What is HOMEGROWN.org?
HOMEGROWN is a celebration of the imaginative, passionate people who love to eat, grow and cook good food. HOMEGROWN is also a celebration of the pioneering ways that people live, communicate, and express themselves. A few of us at Farm Aid noticed the word homegrown popping up in lots of places: People have been using the word at farmers markets. We see people admiring the vegetables and fruits, catching the eye of the farmer, asking questions. We’ve heard the word when people talk about what they’ve cooked that’s local, or organic, or when they tell you a story about where that food came from.
Anyone who has ever patiently waited for his first crop of cherry tomatoes, or squealed gleefully upon the arrival asparagus season is HOMEGROWN. Anyone who has ever over-bought at a farmers market, only to make a dazzling dish from it all is HOMEGROWN. There are plenty of people out there who are making their mark in the world using their hands, hearts and the gifts from the earth, and we call ourselves HOMEGROWN. We want to separate ourselves from industrialized living by doing as much of what we do ourselves.
HOME is safety, warmth, welcome, comfort, psychic renewal, connection. Love. GROWN means waiting for things to mature. Anticipation. We might feel awe at the process of relentless change, toward delicious, healthy food. Amazement we are utterly dependent on soil, water, sun and a seed—and hard work and good luck for our survival. It’s an invisible thread, from the apple in your hand, to the farmer who tended the orchard, to the sturdy tree, to the soil where it’s digging in roots, connecting us to nature.
HOMEGROWN.org is a place for HOMEGROWN folks to gather, and It’s a place that will be defined by the folks who gather there. Won’t you be a part of it?
