Millennial Permies

What am I doing in this thread? I am much too old. Two of my children are in that age (born in the 1980s). My oldest son is born in 1979 and he's the only one doing some gardening. Both he and my daughter are interested in nature, organic food, etc.

I saw many of you here talk about 'owning land'. I can tell you: here in the Netherlands that's almost impossible! This is a small country with a large population. Land is very expensive. If an old farmer stops farming, in many cases neighbouring farmers will like to add that land to their own, so they'll have more land, more suitable for industrial farming.

What permaculture enthousiasts here try most is: getting in contact with the town council to have permission to start a food forest or community garden in a part of a local park. Or they rent an alotment to try to apply permaculture principles there (while influencing the administration of the alotment, so old-fashioned rules will change to make permaculture possible).
Most of these permaculture-enthousiasts are older than you. I know one young (millennial age) couple who are really active as permaculturists, he inherited the land (his grandfather bought it when that was still possible, before WW2).

I think a lot of my generation was sold the, "You have to go to college to do anything good." line.  I've been in the workplace 12 years now.  I'm a computer programmer but mostly work production support.  In my 12 yrs i haven't seen one job that in my opinion required a college degree other than as a formality.  Most if not all of the training you need happens on the job.  My current manager is less concerned with what you have a degree in as long as you have some experience in the field (but we're not hiring for entry level positions only mid level analysts and whatnot).  I think college as it stands right now is a joke.  I hope that the next generation as some have mentioned rally against it.  I believe college has its place (Law, science, Pharma ect.) but Lib Arts? History? Programming?

So now on to a story:
My mother-in-law worked as the director of learning skills center in one of the community colleges.  She managed independent learning, tutoring, individuals with disabilities, special needs, and most night classes for adults were held in her area and organized by her with the teacher.  She spent years teaching that a 4yr university isn't right for everyone and that trade schools (School in question has a good mechanics program) is often a much better choice.  Fast forward a little bit and I have 4 kids.  My 2nd one is not always the best book smart learner.  Give her a book to read or a paper math problem to solve and she's a C student.  Give her a project or something hands on to do and she'll pull down As all day long.  I one time made the comment that i think (said daughter) would do great in electrical or mechanic classes and she should do a trade instead of a 4yr uni.  My mother-in-law go so upset and said that no grandchild of hers was going that way.

I've often pondered over this and have basically stopped talking to M-I-L about continuing education for the kids other than for our oldest who is literally off the charts book smarts.  I'd love everyone else's thoughts.  I wonder if it's back to the generational teaching that everyone needs to go to 4yr even though she taught differently....maybe that was just because it was her job....but i don't think so.  I think dispelling the 4yr myth and getting people (Mike Rowe comes to mind) to preach the good of trades is what we truly need.

MIL still agrees that trade school is the best options for 'failure people' and that college isn't always the best options for 'failure people'. And she is happy that she is creating a safe place for 'failure people' to continue college. But she will be darned if she has to box her grandkid as a 'failure' at the ripe age of 7.

College is seen by alot as a status symbol. And as a bare minimum. Personally I think that a middle school education is all that is needed to be a permaculturalist, maybe even less. But I wouldn't recommend that any parent stop there kids education at the middle school level. I also think that it is possible to go to finish college at a cost of just $50/week. So even the cost isn't really a big thing. I really do think that having a college degree + the trade skill is the best option for everyone. Having a college degree is like wearing a button down/tie vs a white tee to a job interview aka mostly pointless but a formality because employers want reason to cull people who don't listen to the rules and are too independent.

This article may assist some people in buying cheaper property - retirees and those on a limited income share a few things in common:


https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/062916/top-5-states-retirees-buy-cheap-property.asp

Hey everyone love the topic. I’m 18 and live in Rhode Island and as far as I know there are only 2 people from my Highschool class of around 500 intentionally prusing a trade at all, let alone agriculture. Most people would rather go to colllege or bum out. And I don’t feel like college is always a bad option, but I see so many people go just because it’s something to do,because they know they want  a degree, family pressure, but with no clue if their passions. I am on a gap year now and after 2 cancelled programs and a broken wrist I have decided to take the rest of my year and build a food forest on 22 acres I recently was given in central Maine. I am to start in April and would love some company. I have not been to the property but hopefully will soon. I know there is a large lake as a border to one side and there is absolutely nothing built on it. This would be a full restoration/ build but I would like to build it in a manner where I can walk away for a year or so and it can thrive on its own. My dream one day is to have a series of permaculture intentional communities around the world. Starting here. Any advice, inquiries, or general comment totally welcome my email is rooktheanimal@gmail.com. Ps also interested in working for food and shelter on others farms.

john mcginnis wrote:

Victor Skaggs wrote:
Remember that no generation is a unit... among us from the 60's there are radicals and hippies and back-to-the-land people, and there are also alt-right, ultra-conservatives and money-grubbing yuppies. The same is true of every generation, and I'm convinced most of our fate is not in our hands. We're all being severely manipulated. Hang in there... it is possible to do the right thing despite the forces arrayed against us all.

