A labor of love: a group of vegetarians has spent two dozen years trying to change the world one acre at a time - includes related information on the whereabouts of some of the pioneer Farm members

Vegetarian Times, Oct, 1995 by Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin

Tucked Away in the rolling hills 7 5 miles southwest of Nashville, Tenn., a community of vegetarians has spent a quarter century quietly pursuing what have become major trends of the 1990s. Instead of commuting into the big city, many members own or work for small, community-based businesses. They live simply in modest but comfortable homes. Many work part-time, which has enabled them to tend their organic gardens, volunteer for various charities, hang out with their friends and neighbors, help their kids with homework, cook meals from scratch and take long walks in the beautiful woods where they live.

The food businesses they run are at the forefront of healthful eating. They produce tofu, tempeh and soymilk; sell mushroom spawn to growers of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms; publish vegetarian cookbooks; and run a mail-order business that sells hard-to-find vegetarian foods. They've been instrumental in introducing soyfoods to the United States, as well as using them to assist people in developing nations. Their medical clinic has proven the safety and cost-effectiveness of traditional midwifery, which is slowly making a comeback in the United States; they host cutting-edge conferences on such topics as organic gardening, natural healing and solar technology; and their children have been the subject of medical research that has laid to rest any fears that a vegan diet is inappropriate for growing children.

Who are these people who have managed to live so well on so little while contributing so much to vegetarians and others worldwide? In truth, they're a bunch of aging hippies. This community, so far ahead of its time, is the Farm, an experiment in communal living that began in 1971 when most of the current residents were still college students in San Francisco.

They've come a long way since arriving here on what was, unquestionably, a road less traveled. Their pilgrimage began with Monday Night Class, a course in the Experimental College at San Francisco State University taught by an English literature instructor named Stephen Gaskin. Gaskin's class, designed to inspire students who might otherwise become caught up in the tumult of the late '60s and drop out, was a wide-ranging survey of religion, spirituality and psychology. At its peak, the class attracted as many as 1,500 people, many of whom were not students.

With Gaskin - who was about 10 years older than his students - as the charismatic leader, the group was developing a philosophy of life that would take them far from the Bay Area, both physically and spiritually. At the center of this philosophy was a commitment to changing what the group members saw as an unfair, violent society. "We felt like a chosen generation sparked with a vision," says Peter Schweitzer, a founding member of the Farm and executive director of Plenty, the Farm's charitable relief organization. "We felt: It's up to us. We don't have to wait for society to get sane. If you want to change the world, you've got to change yourself, then get together with others and see,what you can do. Every generation hag another crack at it." Love, tolerance and compassion were the tenets of Monday Night Class, and the participants lived their message by embracing non-violence and vegetarianism.

"We were trying to toss out the old social structures we grew up with and put together something that made more sense for us and for our children in the future in terms of relationships with each other, the Earth and other people. Some way that wasn't wasteful of resources, was more understanding and tolerant, that helped people make a living that was sustainable," recalls Cynthia Holzapfel, a member since the Farm's early years and managing editor of the Book Publishing Company, based on the Farm.

In 1969, Gaskin went on a speaking tour of liberal churches across the country and invited along any members of the class who cared to join him. He traveled in the converted school bus that was his home, and many of his students followed suit, purchasing and converting used school buses. Others joined along the way, until there were 300 people in the motley assortment of flamboyantly painted buses. Seven months and 7,000 miles later, they returned to San Francisco, but the group didn't want to split up. Instead, they decided to return to Nashville and find a place where they could settle together. Why there? "Friendly people, cheap land," explains Louise Hagler, a member since the Farm's early years and author of numerous vegetarian cookbooks published by the Book Publishing Company.

In 1971, the caravan a gain hit the road. When it reached Tennessee, the group rented a tract of land in Lewis County, one of the poorest in the state, and began farming in order to feed themselves and share food with hungry people in the local area. Here, the hard times began: Bad weather, diminishing supplies and some hostile neighbors combined to make the first few months difficult. "We were a bunch of 20-year-olds who didn't know how to take care of ourselves," says Holzapfel. But they learned quickly.