Crop Mob

"… You find that there’s nothing like picking rocks out of fields to bring people together," says Rob Jones in a New York Times piece by Christine Muhlke (2/28/10). Rob is founder of the Crop Mob, a merry band of "pop-up farmers" who band together to help "small, sustainable farms" do whatever needs to be done: "mulching, building greenhouses and pulling rocks out of fields." So far the Crop Mob has helped a total of 21 farms in the Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham area in North Carolina, donating a total of about 2,000 hours.

The idea originated "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 draw 40 to 50 volunteers." Most of the volunteer farmers are young and don’t have farms of their own, but the events help give them an inside track on "internships, learn about affordable land and find potential dates."

Trace Ramsey, a farmer who has benefitted from the Crop Mob, sees an explosion of interest in farming among young people. "People are interested in authentic work," he says. "I think they’re tired of what they’ve been told they should accomplish in their lives and they’re starting to realize that it’s not all that exciting or beneficial from a community perspective or an individual perspective." For the farmers, it solves a big problem, too — not only in terms of the free labor, but also the social aspects. Rob Jones thinks the idea could spread to gardening, even to cities, since "anywhere there’s dirt, a community can grow."