Hello,

We are Chris and Sean of smallfarms.

We believe that localized production and short supply chains lead to greater community autonomy, smaller environmental footprints, and healthier living (both physically and spiritually).

There are undeniable returns to scale from big, centralized operations, especially when we look at the base of the societal pyramid (food, energy, labor). To access these returns, it is clear that we often shoulder large risks and trade off much of our autonomy. To manage some of these risks without giving up too many rewards, it is time to start distributing.

Distributing more of this productive knowledge to more people can act as insurance for large-scale risks. Attacks on the power grid or engineered blights are less scary when there are local ways to generate power and grow food in any given town.

Distributing more of this productive knowledge to more people can help protect autonomy. To depend entirely on an other is to give that other power over you. Mutually beneficial specialization and exchange will remain a force for good in the world, but resiliency can only be built locally. If Alice is the only one keeping Bob's lights on, she can just as soon turn them off. If Bob is the only one growing food for Alice, he can just as soon stop.

We will be farming as part of the Crow's Feat Farm Cooperative beginning in 2021. As we start this journey, we will be gathering information and tools, and very likely creating information and tools of our own. We'd like smallfarms to be be a place to share these resources and tools.