extradisciplinary approach, along with the idea of “presencing,” may help with creative problem solving and may help the movement in a group from chaos back to a new level of order (Bohm, 1996a, 1996b; Senge, et al., 2004, Wheatley, 2007; also see Chapter V).

(7) Form a core group.

Just as a farm-based learning center may be a hub of activity for a regional community, the pedagogical project will thrive with a core of dedicated people at its hub (Sayre & Clark, 2001).

(8) Learn to recognize your attributes and challenges: personally, as a group, and within your garden/farm environment.

Our learning ecologies took place on a very small-scale farm in a marginal and semi-arid environment; however, garden and farm learning may be adapted to any bioregion. Collaboratively designed workshops may take a variety of forms, depending upon what the people in the region feel is important to learn to build toward more self-sufficiency and more sustainable food systems (Cleveland & Soleri, 1991; Traina & Darley-Hill, 1995; Waters, 2008).

(9) Always remember that there are no sustainable food systems without socially just food systems, from seed to field to market to table.

When farmers and farmworkers are treated unjustly and do not receive adequate compensation or sufficient respect for the important work they do, the entire food system is thrown off. To call a food system sustainable means that all people are able to obtain safe and wholesome and sufficient food regardless of their incomes; also they are able to actively participate in food policy-making.  In addition, justice in food systems includes understanding that deep systemic problems cause the current food system to leave poor people and farmworkers, particularly undocumented farmworkers underserved and frequently maltreated (Chavez, 1998; Guthman, 2004, 2008; Peña, 2005).

(10) Be sure to have fun! Socialize as much as you work; this helps build a strong community of practice.

An overly austere or puritanical approach has generally never led to compassionate, sustainable societies. Rather, taking a positive approach in which people discover that they can build meaning into their lives and help others seems to encourage actions that promote social well-being and ameliorate tendency toward destructive actions. This has been demonstrated in classroom and community settings (Goleman, 2004, 2009; Krishnamurti, 1953; Maser, 1999; Montuori, 2008).

(11) Always remember that farm pedagogy is an ongoing process. It will never be a completed project.

What occurred at Rainshadow Farm emerged bit by bit through exploration through an iterative process. Coherence emerged from the inside out, certainly not from the top down. Change was not a problem; change was part of how the learning ecologies and learning relationships developed.

What Rainshadow Farm has done for participants

• 100% say the program at Rainshadow Farm changed or enhanced their attitudes about food, sustainable drylands agriculture, and sustainable food systems.
• 100% say they care more about where their food comes from now.
• 80% either are now or plan to incorporate more fruits and vegetables in their diets.
• 100% say they have begun or want to begin planting their own gardens, appropriately sized to their living spaces.
• 95% say they plan to buy more locally sourced foods and grow some of their own.
• 50% are interested in raising and eating their own meat.
• 100% have become interested in ethical meat production, largely through a partnered local organic farm and a Rainshadow Farm group member’s ranch.
• 100% are more comfortable interacting with new people and more open to new experiences due to the farm day activities and workshops.
• 100% have enjoyed working collaboratively.
• 43% felt that there were no drawbacks to working in collaborative workshops and that “trusting the group process” and taking that process seriously, with intent to hear all voices, would bring a viable result in our work.
• 58% had concern that political and religious differences could bring  disharmony to the collaborative workshop organizing, yet 100% of this group felt optimistic, from our experience at Rainshadow Farm, that such discord could be solved in the end.
• 92% feel that the collaborative work at Rainshadow Farm has increased their capacity as leaders in an experiential learning situation. This held true even among people who may not have viewed themselves as “leaders” prior to taking part in the learning ecologies
• 92% feel that experiential learning is the most effective way to generate socioecological awareness and foster sociological intelligences.
• 100% say the program of workshop-building and participation at Rainshadow Farm has enhanced their sense of how we are all related to the natural world.
• 100% of the learning ecology organizers and participants felt that one of the most important factors in making the workshop organizing and implementation successful was “having fun.

  

  Quick-built Adobe Oven

  Often, in modern Western education, the deep and evolutionary value of oral teaching and learning (including, gestural teaching and learning as in storytelling, dance, and communal visual arts) has been ignored, perhaps in ways that damage human relationship with their environments and impoverish our relationships with one another. Ways of including oral teaching and learning at Rainshadow Farm have included making time for people to tell their stories, which are all beneficial to all of us. People then take time to listen to and give value to each other’s stories, and this helps build relationship. We are beginning to incorporate cultural and eco-cultural workshops at the farm to further encourage oral communication. We also have emphasized interacting directly with elements of nature; interactions with animals and other people; emphasized the importance of reflective learning; and taken time to talk to one another about gardening/farming experiences. One of the Rainshadow Farm research co-participants likes to say that “farm talk is a leveler,” indicating that it is one way we have overcome various disagreements during our farm day events. While a lecture format is one way of passing down oral tradition, in a farm setting we have the freedom to engage with both brief lecture and more experiential means of conveying knowledge.

