Cultivating Farmers who Cultivate Lives
Who Will Grow the Farmers Who Relaunch Lives?
Cultivating a new generation of farmers with social missions—and building a model that can grow throughout America.
Eden Streets' mission is to relaunch lives through farming while cultivating community. But for this vision to grow, we must answer an important question: Who will cultivate the farmers who make this work possible?
The Missing Ingredient: Farmers with a Social Mission
Imagine a farm where people facing homelessness, recovering from addiction, or struggling to find stable employment can rediscover their abilities, develop practical job skills, and begin building a new future.
That's the vision behind Grow Ogden, an Eden Streets initiative that brings together farming, meaningful work, and community connection.
But a successful farm-based life-relaunch program requires more than land, tools, funding, and willing participants. It requires a farmer who understands both the science of growing food and the art of cultivating people.
Where will we find these farmers? How will we prepare them to lead farm crews, guide apprentices, and create an environment where people can grow—both literally and personally? And how can we equip these farm leaders to replicate the model in other communities?
These questions have become increasingly important as Eden Streets looks beyond Grow Ogden toward a future in which farms with social missions become more accessible and commonplace.
A Small Workforce with an Enormous Responsibility
Farming is essential to every community, yet relatively few Americans work directly in agricultural production. According to the USDA, direct on-farm employment accounted for approximately 1.2% of U.S. employment in 2022.
The average age of American farm producers was 58.1 years in the USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture, and 38% were age 65 or older. These figures raise important questions about who will carry agricultural knowledge and experience into the next generation.
Eden Streets sees an opportunity within this challenge. What if more small-scale farmers could do two things at once: grow nourishing food for their communities and provide meaningful employment and job training for people seeking a fresh start?
We believe community-based farms can become part of the response to homelessness, unemployment, and social disconnection. They can bring food production closer to the people who need it while creating places where work, relationships, and personal growth reinforce one another.
This is not simply a matter of creating more gardens. It is about cultivating productive farms that also serve a social mission.
Why a Different Kind of Farm Matters
Not every farm is suited to this work. The scale, setting, and daily rhythm of a farm can make a meaningful difference.
At Grow Ogden, we emphasize small-scale, urban agriculture. The work is hands-on. Crew members plant, weed, harvest, and work alongside one another, often within a few feet of each other. Conversations happen naturally while hands are busy in the soil.
The farm becomes more than a workplace. It can offer a haven—a place to step away from the pressures of life, reconnect with nature, experience the satisfaction of meaningful work, and build relationships with others.
Urban farms also have an important practical advantage: they can be accessible to the people they serve and connected to local employers, customers, food providers, and community organizations.
Yet the work must remain disciplined and productive. A farm needs a thoughtful growing plan, knowledge of the local climate, sound agricultural practices, and an understanding of what customers will buy and what the community needs. It must produce food reliably while managing labor, materials, and expenses responsibly.
That's why we speak of farms rather than simply gardens. We need productive agricultural enterprises with a human purpose.
And we need farmers who see the parallels between growing food and nurturing human potential—who understand that both require patience, consistency, attention, and the right conditions for growth.
Cultivating Farmers Who Can Cultivate Lives
During three years of developing Grow Ogden, we have learned important lessons about what it takes to sustain this work.
One lesson stands out: continuity matters.
When farm leadership changes, agricultural knowledge, seasonal planning, and lessons learned can be lost. Each new manager may have to rediscover what previous seasons have already taught us. That makes it harder to build on experience and improve the program year after year.
We need a more dependable way to develop farm leaders, preserve institutional knowledge, and train the next generation.
Eden Streets is therefore working toward a model built around an experienced lead farm and farmer who can provide consistent agricultural management, practical training, and mentorship.
A qualified lead farmer brings several essential strengths:
Knowledge of local growing conditions and productive, organic growing practices.
Experience planning, planting, harvesting, and marketing crops.
The ability to organize a crew, establish clear expectations, and teach practical skills.
An understanding of how to create a supportive environment for people rebuilding their lives.
Connections with other farmers, agricultural organizations, customers, and community partners.
A commitment to mentoring apprentices and preparing future farm leaders.
In this model, farming becomes both the productive foundation of the program and a pathway for developing the people who may one day lead similar farms.
An individual who enters Grow Ogden seeking a fresh start may discover an interest and aptitude for agriculture. With experience, training, and continued support, that person could eventually become a farm leader who helps others find their own path forward.
Farm Intern to Farm Manager: Jeffrey’s Story
Jeffrey’s journey shows what can happen when someone is given an opportunity to grow. He joined the Faircrest Farms crew in late May 2026, while living out of his car. Part-time farm work offered him a way forward: meaningful work, a safe and supportive environment, and the opportunity to learn new skills with the guidance of people who believed in him.
