Go Farm, Young People, and Help Heal the Country

The future of rural America is a paradox. A large part of the progressive agenda runs through the countryside: renewable energy, diversified agroecological farming that rebuilds soil health and protects waterways, ecological forestry that promotes biodiversity and stores carbon in both forests and durable wood products, significant land returned to people of color, more wild places. But at the same time, existing rural alienation has been effectively mobilized to thwart these ambitions...
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The future of rural America is a paradox. A large part of the progressive agenda runs through the countryside: renewable energy, diversified agroecological farming that rebuilds soil health and protects waterways, ecological forestry that promotes biodiversity and stores carbon in both forests and durable wood products, significant land returned to people of color, more wild places. But at the same time, existing rural alienation has been effectively mobilized to thwart these ambitions (along with the rest of the progressive agenda), thanks to gerrymandering and the outsize power of rural states that is built into our political system. The situation is only getting worse. Author Brian Donahue offers a practical solution: move. Rebuilding rural America will require more people. It will also make the countryside, along with its small towns and cities, a beautiful place to live. His advice is, go now. Light out for the country ahead of the rest. Learn to get along, but live and vote your values. The relocation of a relatively small slice of the citizenry could first enable, and then fulfill, the vision of a just, sustainable world. Be there or be square. Filled with practical examples of what's already working, and the work ahead in policy changes and land ownership, "Go Farm, Young People" offers a reasoned and impassioned call for Twenty-First Century Homestead Act, a back to Back-to-the-Land Movement in light of the global assaults on climate, democracy, and social justice.