What's Happening On The Farm?
A Vegetarian Community in Rural Southern Tennessee
BY DEBRA WASSERMAN
I finally had an opportunity to visit The Farm, a vegetarian community in rural Southern Tennessee. Some of you may be familiar with The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook or Tofu Cookery, two of the many vegetarian books published by The Book Publishing Company located on The Farm. Others may have eaten Ice Bean, one of the first soy ice creams to appear in health food stores. Ice Bean was first produced on The Farm in its Soy Dairy and later bought out by a larger company. And some readers may know that The Farm is in the forefront of advocating home births and the use of midwives, promoting Native American rights, developing solar energy technology, and even encouraging poor farmers to grow Shitake mushrooms. These activities and many more are occurring on The Farm today.
Situated on over 1,700 acres in Summertown, Tennessee, The Farm is home to many vegetarian families. The community first formed in 1971 as a commune. Several hundred "hippies" boarded old school buses in California and made the trek to rural Tennessee. Originally their plan was to live off the land; however, few of them had any real farming experience (many had grown up in cities) and they soon realized that they did not know how to survive off the land. In fact, today there are a small orchard and vineyard and many large organic gardens maintained by families, but there is no large-scale organic farming.
By the mid-1980's The Farm community members decided that it was in their best interest financially to mandate that each family be responsible for its own income. (The land on which The Farm is situated still is communally owned.) When this change was initiated many people living on The Farm decided to leave, since they were unable to figure out how to earn a living in rural Southern Tennessee.
The families that remained have had to be quite creative. Remember, this is a very poor area in the United States. Other than a nearby Saturn Car Company plant and some fast food restaurants, there is really not much employment opportunity in this area. Indeed, the most pressing issue on The Farm today is how to create more job opportunities for the children and anyone else wanting to live on The Farm. The nearest city is Nashville, about an hour and a half drive each way.
For a while many individuals on The Farm began doing construction work in nearby towns. Some still do this type of work. Others started small businesses on The Farm, including a tie-dye clothing operation, a grocery store that offers many vegetarian items, a private school that has won many awards from the state of Tennessee for outstanding performance by its students, a vegetarian deli offering items such as soysage, plus many other enterprises, some of which I will now describe in detail.
THE BOOK PUBLISHING COMPANY
Cynthia and Robert Holzapfel are key players in the operation of The Book Publishing
Company (a Farm community-owned business) and co-owners of the Mail Order Catalog,
which offers books (many with a vegetarian theme) to the public. The Book Publishing
Company predates The Farm in that it first started in San Francisco, California.
Their first published book was Monday Night Class, which consisted of a
compilation of Steven Gaskin's talks. Gaskin was then a professor at San Francisco
State and later became the "leader" of The Farm community when it began.
I spoke at length with Cynthia Holzapfel and she told me that they set up a press on The Farm so as to have the freedom to say what they wanted to say. Indeed, their second book called Hey Beatnik, published in 1974, was about the people living on The Farm. In 1975 The Book Publishing Company produced its first vegetarian cookbook called The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. This book not only encouraged vegetarian eating, but also promoted a vegetarian lifestyle. And in 1976 they published Spiritual Midwifery which advocates home births and the use of midwives.
Today The Book Publishing Company has several full-time and part-time employees. It certainly is one of the most successful businesses located on The Farm. Cynthia and Bob Holzapfel took over management of The Book Publishing Company in 1985. With hard work and excellent co-workers, they have highly developed this business. Most of the books published today are written by authors who do not live on The Farm, but obviously share the community's values. Since this company is community-owned, there is an editorial board of directors which reviews manuscript offers. The company is primarily interested in two areas — one being lifestyle-oriented including vegetarianism, ecology, and alternative health, and the other being Native American-oriented, with books written by Native Americans so as to keep their culture alive and allow them to speak with their own voices.
In 1993 The Book Publishing Company produced twelve books — reaching a goal they first set in 1985. By all means, this is a huge accomplishment for the company since only two years ago they were producing an average of four books per year, and not long before that they were publishing only one book per year. Today about 75% of their books fall under the vegetarian lifestyle category. (Some books are offered in Vegetarian Journal's Catalog.)
When I asked Cynthia if she noticed any new trends related to vegetarian book publishing she quickly said yes — the need for low-fat cookbooks. She hears from many 50- to 60-year-old-women whose husbands' doctors have told them to drastically change their diet and as a result they are looking for low-fat vegetarian recipes, especially ones using meat analogs or alter-natives. Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP), gluten, tofu, tempeh and other meat substitutes are right up their ally.
