The Crop Mob

The links:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/crop-mob-atlanta
Article detailing "Crop Mob"

http://www.cropmobatl.com/
Crop Mob's blog

Once again, my post theme is to find small examples of change that may translate into larger models of success. I found information on a group from Atlanta that calls themselves the "Crop Mob."

This group volunteers at local farms during the weekend, and may perhaps be likened to a flash mob. The founder, Kimberly Coburn, says that, “Nothing is more basic than the food we eat and we need to help people re-forge the relationship between food, land, people, and how each feeds the other.” I feel like this vision fits perfectly with the themes explored in this class. The article goes on to describe the fulfilling nature of the work, especially for those from the city.

The question is,

Are the people likely to participate in and enjoy these types of activities doing so because they are passionate about it or because it is intrinsically satisfying?

I have no experience working on a farm, so I don't have a baseline to go off of. I have no doubts that the work is immediately satisfying, but it seems like the people who are doing this are already passionate about foodways. What would prompt average citizens to partake in small movements like these?

Society is not laid out in such a way that this type of movement could expand. Farms are clustured together far from urban areas, making them impractical to travel to. To me, it seems like the farmers need to somehow move to the cities, rather than having the citygoers moving to the farmers.

The type of society where the general population helps to produce food with farmers is entirely possible, but our current framework will resist this. It's essentially like fitting a circular peg into a star shaped hole. One of the "items" needs to change drastically to cooperate with the other. Right now, farming and urban life are not in sync. I appriciate groups like Crop Mob Atlanta, and the publicity they create is powerful and progressive. I do not believe, however, that this type of movement represents the future.