I bought into the  'were manipulated....' line for quite some time till I realized the only person who manipulates me is ME. Every other form of manipulation is in reality a trade. You take the 'free college money' as the asset. The liability is there is strings attached and interest to pay. Someone has already mentioned they spent $16k for a car and has payments. That too is a trade.

Sorry but way too many people buy into the new and shiny and the urge of convenience. They are trading their future for now!

Yep, that is the problem with people living on credit cards and so on, the shiny stuff. But college... to some that seems like a necessity. But decades ago the money for college really was free. Much of it was financial aid, not loans. The loans were low-interest and with easy terms. And the tuition was low to begin with. Someone DID manipulate that, because it all changed.

You are not autonomous. We are all manipulated in various ways. If it were 1965 my options would be much different than they are now, and not because of anything I did... because society changed! We're not free to decide what to do at a basic level... you have to have shelter, transportation, and you do not decide what are the parameters in which you can act to obtain those things. You don't affect wages, rents, prices... those are all manipulated by powers out of our control.

Those of us who choose to pursue the growing of food operate subject to conditions we do not control, such as land prices, markets, regulations, etc., and others we do control. Social science is busy analyzing all of this, and the field I was in involved agrarian development, and we found out very quickly how the options for a poor farmer (or even a more affluent one) are affected by the society in which they live. Many small farmers have lost their land in many countries due to the spread of agribusiness, bad govt policies, and even policies coming from outside the country, from the WTO, etc.

I think by doing the right thing and showing others that it can be done, and by having good effects on our community by what we do, can be an impetus to positive change as much as being active to change policy in the political realm. Perhaps they are 2 prongs to the same attack, as lawyers say.

Both have to occur for much positive change to manifest. Imagine if the U$A govt was as concerned with promoting organic small farming as with promoting agribiz. Things would be very different...

I know we all like to think we're "free", but it is really relative.

John Suavecito wrote:I would say that a suburban or urban permie life is just a different permie life.

I have had a food forest for almost 20 years and eat food from my standard suburban lot every day.  


John S
PDX OR

Yep, and in fact there is important work being done in urban areas by people creating community gardens, rooftop gardens, etc. The Mexica (Aztec) capital of Tenochtitlán had food growing all along the streets, and in the parks. An urban area in fact can produce a lot of food if it is organized properly.

Jonathan Ward wrote:I think a lot of my generation was sold the, "You have to go to college to do anything good." line.  I've been in the workplace 12 years now.  I'm a computer programmer but mostly work production support.  In my 12 yrs i haven't seen one job that in my opinion required a college degree other than as a formality.  Most if not all of the training you need happens on the job.  My current manager is less concerned with what you have a degree in as long as you have some experience in the field (but we're not hiring for entry level positions only mid level analysts and whatnot).  I think college as it stands right now is a joke.  I hope that the next generation as some have mentioned rally against it.  I believe college has its place (Law, science, Pharma ect.) but Lib Arts? History? Programming?

Liberal arts should not be disregarded. On which job will you learn history or anthropology? These have value even just to teach them to the next generation. The notion that education is worthless unless oriented to this year's job market I have a problem with.

Even growing food, creating permaculture, if you have an education in botany, ecology, etc., you might have knowledge that will be useful to you.

College was not questioned some decades ago. Education was considered good, and for any degree there were job opportunities. We should hope for some transformations which again make it relevant to something besides job interviews.

All the working-class people I hang out with become quickly aware that I "know things", having had a lot of higher education, and it makes me a useful resource for them. I know things! Nothing wrong with that.

I also think liberal arts is increasingly vital for the younger generations. The internet is SO polarizing. People tend to find echo chambers of the same ideas, rather than being in a class where they encounter and have to deal with the divergent ideas of others and the logic of those idea.

Victor, I appreciate you emphasizing that liberal arts are important, and that the point of education is not necessarily to get a job. There is nothing wrong with learning as much as you can for the sake of learning! I taught math and statistics, but my thinking was very much shaped by the courses I had to take in college that were not related to my major, like anthropology and architecture history. I think you and I would both agree that every field of study has intrinsic value. The friction comes from figuring out what the connection should be between higher education and the job market.

You also talked about showing others the good things that can be done within your community as a way of creating change, in addition to being active in changing policy. This is something I've been thinking about lately. I don't see a lot of people who straddle both of those worlds well. I see a big disconnect between the bearded guy in overalls who grows amazing beets but never leaves his farm and the person in local government who sits through endless board meetings with other people wearing suits and has good intentions, but lacks practical knowledge of what the beet-growing farmer needs to thrive.

