Citizen Farmers in Practice
Inspired by the wisdom of the garden, Citizen Farmers helps people grow healthier lives, stronger communities, and a more regenerative world.
Citizen Farmers in Action
Growing Stewards
Citizen Farmers honors the people who tend the daily work of growing food, teaching others, caring for land, and building community — helping more people become stewards of the places they call home.
Cultivating Knowledge
Gardens and farms are living classrooms. They help people of all ages reconnect with food, ecology, health, creativity, entrepreneurship, stewardship, and care.
NOURISHING COMMUNITY
Food and stories bring people together. Citizen Farmers shares tools, learning models, and real stories of people growing, cooking, sharing, gathering, and caring for the places they live.
Rooted in Community
Citizen Farmers can grow anywhere people gather around food, land, learning, and community. In each place, the garden can help cultivate a culture of stewardship, belonging, and care.
Farms & Gardens
Working farms, community gardens, urban farms, agrihoods, homesteads, and educational gardens where people reconnect with food, soil, and stewardship.
Schools & Campuses
Gardens, farms, classrooms, cafeterias, and campuses where students, teachers, families, and communities learn by growing.
Faith Communities
Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, retreat centers, and service communities using food and land to nourish fellowship, care, and belonging.
Community Spaces
Libraries, parks, neighborhoods, camps, YMCA’s, Boys & Girls Clubs, senior centers, and civic spaces where people gather, learn, and grow together.
Healing & Support
Hospitals, wellness centers, shelters, recovery programs, reentry programs, mental health centers, and other places where gardens, food, and care can support healing.
Learning Ground: Price Middle School
At Price Middle School in Atlanta, Citizen Farmers helped bring a working farm, outdoor classroom, and community resource to life.
The project grew healthy food for the school community, created meaningful work for farmers, and gave students hands-on opportunities to learn through growing, service, entrepreneurship, and environmental stewardship.
Price became an important learning ground for Citizen Farmers — a place to explore how farming can cultivate knowledge, nourish community, support farmers, and help young people build real-world skills.
Those lessons continue to shape how Citizen Farmers shares stories, develops tools, and inspires communities to grow where they are.
VALUES GROWN IN THE GARDEN
Rooted in the Citizen Farmers book, these nine lessons show how the garden teaches us to live with more stewardship, vision, initiative, faith, patience, compassion, gratitude, generosity, and perseverance.
They are simple practices for growing healthier lives, stronger communities, and a more regenerative world.
LESSON #1
COMPOSTING IS STEWARDSHIP
Composting reminds us that nothing is truly wasted. Returning food scraps to the soil teaches care for the earth and responsibility for the places we call home.
LESSON #2
PLANNING IS VISION
A healthy harvest begins with a vision. Planning teaches us to imagine what is possible, prepare with intention, and take thoughtful steps toward the future we want to grow.
LESSON #3
TILLING IS INITIATIVE
Before anything can grow, someone has to begin. Tilling teaches us to get our hands dirty, prepare the ground, and create the conditions for new life.
LESSON #4
SOWING IS FAITH
Planting a seed is an act of faith. As we tend young plants with gentleness and care, we learn to nurture what is still becoming — in the garden, in people, and in our own lives.
LESSON #5
GROWING IS PATIENCE
Growth cannot be rushed. The garden teaches us to tend what matters over time, trusting that small daily acts of care can lead to an abundant harvest.
LESSON #6
HEALING IS COMPASSION
Gardens help us slow down, reconnect, and care for what is hurting. In tending the soil, plants, and one another, we practice compassion for ourselves, our communities, and the earth.
LESSON #7
REAPING IS GRATITUDE
The harvest reminds us that food is a gift — made possible by soil, sun, water, labor, and love. Reaping teaches us to receive with gratitude and honor what nourishes us.
LESSON #8
SHARING IS GENEROSITY
Food becomes more meaningful when it is shared. The garden teaches us that abundance grows when we give, receive, and pass nourishment on to others.
LESSON #9
SUSTAINING IS PERSEVERANCE
Every season brings challenge and renewal. Sustaining teaches us to learn, adapt, begin again, and keep tending what matters.
Field Conversations
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Inspiring The Next Generation And A Regenerative Society With Laura Turner Seydel
August 26, 2021
Farmer D and Laura Turner Seydel take a holistic look at what a regenerative society would look like.
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Farming the Agrihood With Clayton Garrett
August 12, 2021
In this episode, Farmer D and Clayton Garrett get down to business discussing the ins and outs of running an agriculture development community.
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Cooking Up A New Recipe For Hospitality Rooted In Biodynamic Farming and Heritage Crops With Tyler Brown
July 29, 2021
Farmer D and Tyler Brown discuss a Chef's vision for an agrarian future.
You don’t have to be a farmer to be a Citizen Farmer. Start with a garden, a story, a meal, a conversation, a gift, or an invitation.