Severine von Tscharner Fleming is the founder and director of The Greenhorns (2007), a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting young farmers gain skills and find community, as well as co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition (2010). In these and other roles, she has played a key role in defining the contemporary back-to-the-land movement of new and young farmers.
An excerpt from our interview with Severine:
I feel like with our cultural work, each different medium that we choose seems to attract, engage, animate a different sub-section of our community. And I think a big part of the reason for having such a diversity in terms of the output and forms is that different forms and fora engage different people.
So for instance, Sail Freight is really accessible. You don’t have to write or read. You can just walk up to it. And that has meant a really interesting cross-section of post-oil, peak-carbon people and transition-minded people. It’s meant historians, maritime history buffs, boat buffs, your general waterfront wharf rats. It’s meant art students and hipsters and just people who are at the farmers market or passing by. It’s people who are interested in pedestrian access or waterfront issues or planning issues for whom the waterfront is this crucial access for pedestrian engagement.
