Many Hands Make a Farm : 47 Years of Questioning Authority, Feeding a Community, and Building an Organic Movement

In this heartfelt and unflinching memoir, two activists recount the nearly half century they’ve spent questioning authority while raising a family, building a self-reliant community, starting an organic farm, leading a farming organisation and experiencing the struggles and joys of living a purposeful life.

Many Hands Make a Farm traces the journey of organic farming pioneers Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge from their early years of bright-eyed excitement, through the long slog for economic stability, to the formation of a thriving community and a growing natural farming movement. Along the way, they established relationships with farming leaders across the country during the creation of the National Organic Program.

Julie and Jack met while working as community organisers in Boston. After falling in love and starting a family, they decided to use Jack’s irregular earnings as a board game designer to support a move to a rural area where they could grow healthy food and earn their living at home, so they could be present for their four children. What began as a family homestead soon grew into the small, diversified Many Hands Organic Farm.

Julie and Jack have intentionally chosen to live their lives differently than the mainstream, prioritising minimising energy use, raising food organically, not relying on credit, favouring natural health care, participating in the arts, working creatively and instilling the values of hard work and responsibility in their children.

In a time when society at large was ‘going along to get along,’ Julie and Jack stood out as leaders and iconoclasts. They believe that taking risks and making bold decisions can unlock one’s potential and lead to actions that enrich the spirit, the family, and the community.

Many Hands Make a Farm will resonate with fans of original thinkers from Henry David Thoreau and Wendell Berry to Lynn Margulis and Adelle Davis. The book strongly conveys the message of finding roots in a community, respecting the Earth, and combining social justice work with the joys and challenges of raising a family. These themes shine through on every page, making this memoir a must-read for anyone seeking inspiration and guidance on finding meaning in their life.

After moving from the Boston area to rural Massachusetts in the early 1980s, Jack Kittredge and Julie Rawson started and grew a CSA farming operation based on extensive community participation at Many Hands Organic Farm―a community still thriving 40 years later. Julie served for many years as executive director of NOFA-Massachusetts, and Jack edited The Natural Farmer, all while raising their four children. Each year, they share thousands of community meals made from farm-grown organic ingredients with their family, farm staff, and volunteers.

Leah Penniman, the 2019 recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, is a Black Kreyol farmer who has been organizing for an anti-racist food system for over fifteen years. She began with the Food Project in Boston, Massachusetts, and went on to work at Farm School in Athol, Massachusetts, and Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre, Massachusetts. She cofounded Youth Grow urban farm in Worcester, Massachusetts. She currently serves as founding co-executive director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a people-of-color led project that works to dismantle racism in the food system through a low cost fresh food delivery service for people living under food apartheid, training programs for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous aspiring farmer-activists, Uprooting Racism training for food justice leaders, and regional-national-international coalition building between farmers of color advocating for policy shifts and reparations. She has dedicated her life’s work to racial justice in the food system and has been recognized by the Soros Equality Fellowship, NYSHealth Emerging Innovator Awards, The Andrew Goodman Foundation Hidden Heroes Award, Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program, New Tech Network National Teaching Award, Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (New York finalist), among others. She has contributed to two published volumes, authored numerous online articles, and given dozens of public talks on the subject.