As Jeffrey spent more time on the farm, he discovered that he genuinely enjoyed farming. He began taking on greater responsibility, eventually serving as a crew lead and directing farm work on several days. He had found a place where his abilities could shine, his contributions were valued, and his confidence could grow week by week.
Then an unexpected opportunity arose. Tyelar, Grow Ogden’s farm manager for its spring cohort, needed to leave her position at the end of July. Who would manage the 28th Street Community Farm and coordinate its scheduled volunteers?
Jeffrey was ready to take the next step. After successfully completing the interview process, he was offered the farm manager position at the end of July. With coaching during the transition and support from a fellow Grow Ogden farm manager, he began learning the full scope of his new responsibilities. Meanwhile, his continued work at Faircrest Farms allowed him to strengthen his farming skills and stay connected to the practical demands of growing food. At the 28th Street Community Farm, he was now teaching volunteers the skills he had learned himself.
In just a few months, Jeffrey had moved from seeking a fresh start through farm work to helping lead a community farm and teach others. He was also earning more! His story illustrates the kind of pathway Eden Streets hopes to cultivate: opportunities for people to gain skills, discover their strengths, take on responsibility, and become leaders who help others move forward.
That is the cycle of renewal we envision: farms that cultivate people who, in turn, become farmers who cultivate others.
A New Partnership to Strengthen Grow Ogden
To put this approach into practice, Eden Streets is developing a more clearly defined working relationship with Faircrest Farms, a local urban produce for-profit farm.
Under the proposed service-agreement framework, Faircrest Farms would serve as an agricultural partner, providing farm management and technical leadership while helping Eden Streets develop farmers with social missions.
This arrangement is designed to bring greater continuity to Grow Ogden's 28th Street Community Farm, hosted by First Presbyterian Church of Ogden, while allowing Eden Streets to concentrate on its nonprofit mission: recruiting participants, raising funds, coordinating community support, and helping people relaunch their lives.
The responsibilities of each organization is defined in a written Service Agreement, with annual review and renewal and oversight by the Eden Streets board. The goal is a transparent, accountable partnership that aligns agricultural expertise with the nonprofit's charitable purpose.
The relationship also preserves the distinct roles of the partners. First Presbyterian Church hosts the 28th Street Community Farm and its cohort-based program. Faircrest Farms provides agricultural expertise and operates its own farm business. Eden Streets provides the nonprofit framework that brings these efforts together around the shared goal of relaunching lives through farming.
This structure offers a practical way to build on the knowledge gained at Grow Ogden, maintain a consistent growing plan, and develop future farm managers without requiring Eden Streets to build a separate agricultural management operation of its own.
Just as importantly, it gives us a foundation for training more farmers to lead farms with social missions.
From Grow Ogden to Grow Communities Everywhere
Our vision extends beyond one farm or one city.
We envision communities throughout Utah and across the country developing their own networks of farms that combine productive agriculture with meaningful work, job training, and human connection.
Imagine a “Grow Denver”, a “Grow Portland”, or a “Grow Los Angeles”.
Each community would build on a shared framework while drawing on its own farmers, service providers, nonprofit organizations, and local resources.
Local Homeless Councils and other community partnerships can help identify the needs of people facing homelessness, coordinate available services, and connect qualified farms with participants who could benefit from farm-based employment. (See also Weber Morgan Local Homeless Council.)
Experienced lead farmers could help identify suitable affiliate farms, train new farm leaders, and share practical knowledge about running productive farms with a social mission.
The model would not require every community to start from scratch. Instead, each new farm could learn from the experience of Grow Ogden and from the farmers and organizations already doing this work.
Our foundation for this broader movement is The Declaration of Common Ground—a commitment to finding shared purpose through the land, food, meaningful work, and the communities we build together.
We believe the future lies not in a single organization doing everything, but in local farms, nonprofits, service providers, and community members working together toward a common purpose.
Help Us Grow the Movement
To make this vision real, we need more than funding. We need farmers who want their work to serve a larger purpose. We need aspiring farmers willing to learn. We need community partners prepared to collaborate. And we need donors and volunteers who believe that meaningful work, nourishing food, and human connection can help people build new lives.
If you are an experienced small-scale farmer interested in mentoring others, an aspiring farmer seeking a path into agriculture, or a community organization exploring how farming could serve people in your area, we invite you to connect with Eden Streets.
Together, we can develop a practical, repeatable model that helps more people find their footing through farming—and helps more farmers discover the rewards of putting their skills to work for the common good.
Our vision is simple:
Farms everywhere that cultivate vibrant, connected communities.
Because when we cultivate farmers who know how to cultivate people, we grow more than food. We grow skills, relationships, opportunity, and hope.
And that's how we relaunch lives through farming while cultivating community.
Learn more at GrowOgden.org.
Author: "Farmer Karl" Ebeling, Executive Director Eden Streets - October 2026
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