Page 9 - C.A.L.L. #26 - Winter 2005/2006
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according to Albert Bates, the director, “a guest of The raw facts can be related as: The Farm begun
distinction”! I didn’t feel as much distinguished as in 1971, quickly rose to about 1200 members, and
extinguished. Ten hours on interstate highways about a decade later decollectivised and dropped
gets rid of most distinctions! This was the last day to about 250 residents.
of a Basic Design Course, and I was to open the
evening with a slide show and talk about our work My opinion on the matter looks a bit different: The
in Camphill Villages. Bill Metcalf was to follow with influence of The Farm has been, and continues to
a talk about community, and Diane Christian round be, immense. Literally thousands of people have
it all off with some remarks about the book she just passed through, some staying for years, others for
had published on community planning. We had all a few days or weeks. Many of them have been
done ten hours on interstates. We were bushed! profoundly affected by what they have experienced
there, and have gone on to do significant things in
Somehow we all managed, I got my slides in order, other places. In my case, after 10 days there in
Bill managed to get his powerpoint hooked up, and 1995, I went back to Israel, co-founded the Green
Diane spoke wonderfully. No-one noticed we were Kibbutz Group, and the Israeli Permaculture
in the last depths of total exhaustion. Association. I went on to teach Permaculture, and
write numerous articles and even a book about the
The Farm has an interesting history. Born out of subject. And I’m just one, short term and fairly
the flower power hippie thing that happened in San insignificant visitor to the place! The Farm, a
Francisco in the late 1960’s, it grew failure?
fast throughout the 1970’s, after
settling the land in Tennessee, Today The Farm is still there, it’s still
reaching well over a thousand an amazing place, it feels good, and
residents. The economy had never there are lots of good things
been great, but grew worse. The happening there. It is the focus point
initial “trust-everyone, share- and the stimulator of the Ecovillage
everything” communalism could not movement in all America. It is the
go on, it crashed, and the place was home of the Ecovillage Training
totally reorganised pretty much Centre where courses are held, and
overnight. The population dropped over the last decade, thousands of
to a couple of hundred. But life went people have been trained in practical
on, food was grown, much less now skills to do with gardening, building
with fewer mouths to feed, and and community creation. Lots of
businesses established on a sound other things have emerged from The
economic base. Individuals took Farm. The aid organisation ‘Plenty’
personal responsibility, they hired still sends funding, volunteers and
and fired each other, money was know-how off to countries and
made, livings were earned. communities in need. The Book Publishing House
carries on bringing out new books every year. The
Was this a renewal or a defeat? Was this the Birthing Centre attained national and international
inevitable withering away of the ideals of fame with its publication of Spiritual Midwifery, and
collectivism, allowing that old selfish egotism, the overwhelming success of its birthing rate after
materialism and the cult of the ego to take its helping over 1000 births in its first years. The
place? I’m sure that there are as many reactions to statistics proved that natural home birthing was
this question as those asked. For the residents of safer, more comfortable and more fun for everyone
The Farm, this was their major experience, a concerned. Another business on The Farm
watershed in their community biography. designed a Geiger counter for personal use which
is now being sold to companies and government
Measuring the success of a community is a very departments internationally, and the business is in
tricky thing. Is it merely a measure of how long the the multi million dollar bracket. The Farm has
community survives? If this is to be our yardstick supplied Greenpeace with its electronic equipment,
and as all communities seem to come to an end linking itself to what Stephen Gaskin calls “our
sometime, it seems they all fail. This is clearly hippy navy!”
nonsense, there has to be some other answer. I
think it lies in a subtle sense of their influence, we There is no doubt that The Farm has made an
need intuition, and we need opinions. impact, nationally and internationally. If we don’t
want to call it a success because it decollectivsed,
we certainly can’t call it a failure either.
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