My impetus for thinking about all this is that I'm currently transitioning from the business world to not quite homesteading, but something along those lines. I am realizing that by leaving the business world, I am cutting off some avenues of influence. Currently I work in an office with about 80 college-educated professional folks who lead pretty typical suburban lifestyles. These 80 coworkers are involved in churches and sports and neighborhood associations. Their influence extends far throughout our community if you think about it. Suppose I left some of my amazing produce in the break room and chit chatted with my coworkers about it. When they tasted the difference in produce that's grown in healthy soil, that could spark some eye-opening, attitude-changing conversations. But that's not what I'm going to do, because if I sit under those fluorescent lights for 40 hours a week, I'm not in my backyard growing the amazing vegetables. It's a Catch-22.

This thread is about millennials who are involved in permaculture. I think we've already established that there are some, but not many. We've established that many millennials were sold the lie that they had to go deeply in debt to get a college degree. So where are they now? I think a huge proportion of them are living their lives, mostly unfulfilled, in suburbia, working at meaningless office jobs that they got with their college degrees. They are driving their SUVs to Costco on the weekend to buy crap for their kids' lunch boxes in bulk. They are standing around with other miserable parents at a Chuck E Cheese birthday party making mindless chatter about whether their kids should take piano lessons or do gymnastics. They're buying the crappy overpriced plastic toys that their kids see advertised on YouTube. They think about wanting to eat healthier and live a more balanced lifestyle, but they don't know how to escape the consumerist hamster wheel they're running on. How do I know this? Because I work with these people, my kids go to school with their kids, and I kind of am one of these people (not 100%, but more than I'd like to admit). To me, these unfulfilled suburban millennials are a huge source of untapped potential. We just need permaculture enthusiasts to infiltrate their inner rings and gently show them another way of thinking and living (i.e. - not by preaching, but by sharing some delicious peaches or tomatoes and starting a conversation).

Audrey Lewis wrote:
This thread is about millennials who are involved in permaculture. I think we've already established that there are some, but not many. We've established that many millennials were sold the lie that they had to go deeply in debt to get a college degree. So where are they now? I think a huge proportion of them are living their lives, mostly unfulfilled, in suburbia, working at meaningless office jobs that they got with their college degrees. They are driving their SUVs to Costco on the weekend to buy crap for their kids' lunch boxes in bulk. They are standing around with other miserable parents at a Chuck E Cheese birthday party making mindless chatter about whether their kids should take piano lessons or do gymnastics. They're buying the crappy overpriced plastic toys that their kids see advertised on YouTube. They think about wanting to eat healthier and live a more balanced lifestyle, but they don't know how to escape the consumerist hamster wheel they're running on. How do I know this? Because I work with these people, my kids go to school with their kids, and I kind of am one of these people (not 100%, but more than I'd like to admit). To me, these unfulfilled suburban millennials are a huge source of untapped potential. We just need permaculture enthusiasts to infiltrate their inner rings and gently show them another way of thinking and living (i.e. - not by preaching, but by sharing some delicious peaches or tomatoes and starting a conversation).

It is striking the similarity of this description of the "normal" life today with our critique of that life in the 60's. "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit", daily riding the train to his mindless drudgery of a job. The suburban conformism, and if analyzed, the utter dependence on corporations to create economy and the culture of normalcy into which one is expected to fit like a good little obedient cog in a mindless machine.

For many of us the separation has not been as complete as that between your beet farmer and the corporate schlub. While I farmed I also taught school. I can't claim to have affected the lives of other teachers in any profound way but the students, yes. And I was always selling in farmers markets (still am) where I saw my role also as a teacher, spending hours explaining to people about heirloom varieties of vegetables, how to use herbs, how to find useful wild plants, etc. The Christians at the Methodist Church when I was growing up would say, "live in this world but do not be OF this world." I think I have lived like that, not in the Christian way but in the way of being an advocate of cleaner living, environmentalism, social justice, and so on. I'm among the "normal" people, I can talk to them, I try to teach them, and I continue to live differently than they do.

This separation in the 60's was intentional and was called the counter culture. By the mid-70's I'd reintegrated with the larger culture and society, but was not OF that culture. However, the people you describe watching their kids at Chuckee Cheese are not of another species. I can talk to them. We can all be examples and teachers of what we see as a better way. The organic farmer doesn't have to become a full-time alderman to have political, cultural and social influence.

