Remarks at a "Hands Off" Rally

I was asked to speak at Decorah’s “Hands Off” rally on April 5, from my perspective as a farmer. Here’s an approximation of and elaboration upon what I shared!

I am a farmer with Humble Hands Harvest. I grow delicious food for this community, and I build soil and enhance habitat while I’m at it. My farm is directly impacted by the recent federal cuts—we were delivering food to Postville with funding that has now been cancelled.

I’m joining with you all here in protest of what is happening in our country, to say NO to the billionaire takeover of our democracy and the public good. NO is a really important and powerful thing to be able to say when we feel it.

But as a farmer, my work is much more about YES. My job is to envision the future that I want, and to put in the work now to get there. I’m planting seeds now so that in 3 months, or 6 months, we’ll have delicious local food to eat.

So I wonder, what is the YES that we’re going to pair with today’s NO? I know that answer is going to be different for each of us, but I have some ideas from my perspective as a farmer. The future I want to say YES to has a resilient and thriving local food system. And since we all eat, we all get to participate in building our food system! I encourage everyone to deepen into sourcing local food, whether that’s by growing a garden, joining a CSA (there are at least 3 farms here that offer Community Supported Agriculture!), putting the Decorah Farmers Market or Iowa Food Hub online market into your routine, or buying local at the food co-op.

Speaking of co-ops, these might be my favorite way to say YES to democracy and YES to the common good! Co-ops exist to do things collectively that people wouldn’t be able to do by themselves, and they’re a really excellent way to practice democracy. I’m particularly excited about the Farmer’s Land Investment Co-op, where people are coming together to buy land collectively, and to determine the future of that land as a community. You can join us at farmersland.coop!

We’re here today in protest with our NOs, because billionaires are snatching what’s ours. My hope is that we can use these NOs to figure out what matters to us. Then I hope that we start exercising the power of YES by creating more of what matters to us on a local level.

Thanks everyone! We can do it!