I wasn’t raised on a farm, my parents are not farmers, nor are any of my grandparents. I grew up comfortable and not starving; I had access to fresh fruits and vegetables and ate them regularly. I also ate fast food regularly, until my participation in a sport forbade it.

I grew up in the suburbs. Food came from the grocery store; this was not a huge revelation at first. Some people will never give thought to the fact that food comes from somewhere beyond the grocery. After returning to university after a few years’ hiatus, the concept of a food system was pointed out to me in an anthropology course taken on a whim. I became interested, passionate, possibly even obsessed with knowing exactly what I put into my body and how the production of it impacted the economy, social norms & inequities, and ecology.

It started out small: I began to cook my own meals. I forbade myself microwave dinners. On Sundays, I forced myself to chop vegetables for the whole week. I stepped up to buying organic vegetables. Then I stopped eating corn-fed beef. I tried as much as possible to avoid GMO corn and soy. After killing a bamboo, I miraculously grew some lettuce and a few sad tomatoes in cardboard boxes on my third-floor balcony (thank the various deities it was south-facing!). I began reading ingredients on food packaging. The list of things to avoid in my diet became endless: Artifical and natural flavoring. Cellulose. Aspertame. Hydrogenated oils. Modified food starch. Sucralose. Soy protein. High fructose corn syrup. TBHQ. and on and on…

However, all that was not what brought me to the realization that I wanted to be my own farmer. Before I my return to university, I had already begun to consider the myth of man vs. nature. I thought about the way ecology works vs. the way our economy works. I thought about Malthus and I thought about Locke. I thought about the cyclical nature of nature and the linear nature of capitalism. At the time, the realization was: we cannot continue to expand on a finite planet. As with many things we wish were too complicated to address, it really was just THAT simple. And that’s what brought me to farming. How? I looked around at the world, preparing as we are for the shit to hit the fan, and I asked myself, “When all else fails, what is going to be useful? What will we need to survive?” and the answer I came up with was, “Food production without outside input.” There it began.

I’m currently attending the University of Montana. Coming from Tampa, FL, I was shocked at the overabundance of resources in Missoula related to sustainable living and local food. The program I am currently in is beyond amazing, and every single professor in my department is not only well-respected in her/his field, but each one is also a living model of practice-what-you-preach. I’ve been volunteering for organizations that support both of my passions of good food and social justice. Missoula is a great place to learn, but I wholeheartedly believe that the future of agriculture and its role in social change will take place in densely urban areas. At the very least, I find that every day I’m leaning my own future in agriculture more toward an urban setting.

I am currently buried deeply in the process of educating myself: sustainable living is affected by endless schools of study. In the past four years, I’ve found myself studying social justice, chemistry, carpentry, botany, folk lore, communication, psychology, marketing, statistics, agriculture, politics, urban planning, GIS, and education (to name a few). I am also making plans for a future with some of my closest friends, and figuring out what exactly that means.