I have worried that as my generation ages the organic gardening and permaculture tendencies in society would weaken and fade. Yet I see the young folks now very interested in food, in the environment, and even in politics as we see from the wave of new progressive Democrats who've suddenly appeared in Congress. I'm less pessimistic now than I was. I'm seeing how "thing change yet remain the same." Things move in cycles. The same dynamics are evident as decades ago, but wearing different clothes. Dr. King said that the tendency of history was toward more justice. In the long view, I think that is true. Despite setbacks, if you pull back you see the common threads running through history, and connecting what we hippies have done since the 60's and what the millennials do today. And the lies they're told are really the same lies we were told, with new trimmings. We could easily afford college, while they cannot, we had no internet, while they engage in much of their social life online.

I now take a view more Hindu than Methodist, that it matters what we do, we are engaged in a cycle of life which is in fact endless. Now I think, engage the world, but don't be attached to it, a bit of a variation on the old Methodist evangelical version. Over time there will be transitions. Women have more rights than they did, yet the struggle for their rights continues. Racist restrictions have been lifted, yet others remain and the struggle continues.

We have a far more enlightened populace now as regards food and environment. The work we have done over the decades, we of the hippy generation, has not been in vain. And the millennials, like us, in large numbers are questioning their reality and seeking better ways.

Back in the farmers market, where it's real, money for organic vegies, the millennials are there too, not just aging hippies. They question the sources of their food. They reject corporate slop. And some of them are the vendors, selling kombucha and wow even organic vegies! I think they are a powerful new wave of organic environmentalist permieness, and they will have good effects on society and its evolution, just as we did. And to paraphrase Dr. King, the tendency of history is toward more sane balanced living and eating. The millennials are chafing at their bits just as we did. I hope they do not repeat too many of our mistakes (e.g., freakish exhibitionist confrontationalism) and learn from the good we did manage to do.

So, if the corporate system doesn't manage to take down the global ecosystem, I expect great things to be accomplished by this young generation. We're seeing it already, in Congress, in the farmers markets, in the marketplace of ideas. Even some of their music is quite good... have you heard Ashley MacIsaac, the "enfant terrible" of Canadian music? Builds on the old, expresses the same yearning for freedom, the same frustration with the automaton society, demands that he is a HUMAN among all this...

Seriously there is reason for much hope.

I get so tired of having millenials described in such a manner, like we (I was just informed that I am a millennial recently) are some monolithic entity.

Again, I have to call bullshit. Really biased, narrow-minded, and mean-spirited bullshit. Our educational systems have been compromised at a time where more education than ever before is required to land jobs, never mind careers, and all the systems are broken and corrupt.

My much better half is a glassblower, works a retail job, and works at least one week a month out of town assisting a former teacher of hers in making his work.

I was lucky enough to be able to work part-time at my parents' print shop and bindery from an early age, with the potential to take over. That fell through, and instead of inheriting a business, I got a lot of near-obsolete, or at very least niche, work experience in a field with a shelf life that has been rapidly approaching since before I started.

It afforded me the opportunity to earn my university tuition, so no debt. Unfortunately, I chose a fine arts degree. More unfortunately, my singing career was pretty much ended by ill-timed illness, and I went into printing full-time.

Fast-forward to today, and I am working a unionised print job which is way better than my last job, though it's got me stuck in the city when we're looking to be out in the country, and it really doesn't pay enough, when a generation ago, my better half would at least have been able to do without the retail job, maybe assisting for a little extra spending money.

The average cost of a house here in Toronto is roughly twenty times what I make in a year. We pay almost $20k a year in rent, and I commute about 45 minutes in traffic each way for work. Yes, we've tried relocating closer, and my better half would have no problem changing retail jobs, but we can't find anything remotely acceptable close to what we're paying now anywhere closer to my work.

It's not impossible for millennials to do well. I know quite a few. But I also know of a lot of people that are working hard, and well, and are still stuck in the gears.

But yes, it's got to be our fault. Conservative and libertarian ideology dictates that. If you're poor, it's your own fault, right? Working eighty-hour weeks is our due for not having wealthy relatives or the luck to find ourselves in jobs that perfectly match our wants, abilities, and needs, and lead to advancement.

That seems perfectly reasonable. Thanks for clearing that up. I'll just figure out how to dolphin sleep so I can work 24/7. Maybe my children, if I can ever afford to have them, will be able to move out of the city.

-CK

I feel like this discussion in general has been great.  However, I don't think any of us gain from blaming one generation or another. I think we can all gain some perspective from understanding how the advantages are gained and lost at various times and rediscovered.  I feel we are all specifically called to fix the problems that arise as we are growing up and try to hand off as good a situation as we can to the next generation.  Some situations are really difficult and unproductive and we all need to pitch in and try to improve it.  Like the carbon in the atmosphere, toxins in the ecology and the selfish attitude of "pull up the ladder, Jack, I've got mine. "

John S
PDX OR

It occurred to me today there is no hard stop between generations. It's more of an oozing & merging effect.

