Memories of the Crisis

Abstract

Memories of the Crisis Denise O’Brien (bio) I have been and probably always will be an activist, a person who sees a problem and wants to fix it. It is hard to know where that came from, but it definitely is who I am. Today I farm fulltime on ten acres of land. I raise fruits and vegetables for a sixty member Community Supported Agriculture (csa)—people pay a membership at the beginning of the growing season and then receive a share of the farm’s produce for a specific number of weeks throughout the growing season. My farming extends beyond physical work to include teaching my community about food and nutrition and mentoring eager beginning farmers on the intricacies of farming and farm activism. Throughout my farming career I have been involved with social activism, ranging from raising women’s voices in agriculture to developing policy on many levels to change the abusive dominant model of agribusiness. As I reflect on my lifetime commitment to such advocacy, changing an unfair world to treat people and the earth with dignity and respect, it is apparent that the most important priorities in life are family and community—family being those immediately around me, my husband Larry Harris, my children and now my grandchildren; community being where I live and grew up, the earth, and the world community of agriculture. I have always worked for the public good, a task that has been difficult at times when the pressure is to be inward and, in my opinion, selfish. My activism started with protesting the Vietnam War when I was young and impressionable. The people I was involved with taught me many things about social justice. At the same time I was involved in the “back to the land” movement—seeking refuge in nature from the atrocities of war and the social inequities that spurred the civil rights and women’s rights movements. I was a sponge during this time of my life, absorbing everything [End Page 51] Click for larger view View full resolution On February 27, 1985, nearly fifteen thousand people from twenty states attended the National Crisis Action Rally in Ames, Iowa. Held at the Hilton Coliseum on the Iowa State University campus, the rally focused on developing federal farm policies and strategies in anticipation of the 1985 Farm Security Act. Courtesy of the Farwell T. Brown Photographic Archive, Ames Public Library, Iowa. [End Page 52] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 53] possible and experiencing life to its fullest. This was also an incredibly fun time in my life, meeting people I had never or would never come in contact with living in rural Iowa. All of these experiences came together when I returned to Iowa in the mid-1970s and fell in love with and married Larry Harris, a local guy who decided to change the world by farming organically. Memories of the Farm Crisis My husband Larry Harris and I got married and started farming together in 1976. We were on the way to becoming organic farmers. In 1975 Larry returned to the farm on which he was raised to farm with his father and uncle. I had been living in northern Vermont and had recently returned home to take care of my ailing mother. Larry and I started to farm and raise a family. We took a different path than mainstream agriculture and planted “alternative” crops—strawberries, raspberries, apple trees, and asparagus along with the traditional corn and soybeans. Both Larry and I had been moved by the fuel crisis of the early 1970s and by the establishment of Earth Day. With that in mind we set out to live a simple life of living off the land and deemphasizing consumerism. During the late 1970s and early ’80s we began to meet people through our food-buying club and through Democratic party politics. Within a fifty-mile radius of our farm, we established friendships with people who were interested in politics, farm policy, alternative energy, and organic farming. Not all of us were farmers, but we were seeking to make our world a better place by participating in the democratic process. Our...