Concerted Efforts Toward the Good

The 48th Earth Day dawned cold and moist, too wet to prepare the beds for brassica transplants. Instead, our Saturday crew worked in the greenhouse mixing buckets of organic soil blend, prepping herb flats, and cupping up tender eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and basil. Busy hands make light work; great conversation makes light work, too. Most of all, working together turns farm work into something more than work, something I would call a “concerted effort toward the good.”

Since the last election, I’ve been struggling with how best to spend my days. Farming, writing, teaching, family ties, and friendship still come to the top, but I know that’s not enough. In these terrible times, real threats to democracy and justice of all kinds face us. Resistance to greed, prejudice, and isolationism must be woven through all I do. So I wake up each morning with this directive in mind: Today, make concerted efforts toward the good.

On the first Earth Day in 1970, my fifth grade class planted a garden of flowers outside our classroom. Each year since then, I’ve tried to mark the day by doing something that gives me hope. Pollution of the planet seemed the biggest environmental threat back then, a problem that seemed surmountable if we worked hard enough to raise awareness and change public policies. Now we know that global warming and climate crisis cannot be solved in one generation’s lifetime.

Still, we have made a start and we won’t give up, even when our government’s hostility to equality and environmental protection threatens to take us backwards. Some people say the only remaining solution to ecological devastation is adaptation. Adaptation, in fact, is already taking place across many species, including our own. This doesn’t mean we can abandon other strategies. Our resistance toward the current government’s policies to reverse social justice and environmental gains is part of our continued work toward regeneration of the earth, its resources, and all the beings that create our vast planetary ecosystem.

When I think of a concert, I think of the joining together of many talents to create something larger than each can make on their own. In this way, “concerted efforts” means actions made in the company of others through collaboration within and across landscapes and ecosystems of all kinds. Where to start with these concerted efforts will depend on the view from each locale. What’s important—what’s absolutely necessary—is to start somewhere by connecting with others who share our concerns.

Spring is a time of renewal and regeneration. Snow melts and fills streams, grass turns green, and trees bud and bloom. At Stonebridge Farm, we plant crops, raise new chicks, and wait for moisture and sun to waken seeds from their winter’s sleep. In A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography, I wrote, “Seeds are generative: their work it to extend the generation of plants and the world they feed.”

With regeneration their goal, seeds surely make concerted efforts toward the good as each seed’s efforts are multiplied in kind. Like seeds, we humans must work together to extend the generation of the planet. In the struggles before us, let us be seeds.