Now ... to further address the question about the progression from the hippy generation ideals to the what the millennials faced at about that same age. How did it happen? As I see it. Being from the youngest end of that generation. Mom would have had to drive me to Woodstock. (never ever in a million years would that have happened) The explanation I gave my daughter is that our generation got a little older, the world had changed, & suddenly the harsh realities of life came along & slapped us in the face. The same thing that happens to any other generation. Each generation faces new & different problems though. We were on the verge of massive & very rapid technological improvements. Mass media was exploding & getting really good at promoting the easy button. The 3% minimum payment was invented. Inflation hit hard. It was getting too expensive to keep gas in the VW microbus & follow the Grateful Dead around. It was suddenly easier to purchase a house without any real expectation of ever being able to pay it off. Then there were babies. You folks. We did what we had to do for you. We got sucked into the trap bad. Not everything turned out perfect, far from it, but it's not over yet. Not by a long shot. Some of us are still around working hard trying to make the world a better place. It's a bit overwhelming!!! We had some success & there are worthy lessons to be learned by future generations.

For more specifics -----> definitely immediate cider press material. I will try to help anyone understand some of the root causes better in there if so desired. Maybe. Be sure you want to know. It's ugly. I don't like going to or thinking about ugly places. They suck. So ... it depends.

Learn from the past. Work toward building a better future for all. Never ever give up. Think happy thoughts once in a while. Peace.

I note a lot of people saying that education is a waste of time and money. Depending where you want to end up financially, and how your country’s Government and educational institutions operation, sure, it can be a huge waste of money. But, education is NEVER a waste of time IF you apply it and use it as a stepping stone to something else - imagination.

There are MANY courses that are totally useless but, at the risk of potentially offending other Forum subsets, I’ll not list them. Suffice to say:

The world has been moving towards technical skillsets for several decades, evidenced by the number of emerging (2nd World) countries whose families regularly save up to send their kids to countries that have Universities and Colleges with international standing - we have thousands of them studying computer and medical sciences, all forms of engineering, environmental/agricultural studies, etc. It seems only the western kids are studying things like fine arts and English literature: Bachelor of Arts. Not saying that’s good or bad, just need to read between the lines and see there’s a limited future in those niche areas … unless people intend to be artists, actors, art dealers, politicians, etc.

Look at Permaculture, although it doesn’t take an Environmental/Civil/Structural/Electrical Engineer, Carpenter or Plumber to create a functional system, it sure would make it easier and probably more effective and efficient than a layperson attempting the same life change.

One major obstacle holding back Millennials is they tend to be risk adverse; not only in a financial sense but in many other ways. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it hinders progress because taking risks is a major component to learning life skills. That’s perhaps why many stick to the drudgery of crap jobs and don’t take a leap of faith into the unknown.

Almost everyone I know, across multiple generations, has taken significant risks – most succeeded, some failed and are better people for it. I don’t see a lot of that in the current generations.

One thing to be mindful of is that you will not always be young and healthy, so that education and risk taking may make life a lot easier when you slide quite fast into dotage!

The main suggestion I offer Millennials is: debt, illness, death, uncertainty, bad and good luck will always be somewhere close by, life is short, so take ‘educated’ risks and don’t forget to live life. Making a change is never as hard as you think it is.

Audrey Lewis wrote:
This thread is about millennials who are involved in permaculture. I think we've already established that there are some, but not many. We've established that many millennials were sold the lie that they had to go deeply in debt to get a college degree. So where are they now? I think a huge proportion of them are living their lives, mostly unfulfilled, in suburbia, working at meaningless office jobs that they got with their college degrees. They are driving their SUVs to Costco on the weekend to buy crap for their kids' lunch boxes in bulk. They are standing around with other miserable parents at a Chuck E Cheese birthday party making mindless chatter about whether their kids should take piano lessons or do gymnastics. They're buying the crappy overpriced plastic toys that their kids see advertised on YouTube. They think about wanting to eat healthier and live a more balanced lifestyle, but they don't know how to escape the consumerist hamster wheel they're running on. How do I know this? Because I work with these people, my kids go to school with their kids, and I kind of am one of these people (not 100%, but more than I'd like to admit). To me, these unfulfilled suburban millennials are a huge source of untapped potential. We just need permaculture enthusiasts to infiltrate their inner rings and gently show them another way of thinking and living (i.e. - not by preaching, but by sharing some delicious peaches or tomatoes and starting a conversation).

