Crop Mobs Bring Communities Together to Help Small Farms

Groups known as "crop mobs" are working together to help farmers tackle big jobs for free.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on August 23 2010

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Back in the pioneer days, a family’s friends and neighbors would all work together for free to help build a barn.

It may seem like that spirit of generosity died out long ago—but, thanks to social networking services like Facebook, such collaborative volunteering activities are coming back in a new form: crop mobs.

In crop mobs, a group of urban volunteers break away from their city in order to spend a full day working for free at a local farm once every month. They do everything from composting to pulling weeds to collecting chicken eggs. The work may not be glamorous, but it provides them with valuable insight into how their food is produced—and, for the farmers, who might otherwise spend months tackling the same project, the crop mobbers are a godsend.

“To find there’s a bunch of people who want to help on a farm is amazing,” Chris Wimmer, a small-scale farmer from Missouri who recently received help from a crop mob, told USA Today. “People have been really working. I’m overwhelmed with their support.”

Want to be a part of a crop mob and save the day for a local farmer? You’ll find active crop mobs all over the United States, from North Carolina to Seattle to New York City, and everywhere in between. Check out this Google maps mashup to find the Crop Mob group nearest you.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, General Interest,

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