Hello and good afternoon. To the members of the Eau Claire community who came today to hear me speak, I stand before you today humbled and grateful for your willingness to simply show up. I am thrilled to be speaking to you on midterm election day, considering the subject matter of this presentation. My community building organization, New Moon Advocacy, seeks to facilitate mutually educational interactions between local Wisconsin farmers and millennials to increase civic behaviors and promotes organic, regenerative farming as a vehicle for sustainable change and social justice.

You may be asking yourselves, “What in the world do those things have to do with one another?” and “What does this young lady know about anything?” While it may not seem like I am capable and experienced, I am here to prove that we all have a warrior inside of us, a warrior that is waiting for a chance to act. Despite the United States governments’ hesitance to act on climate change issues, the science community agrees: climate change impacts are increasing in frequency and volatility, and the threat to our ability to grow and distribute food is becoming alarmingly clear. I want to help you visualize all the changes that we can enact if you support the efforts of New Moon Advocacy; it is imperative that young people become educated and engaged with food, democracy and all opportunities to create change. Our businesses, the people in our community, and the planet will all benefit if we can come together to fight for sustainability.

My path towards sustainable activism is as crooked and winding as a country stream. It all started when my family moved to Wisconsin from North Carolina when I was little, and I grew up on our small dairy farm. As soon as I was old enough to walk, I was in the barn with my family, helping with any chores that I could. Whether it was struggling to carry a bucket of water for the calves, sloshing all over my shirt and down my legs, or sitting on the top of a full load of hay and pushing bales down to my mom so she could load them on the elevator, I was always looking to get involved. Summer was the best time of all: no school, fresh vegetables from the garden, the smell of hay in the humid Wisconsin air.

As a lifelong enjoyer of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, my favorite day was spent with my mom, getting up early to pick pounds of strawberries to make jelly for the year. My fingers might be stained for a few days, but the taste of summer visited me every time I made a PB&J. The simple magic of this transition from field to jar affirmed what I saw every day on the farm: our connection to the land and intimacy with our food makes life richer.
We can no longer ignore that most of us don't truly know where our food comes from, and until we relearn how to navigate this part of the human experience, we cannot hope to preserve the ritual which unites and delights us all: eating. The proliferation of industrial farms stems from a malignant human desire to control nature and feed the world, and modern agriculture is designed around that concept. Mass production, supply chains, and grocery stores all provide Americans with convenience, choice, and a life without manual labor. But the unintended consequences of this growing gap between our food and ourselves are starting to reveal themselves.

A quick look inside anyone's fridge would tell you a lot of personal things about them, but it's also a window into the corrupt and unhealthy industrial food system. Today, Americans experience a wealth of food choices, almost all which lend themselves to pandemic health crises, social injustice across the globe, and a systemic movement to undermine those on both ends of the life cycle of our food. As a society, we can no longer ignore that most of us don't know where our food comes from and don't know the extent of the impact that the convenience of our food has had on the planet, communities and the worldwide economy. The organic food and farming movement has been attempting to address all the negative impacts of climate change and corporate takeover of the food system, but without more organized and creative support, it will continue to only create minimal impact.

Like most farmers in Wisconsin, my family used what is called “conventional” farming methods, including nitrogen fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. The chemical and seed companies have long indoctrinated conventional farmers, and a high level of trust ensures farmers continue buying their products and services. Negative impacts from these methods are exacerbated by climate change and include the loss of important soil microbe life due to rampant pesticide use, antibiotics in our meat from use in overcrowded corporate feedlots, and a public health crisis from the consumption of corn byproducts in processed food including obesity, diabetes and wide array of gastrointestinal disorders. Capitalist desires have slowly overtaken the culture of agriculture communities and transformed them into cogs in the machine of a profit-driven industry. Corporate farms are getting bigger every year, yet small family farms struggle to survive in the face of rising input costs and falling markets. Banks will only lend money to small farmers if they expand their enterprise by adding acres or livestock, and most are not comfortable taking on the debt.

To give you a sense of the detriment being done to small enterprises, a recent report shows that in August alone, the state of Wisconsin lost 49 dairy farms, most of them belonging to families. This means that as many children or more will not grow up with the knowledge of what it truly takes to steward the land and nurture animals for the sake of our nourishment and the continuance of life as we know it. This means that another piece of land will fall under corporate ownership, be farmed with conventional methods, and the continuation of the status quo remains in place.

After getting my degree in 2008, I moved to a large city smack in the middle of the worst economic crisis in years, and I spent almost a decade working in mental health institutions and struggling with my physical, mental and emotional health issues. My health was so deteriorated that I had to think about the sustainability of my own life. If I was so depleted of energy, how would I be able to help my group home clients live their fullest lives effectively? Why was so much of my energy expended from trying to fit myself into the corporate model of the perfect, efficient and detached staff member when in fact human connection nurtures us? In this way, I feel that the struggle of farmers and the struggle of my millennials generation have a lot in common. Currently, more millennials live below the poverty level than ever before, most of whom hold degrees and are burdened with student loan debt. They are also the least politically active group for their size, and the story of the last presidential election tells the story not of who voted but who didn’t vote at all. This civic apathy is part of why millennials are struggling, and also contributes indirectly to how the food system and farmers are failing as well.