I resonate so much with this last paragraph of your post.
I was born in '96, felt the pressure to go to college, but thankfully graduated without debt thanks to a hefty scholarship award. I won't elaborate here on whether I feel that was worthwhile or not, except to say it ultimately brought me to the awareness of permaculture that I have today, which I am most glad for. Post-college, I knew a desk job would not satisfy me, would not feed my soul or nurture a passion. In fact, I had no idea what my passion was. So I went to an intentional community in Costa Rica and spent 3 months learning about permaculture and alternative living and discovered a passion for all things earthly. Now I'm back at home (VA) and living with my mom. Still unsure of what path to follow because of the reality of money. While I have dreamed of reenacting a scene from "Into The Wild" where I would hitchhike my way to Alaska and live unbothered in the wilderness, I feel that I would be doing an injustice to the rest of the young adults in my generation and today's youngsters who are unaware of permaculture, or where our vegetables grow on, or the difference between "annual" and "perennial". I desire to spread the word, be a missionary of the Earth, and create the sparks for the permaculture fire to come. However, knowing where to start and not having any hands on skills is also my reality.

So, I decided to practice on my mother's suburban lot. I'm starting up a garden covering the 0.12 acres she has (that's including the space the house takes up...) and experimenting with natives and edibles.
I've dived into intensive research on plants, reading the permie classics like One Straw Revolution, The Carbon Farming Solution, Gaia's Garden, etc. Meanwhile, I landed on Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal guide to Herbalism, and found a desire to spread awareness on the healing abilities of natural plants. So that native/edible garden plan for my mother's yard is evolving to include a lot of medicinal herbs.
Hopefully I can make an income selling dried herbs, seedlings, root cuttings, etc on platforms such as Etsy or Amazon.
To supplement that income I am considering substitute teaching or looking for a part time job elsewhere.

As others have said in the thread, living in the city is important for finding jobs and having a market base to sell your produce/cuttings/etc at higher prices and to more people. Therefore, while I now dream of homesteading the countryside, I am trying to make the most of my suburban immediate reality.
I would also like to begin involving school children in the cultivation of food gardens within school courtyards. If anybody has any advice/experience with this, I would love to hear.
I'm assuming I would need a lot of supplies, a team of workers, and approval from the school system. Maybe a kickstarter to get the initial funds? Any ideas?

Best,
Aprille

I'm an '87 model millennial, lol! I love this topic. I, too, never have made friends with my own age group very easily. I grew up in a very non-traditional.... or rather very, very traditional way. For a few years we were out in the country with no running water, no plumbing, no electricity.... and it was beautiful! I did go the college route, but because it was something I loved, nursing. There are many things in the modern medical culture and practices that I don't agree with. I believe that the future of medicine will be more elegant, natural, and start in a garden.

I love the looks on my friend's faces when they first hear about my lifestyle. They look shocked and ask how I can survive without TV, or why I "slave away" to grow food when there's a store a mile away. But... the looks on their faces when they taste fresh eggs or hang out in a garden in the middle of the desert is priceless!

Our whole culture seems bent on creating little cookie cutter people who watch the TV, are glued to their phones, and have are truly separated from eachother and the land. Thank God we aren't! :D Glad to see there are other gardeners in my generation.

Kelly B.

This is not a slight at older folks, but I want to share an experience that sums up the issue facing millennials, as I see. The story just happens to feature a small handful of insensitive older folks.

I was once working for an organization that did charitable work. We had been invited to the state capitol to participate in a meeting of other folks working in the same field, as well as representatives from the state government.

The keynote presentation at this meeting was a person from the state government (I can't remember which office). Most of the people in the room were not millennials, though there were a few. Using various graphs and data points, this presenter spoke about how the state had created X number of new jobs, how housing was beginning to open up again after 2008, things were peachy, basically. Then this person basically said the following: "And on this graph, you see the number of young people who are taking out mortgages and purchasing this increasingly available housing stock compared to other generations. It's not high! All these kids are 'boom-a-rangs,' going back to live with their parents and never leaving!" This elicited some laughter from the audience. One young man raised his hand when the laughter died down to ask a question.

"Are these new jobs being created in the state primarily service industry jobs?" The presented nodded. "Would any of these jobs support a mortgage on a family home?" At this point, the room got where he was going. "And would you advise young people with $10,000s and $100,000 of student loan debt, working these newly created service jobs, to take out a mortgage on a home? Do you think those circumstances would support that?" People who had been laughing were shaking their heads saying "no." Just by asking the question, the reality became clear.

We do not live in late 20th century America anymore. The majority of the wealth in the United States has been gradually siphoned upward into the hands of investors, executives, and other wealthy folks. There is no GI Bill for this generation, nor a New Deal, nor any meaningful investment into young people's futures by the society at large. Should there be? I don't know, not saying either way. But the fact is, there isn't. Expecting young people to pull a rabbit out of a hat after the second greatest financial collapse in American history, when the vast majority of job growth is service industry, when wages have not kept up with inflation, and when such programs as basic as food stamps, medicare, and social security are on the line every election cycle is ridiculous.

