Social networking technology has contributed to the spread of a new group activity: crop mobbing. In a modern-day equivalent of barn-raising, groups of young farmers and city-dwelling locavores descend on farms to offer their labor without expectation of compensation other than a hearty meal. They focus their efforts on family-owned organic farms. Not everyone is enthusiastic about the phenomenon:
Some dismiss crop mobs as urbanites playing at farming, a hands-on variation of the popular "Farmville" Facebook game. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, history professor at Iowa State University, likened crop mobs to "agricultural tourism." "You go in, spend a nice weekend, get your fingers a little dirty. It's nice but not a significant contribution to agriculture," she said.
Supporters would vehemently disagree, noting that the experience offers networking for small farmers and an interesting experience for the "agricurious." The phenomenon began two years ago in North Carolina, and has now spread to other states.
Link. Photo: Jim Gehrz. Crop Mob website.
I didn't realize telling children where meat comes from ranks up there with telling them Santa and the Easter Bunny doesn't exist...
ANYTHING that connects us to the reality of FOOD is good.
And I for one welcome it.
Urbanites flock to the inner city, learn how to cut and package drugs, selling techniques, marketing, roughing up customers that don't pay, avoiding the cops, etc.
Of course not all dope dealers are happy about it - free labor our not, there's always some treehugger that just has to eat up all the profits.
She's wearing gloves for crying out loud .
BTW, the strawberries were delicious! Much better than store-bought (or dare I say it, even better than farmer's market strawberries!)
Sounds great to me. There's no telling how many people may have been influenced by this experience to start their own backyard gardens.
Even if it's a fad that will pass, no one is being harmed by it, so why bash it?
"You go in, spend a nice weekend, get your fingers a little dirty. It's nice but not a significant contribution to agriculture," she said. "They're taking none of the risk. Farming is something you do 365 days a year. It's enormously difficult. [Attending a crop mob] doesn't really tell you what it is like to manage on a daily basis."
I didn't get the impression that anyone was expecting to learn to run their own farm. The professor seems to have a bit of a high horse about this. (Either that or she was misinformed about the point of all this.)
I liked this quote, from a farmer:
But he liked the idea of urbanites learning about agriculture. "A lot of kids are two and three generations removed from farming," he said. "Anytime you can get somebody back in a rural setting, seeing what it takes to put food on the table -- that's great."