{Confessions of a Crop Mobber}
By Kimberly Coburn
One afternoon, I received urgent notification that a friend’s cow had wandered away from her farm. Without hesitation, I took action: I logged onto Farmville, rectified the situation, and spent the next 20 minutes harvesting virtual fruits and collecting eggs from pixilated chickens.
With all due respect to Farmville and its aficionados, it’s an upside-down world where our urges to reconnect with the land are fulfilled through a computer game. But where does a girl who couldn’t tell a pea shoot from pigweed get “back to basics?”
Luckily, fate stepped in. I read an article about a group of young, landless, wannabe farmers in North Carolina called Crop Mob. The idea was simple enough: sustainable farming requires more manpower, so a community of volunteers gets together for a day to tackle some of the bigger chores, share a meal, get to know one another, and maybe learn a thing or two.
THAT was what I was looking for! I eagerly contacted the North Carolina Crop Mobbers to see if we could start a group here in Georgia. They graciously acquiesced and, in less than a day and with help from some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, Facebook became a tool to help facilitate actual farming and Crop Mob Atlanta was born.
The support from Day One was staggering. Future mobbers showed up at our April (2010) kickoff meeting excited about the idea and eager to get their hands dirty. In addition to taking Atlanta’s culinary scene by storm, Miller Union graciously offered to donate their cooking skills on site for our mobs each month. You could have knocked me over with a feather when we saw how quickly the group coalesced into a real force for Georgia farmers.
So far we’ve had nearly a dozen successful mobs amounting to over 1,500 hours of hard work. Don’t be fooled, though — it’s not all sweat and sore muscles. We’ve also swam in rivers, hiked, explored, made up songs, jammed out, learned brilliant farming techniques, eaten a truly astounding amount of delicious food, and forged some solid friendships.
So, if you get that itching to play in the dirt, see where your food comes from, help out farmers who are working hard to produce clean food, meet fantastic people and share a meal, or just need to tear yourself away from Farmville — come to a mob.
Although, these days, helping my friends recover their wayward livestock is a bit more challenging.
Find out more about Crop Mob Atlanta on Facebook, Twitter (CropMobATL), or by visiting www.CropMobATL.com.