But, despite this, I see many millenials getting into farming. Better than most, I think millenials know how fragile this society is and just who gets thrown under the bus first in times of trouble and who gets propped up by the powers that be. And a lot I've talked to want to rely on themselves and an autonomous community of peers, growing their own food, meeting their needs, and making the world a better place. If only they can get out from under debt to do it.

Hi all - super brand new to this site!

I am a '94 baby, so towards the younger end of millennialism.  I am currently in grad school and like the idea of working in academia to help make some of the "hippie" values more mainstream and so that I can carry out research in a financially supported way.  That being said, I struggle greatly as I am attending an urban school and currently make do just with living as close to zero waste as possible in my tiny NYC apartment and vermicomposting.  I also don't think that it is likely that I will end up back in rural america (where I grew up) any time in the near future especially because of my partner's career.  I like to take solace in the fact that even for those of use living the urban life, it is still possible to take bits and pieces of permiculture and implement them into our lives.  I think a lot of the people I know are interesting in things like zero waste living, composting, apartment gardens, etc.  The more people who do that in urban spaces the better!  I guess all of that is to say that I think there are a good number of millennials interested in this movement that are participating in any way they can within their own lives.

Casey Libby wrote:Hi all - super brand new to this site!

I am a '94 baby, so towards the younger end of millennialism.  I am currently in grad school and like the idea of working in academia to help make some of the "hippie" values more mainstream and so that I can carry out research in a financially supported way.  That being said, I struggle greatly as I am attending an urban school and currently make do just with living as close to zero waste as possible in my tiny NYC apartment and vermicomposting.  I also don't think that it is likely that I will end up back in rural america (where I grew up) any time in the near future especially because of my partner's career.  I like to take solace in the fact that even for those of use living the urban life, it is still possible to take bits and pieces of permiculture and implement them into our lives.  I think a lot of the people I know are interesting in things like zero waste living, composting, apartment gardens, etc.  The more people who do that in urban spaces the better!  I guess all of that is to say that I think there are a good number of millennials interested in this movement that are participating in any way they can within their own lives.

There's definitely a lot that urban people can do. I've been hearing about great things in Portland where people are planting fruit trees throughout the city and, with lucky, hopefully bee forage trees (for native pollinators and honeybees). As mentioned a lot of outreach and education can be done in the cities.

Kate Michaud wrote: Dear Millennials, and younger Gens, Elders have much to offers, please lend an ear to them.  There is a crisis of older farmers who have no one to pass there land onto.  

Hi Kate Michaud,
How do we find these older farmers seeking inheritors if we are looking for land to lend a hand and create shared permaculture community?

My suggestion is to contact your local branch of The Grange, a farming organization that has existed for 100 years, I think.
John S
PDX OR

https://www.nationalgrange.org/

I've been getting in contact with some open minded churches lately and have found a potential resource there. Some of the older members might be talked into letting people grow CSA vegetables on them and such, and many of the members are open to learning more about food forestry from me. Fingers crossed! That's a potential resource for those who need access to land. I know it's not the same as owning, but it's a start.

I'm a millennial. Born in 1991. I dropped out of college after only a year after I realized it wasn't worth the price tag for the way I wanted to live my life. I'm very frugal and 3 years ago I saved up enough to move to Idaho (Originally from Ohio) and buy 7 acres in cash. It is a beautiful property and perfect for my goals to homestead on it. So far I've been spreading hundreds of tree seeds hoping a decent percentage will take and also purchased a few cheap transplants. I'm also in the process of digging a small pond by hand which one day I would like to be big enough for fish, but it definitely might be a few years. I'm currently working at a hotel and i bought a cheap used trailer to live out of on my property with plans to start building a cabin by next summer. I am in love with the slow paced country life. I'm kind of a loner in some ways and I've been able to find plenty of solitude. My neighbor is quite a bit older but he is a transplant from California and we share a lot of the same vision. However I have noticed it is very difficult to meet people my own age out here. Especially ones that are interested in the same kind of lifestyle. I've been to the local bar a few times and there are a few people there my age, but they don't seem to be my type of people for the most part. Connecting with people my age seems to definitely be the hardest part about living this way. It would be awesome if I could meet some like minded individuals maybe others with permaculture/homesteading properties that I could visit and vice versa and maybe compare notes.

Travis-Have you checked out the permies regional forums?

I think there are quite a few people who hang out, visit and socialize about this kind of lifestyle. Some connect on permies.

John S
PDX OR

I've seen a lot in this thread about barriers to entry into the housing and land market. I think the biggest thing driving that is people's reluctance to move to wherever is necessary to make that happen. I would never consider living in Toronto or Vancouver if I were a millennial earning a typical Millennial wage. I would get my ass to wherever I had to go so that I could prosper.