Reeling from my professional and personal crisis, I called my parents and asked if I could come back to the farm to start a new life. In that moment of astonishing clarity, I chose to pursue balance in my life, and that was the start of my sustainable journey. I had not become a famous anthropologist, but all my observations and experiences would eventually lend themselves to another important decision. I would have never imagined that as the moment which changed everything, but it was that exact point in time that created a whole new trajectory for my life, therefore opening me up to taking on the sustainability challenge. The realization of my failure within one system allowed me to change the system within which I exist so that I could leverage my personality, professional skills and passion for social justice to create and sustain change.

My focus became to get a better job, one which fit in ways all the others had not. I worked with a career counselor, took a lot of tests about my personality and professional qualities, and tried my best to make the most of my fresh start. Then the residents of the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota started their protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and from miles away, through multiple social media channels, their message mobilized me. I felt their call for social justice as keenly as I felt my call to action, and I began to see how sustainability of our Earth and our communities is the ultimate social justice.

At the same time, I was reawakened by the simple experiences of gardening and cooking again with my mother, and watching my father tend the fields. Through the increase in popularity of streaming services like Netflix, I was able to watch countless documentaries which only served to strengthen my resolve that something was very wrong in our food system. Reforming the global food system needs to begin at home, but we have all become so disconnected from nature even while existing within it that we don’t know how to start unraveling the complexities of our problem.
Here in Wisconsin, whether you live in a metropolitan or rural area, the importance and proximity of agriculture make this an ideal place to reconnect with nature. Despite the decline in the number of sole proprietorship farming enterprises, those who remain are isolated, and I can personally attest that they would welcome any interest in their stories as well as support in any form. Growing up on my family’s dairy farm, the natural education I received from simply bearing witness to nature’s ways was informal and all-encompassing, and there are very few people left in modern American society that enjoyed such a privilege. I was expected to help with anything I could from the time I was old enough to walk, because the farm was not only our home, it was our connection to something larger than ourselves.

New Moon Advocacy’s community building initiatives are needed to increase civic engagement to change our relationship to and involvement with the political system and the food system simultaneously. By creating opportunities for environmental education and facilitating interaction and connection between millennials and farmers, change is possible. Without political and community action, our family farms will continue to fail, corporate interests will continue to proliferate a corrupt and unhealthy food system, and our land will be unable to continue supporting communities as climate impacts increase in severity and frequency. Through the power of technology and connection, New Moon Advocacy can create real lasting sustainable change in Eau Claire County.

Eau Claire County should consider a new model for engaging its up and coming millennial population in the production of food and The city of Eau Claire, which is home to a prestigious branch of the University of Wisconsin, has spent a decade or more revitalizing the downtown in order to creating a new park and pavilion for community events (like farmers’ markets) from an industrial wasteland on the riverbank, and developing a Sustainability Work Plan. The county is already home to several community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms which also work to foster the relationship between people and their food, so we know that community stakeholders are amenable to discussions about strategic actions which further the impact of their stewardship ideals.

Through community events such as local food dinners on farms, meet and greets at coffee shops, volunteering, and promoting both natural and civic education through social media, involvement will create powerful feelings of civic duty and create momentum for change. When creating your own community-based organization using popular digital platforms to broadcast information about community events, remember to focus on telling stories. It’s not only about highlighting a problem, it’s about creating a face for the problem with which people can relate to on a human level. While technology certainly has its drawbacks, there is no reason that it cannot be a vehicle for the communication of important information as well as responsible for the propagation of new sustainable ideas.

I know that a lot of people want hard, cold facts and simple steps to follow to change their lives or to change the lives of others, but I am not here to offer that to you. The challenges brought forth by the impacts of climate change are complex and multidimensional, just like all of us, so while there may be lessons which I have learned which can be a light in the darkness as you find your path, the beauty of my advice is that you get to decide how and why to change yourself to serve humanity better.
It’s ok to admit when some of your first ideas fail- everything evolves. Tackling all the impacts of climate change through the sustainable development movement is going to take a lot of tenacious people who don’t give up the first or second or third time they must start over. By allowing myself to pivot around the central mission and vision, I was able to find a purer expression of strategy. I found that the community in which I live already possessed the tools we needed to change, and our story of change can help others mobilize to do the same.
Reading sustainability reports or statistics will only get you so far- the best way to know what’s going on is to talk to people directly, without an agenda. I had a real desire to combine my anthropology education with my sustainability initiative, and by participating and observing farmers in their environments in a neutral but supportive role, I hear a lot of stories which clarified the bigger problem. By focusing on my education and my professional development, I landed a position with a political organization which lobbies on behalf of Wisconsin property taxpayers, with a majority of its 18,000 members being agricultural producers. Because I had to cast my organic agenda aside to focus on the agenda set forth by my organization, I quickly gave up my idea of becoming a organic farming consultant, at least for now. Once I spent a few weeks talking to farmers all across the spectrum of production methods and beliefs, it was obvious that attempting to convince farmers of the value of organic production would be hard in the face of historic lows in all agriculture markets. My ability to get people to trust me enough to tell me their troubles, triumphs and just have a talk has allowed me to become my own version of Margaret Mead, out amongst the people having adventures and adding their stories to the collective of voices crying out for change.
But most of all, when attempting to create a sustainability initiative on your own, remember your roots. The things that shaped you and made you who you are, whether tangible or intangible, will be the same things which carry you through any challenges. The taste of my mom’s strawberry jam once reminded me what I had left behind, and I was lucky enough to be able to go back there. It became the start of the second journey of my life, one in which all energy is expended helping others’ become more educated, engaged and visible as changemakers. You have it in you too!