Cynthia said that the market for vegetarian books is definitely growing despite the poor national economy. After all, she believes that nutritious and inexpensive food is recession-proof. Her motivation is not to change someone's beliefs, but rather to change their activity or actions, which in turn will lead to changed beliefs. She strongly believes in what Gandhi advocated — lead by example. In fact, Cynthia says she is for something, not against something, when she promotes vegetarianism. Cynthia personally became vegetarian because she felt that more people could be fed if we were all vegetarian. In her opinion the United States sets standards for other people around the world, eating habits included.
According to Cynthia, protest is important to make change, but you must also be tolerant of people's differences. Individuals on The Farm come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have learned to tolerate one another's views. In fact, Cynthia says that, "there are gray areas where we argue all the time — for example, should we allow fishing in our pond?" (Not everyone living on The Farm today is a strict vegetarian and they do not force their children to be vegetarian.)
All the employees of The Book Publishing Company live on The Farm. No one has had formal training in publishing, and yet the company is certainly quite successful today. Readers who would like to receive a catalog from The Mail Order Catalog Company which distributes books published by The Book Publishing Company, as well as other publishers (including The Vegetarian Resource Group) can call (888) 260-8458 to request a catalog.
MUSHROOM PEOPLE
Mushroom People is another business located on The Farm. It, too, was created to
establish employment on the land, as well as to stop deforestation of all the
hillsides surrounding The Farm. The clear-cutting of trees right up to The Farm's
borders was being done by paper companies clearing oak woods to make way for pine
plantations. Some was being done by small farmers who needed additional income or
who had plans to clear their land for housing subdivisions. In any case, Mushroom
People felt that by encouraging the production of Shiitake Mushrooms and showing the
financial benefits that come with this industry, farmers would realize that they
need a healthy forest to produce the mushrooms and would stop clear-cutting. The
Mushroom People have gone out of their way to encourage and teach rural Tennessee
farmers in their area how to grow Shiitake mushrooms. To an extent, they've been
successful.
This particular company also began off The Farm in 1976. A gentleman named Bob Harris started the company in California and later sold it to Albert Bates who now runs the company on The Farm. Mushroom People does not actually grow Shiitake mushrooms, rather they produce a spawn medium needed to grow the mushrooms on logs.
Albert Bates is an environmental lawyer and spends a great deal of his time doing legal work to protect our environment. Albert told me that the logs he uses on which to grow the spawn come from trees that are growing under taller trees, which would eventually die due to lack of sunlight. Albert's motto is "Having Your Trees and Eating Them Too."
Mushroom People employs youngsters living on The Farm on a part-time basis, depending on the season. Their busiest time of year is during the winters from November through April. During this time logs are cut and then inoculated. Fresh-cut logs must be used for the process to work. Unfortunately it will not work in live trees.
Albert agrees that more and more varieties of mushrooms are showing up on supermarket shelves. He says that it's much easier to grow Shiitake mushrooms than the commonly found button mushrooms. He believes the demand for Shiitake mushrooms will continue to grow as more and more people find out how wonderful they taste.
SOY DAIRY
Another small, but fascinating, business located on The Farm is the Soy Dairy. Here
about 1500 pounds of tofu is produced in one day, some of which is distributed by
the Kroger supermarkets in Nashville. No one else in the area manufactures tofu. The
Soy Dairy also produces some soy milk and tempeh for members of The Farm community.
I had the opportunity to try a delicious tofu spread that they produce when I
purchased bagels at the Nashville Bagel Company in downtown Nashville.
Thomas Elliot recently took over ownership of the Soy Dairy. He's lived on The Farm for twenty years and, believe it or not, grew up on a dairy farm as a child. He hopes to expand their business in the near future, since the demand for soy products continues to climb.
THE FARM EDUCATION CONFERENCE CENTER
The Farm Education Conference Center offers seminars on The Farm which might be of
interest to many of our readers. Camping is encouraged.
We all should be thankful for the contributions The Farm community has made and continues to make for the vegetarian movement. They have been the first to do many things and I'm sure will continue to be at the forefront. I'm personally proud to have had the opportunity to spend time with many members of the community and appreciated their warm hospitality.
Debra Wasserman is managing editor of Vegetarian Journal and co-founder of The Vegetarian Resource Group. She is author of several books including Simply Vegan.