  The farm day group, as a whole, was somewhat interested in the place of the arts in an experiential,  farm-based collaborative curriculum.  In general, the Rainshadow Farm group, at any given time,  has consisted of 25% artists: graphic artists of all kinds, dancers, musicians, and performance artists. The artists have been interested in ways that any form of art might be a doorway to community-building and to fostering socioecological intelligences. Several Rainshadow Farm co-participants want to bring more emphasis to “cultural sustainability” as sustainability learning. If re-skilling is a tool for restoring localization and bringing the production of food, energy, and essential goods closer to home, there is a role for local artists to play in the process. The arts – including visual, performance, and musical arts – are as essential for fostering and building thriving local communities as the ability to grow food ecologically, local ethnobotany, and innovative drylands growing practices.

Re-skilling activities and workshops

What some local people are interested in doing on the farm. This is the original list, created by the Rainshadow Farm Collaborative Group:

• How to grow a garden in the high desert
• How to grow and use herbs
• How to ecologically harvest herbs and regional plants
• Backyard chickens and goats
• Beekeeping in the high desert
• How to milk goats and make cheese
• Help with zoning regulations
• Composting
• Carpentry, farm and garden related or otherwise
• Practical adobe construction, including building an adobe oven.
• Building a safe and useful firepit
• Bike and auto mechanics and repair
• Culinary skills including breadmaking, making tortillas and other flatbreads.
• Healthful and affordable cooking including vegetarian and vegan cooking
• Transformation of vegan and vegetarian cooking into various cultural food traditions.
• How to make soap and candles.
• Alternative power generation
• Biodiesel and conversion of autos
• Community education nights – films, speakers, local farmers, and discussion with dinner.
• How to advertize and market products
• Clothing swap
• Book swap
• Fabric swap
• Knitting and crocheting
• Putting up (canning)
• Organizing local seed saving and sharing
• Plant-based fabrics
• Fabric arts
• Visual Arts
• Decorative arts including flower arranging
• Tactile Arts like sculpture, wood carving, stone carving, plaster molding
• Calligraphy from various cultural traditions
• Japanese tea ceremony
• Performance Art including Storytelling: cultural stories have been suggested including Sufi storytelling and musical tales, Native American stories, stories from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, old Europe (“fairy tales”), Latin American traditional tales, and other storytelling including contemporary stories. This list is not comprehensive: these are suggestions by collaborative group members who have experience with these traditions that they would be willing to share with the community.
• Learning another language
• Music from a variety of traditions
• Construction of musical instruments
• Dance
• Martial arts
• Archery
• Eco-art
• How to deliver a baby (animal or human)
• Rainshadow Farm Café!!! (Bonnie’s Brainstorm – what a concept!)

Since this list was created, we have accomplished many of these workshops. Many more have been added.

Working together.

agroliteracy and re-skilling

I am becoming more and more interested in the aspects of agroliteracy that emphasize the “cultural.” People seem to be very interested in re-skilling that includes not only how to grow food in a semi-arid region, but also includes a variety of practical and expressive skills.  Along with wanting to know how to grow a family garden, how to grow and use herbs, how to harvest wild regional foods (yes, there are some in the Mojave Desert!), how to raise chickens and goats, how to compost, how to raise bees for local honey — people I have talked to want to learn skills like carpentry and other construction skills, breadmaking, canning or “putting up” as my aunts used to say, bicycle and auto repair, cooking and various ARTS!  Some people turn to youtube to learn some of these skills, or visit various great websites with detailed descriptions, but there is nothing like learning in community that is face-to-face.

I am also interested in seeing how to incorporate workshops on skills like these  learning ecologies on my micro-farm.  In addition, I am thinking about including workshops on the almost-lost art of story-telling (more on that later), music (maybe even construction of musical instrumetns, eventually), dance, visual arts, fabric arts, all kinds of arts!

My vision for the southern Mojave is an interconnected mosaic of regional  household gardens, human-scale farms and ranches that desire to work together for the basic human right to healthy food while advancing social, agricultural, and environmental justice.  This can all be done anywhere with some community organizing, a movement toward place-based thinking, and a relational outlook toward the community of all beings.