I have a hard time thinking too far ahead. I think it is because I have lived long enough to realize that most things don’t ever go according to plan, so why spend too much time planning if it is all going to change. But there is that quote that says: plans are worthless but planning is everything. So, I do think about plans often despite being much more comfortable with improvising.
That being said, I am now at the halfway mark of Farm School and there is much discussion about what is next. For some, what’s next is simply taking what we have learned and applying it to their farm. But I don’t have a farm, so i will need to build everything once I graduate.
I’ve already started planting seeds of ideas. My first idea was to start this blog and lean into my old skills: marketing and public relations. I quickly saw that farmers often need professional marketing help, but it quickly revealed itself as a need without much of an opportunity. The modern age of “marketing” is comparable to the modern age of “photography” in the sense that most believe they can do it themselves and see no value in paying professionals to do it for them. I don’t begrudge this reality, like I did during my Band Promo days; instead, I accept that this is the reality things now. Accept and move on.
Part of that initial idea of farmer marketing was to create this blog as a journal of this farming journey, and a portfolio of sorts. What is most interesting to me is how things have grown and changed as I write this 84th blog posting. It reminds me of the class we had the first week of farm school when when they had us show our interest level in different farming topics. I had general interest in a lot of things. Today, a lot of those interests have fallen away or simply dried up from lack of pursuit. In the first half of Farm School, I was wide-eyed and eager to try everything. Now, I’m slowly becoming more and more focused on what is going to be my method to achieving my priorities.
So let’s talk about those priorities. I came into this with the general idea that I wanted to start farming so I could help feed more people. I have been in many organizations that were focused on helping people, but it started to feel like I was too disconnected from the impact of my work. After working as a marketer for a nonprofit hospital, I began to realize that I did not want to spend the second half of my life “helping” by working for a nonprofit. I needed to be closer to the change. Closer to the impact of my efforts.
That took me to farming, and farming is the skill set that I believe is going to enable me to help more people, but figuring out how exactly these pieces fit together is truly a challenge right now. I have ideas, like Veggie Taxi, but nothing is fully set yet. This is still very much a year of learning. Not only am I learning how to farm, but I am also learning how to connect my existing skills to farming in order to meet the existing need. It’s not as simple as it may sound, but ending food insecurity is also not as complex as it sounds. Grow food and get it into the hands of those that need it. The seeds are planted and some have germinated into stronger concepts, now it is time to plant them and help them grow.
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