I made a decision to head for greener pastures 25 years ago and it was the right decision.

Both of my children are millennials. Both are teachers and both save very large percentages of their incomes. They don't have a desire to be farmers or homesteaders, but they are certainly on track to be able to pay cash for those things, should they have a change of heart. They live frugally but they don't want for anything. They just don't do the really financially draining stuff like drugs, alcohol and financing things. And neither of them spends a huge amount on rent. They don't have cars. My youngest daughter was quite attracted to the bright lights of London, but now she his back on Vancouver Island, spending about a quarter of her income on her upkeep.

Both me and my oldest daughter have done some third world traveling. And both of us agree that our system is much more conducive to people getting ahead, should they decide to put in the elbow grease and stop spending money frivolously.

I will soon be married to a millennial a little younger than my daughters. She comes from dire poverty, but she's a worker and a saver and ultra frugal. I'm going to her country in three weeks and I will be there for 3 months. If she gets a visa to come back with me, I expect that our combined income will be 70 percent savings, which we will invest in the means of production.

She has three siblings that are all going to school on my dime. But once school is done they are expected to be productive and not subsidized. So I have in a way put myself in the middle of the financial futures of four millennials. Her two sisters will be fine. One of them is only in grade 8 although she's an adult. They all went to work as house servants at 8 years old. But they are bright and motivated, so I'm hoping that my input helps to cancel out the very poor start that all of them have had. I'm not so sure about her brother. He seems like a hopeless case because of mental problems. That gets really serious in places that don't have a social safety net. I will probably create a permanent farm job for him.

this is my first post and very new to homesteading, gardening, living a more sustainable lifestyle.

I left my fortune 500 job in the san francisco bay area two years ago. I was tired of the lifestyle; coworkers backstabbing each other to get ahead, waking up going to work, not having the freedom to do what I love. I started a youtube channel while I was working and it took off. I started an etsy shop too. Both did really well so I left the corporate world to follow my 'dreams'. Youtube didn't work out but Etsy is going strong. And since I've had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, I really got into urban homesteading. My space is fairly small but I'm able to do enough. I chop wood for the winter and recently got a wood splitter! It's amazing. I'm gay and its been difficult finding other gay people into this lifestyle. I want to be able to live off the land and live my life the way I want to while still growing my Etsy shop and other streams of income.

Welcome John. Any chance of showing us what you're selling?

Dale Hodgins wrote:Welcome John. Any chance of showing us what you're selling?

I used to sell shipping supplies but it took over my small townhouse. I slowly made my way to stationery products - mainly stickers. This was easy as I was able to store all my supplies in a small office. I've ventured into selling digital clipart and slowly growing my library. For clipart I'm mainly focusing on watercolors that I've hand painted and clipart I created on my ipad. I wanted to create a life where I can pretty much move my things and move to whatever state. Small stickers and digital items seems to work for me. I also just started a mug shop where I sell mugs with my designs on them and custom made mugs for businesses with their logos or mugs with personal pictures on them.

California continues to get more expensive each day especially near the san francisco bay area. I'm lucky enough that my mortgage is only $1300/month which is super cheap compared to current rent rates at $2100/month for a house my size. My hope is to someday save enough for another property with at least 2 acres of land outside of California. Then Rent out my townhouse to a family/friend and use it as residual income.

John Ope wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:Welcome John. Any chance of showing us what you're selling?

I used to sell shipping supplies but it took over my small townhouse. I slowly made my way to stationery products - mainly stickers. This was easy as I was able to store all my supplies in a small office. I've ventured into selling digital clipart and slowly growing my library. For clipart I'm mainly focusing on watercolors that I've hand painted and clipart I created on my ipad. I wanted to create a life where I can pretty much move my things and move to whatever state. Small stickers and digital items seems to work for me. I also just started a mug shop where I sell mugs with my designs on them and custom made mugs for businesses with their logos or mugs with personal pictures on them.

California continues to get more expensive each day especially near the san francisco bay area. I'm lucky enough that my mortgage is only $1300/month which is super cheap compared to current rent rates at $2100/month for a house my size. My hope is to someday save enough for another property with at least 2 acres of land outside of California. Then Rent out my townhouse to a family/friend and use it as residual income.

You should consider Western Washington!

https://permies.com/t/100135/Praise-Lewis-County

Dale Hodgins wrote:I've seen a lot in this thread about barriers to entry into the housing and land market. I think the biggest thing driving that is people's reluctance to move to wherever is necessary to make that happen. I would never consider living in Toronto or Vancouver if I were a millennial earning a typical Millennial wage. I would get my ass to wherever I had to go so that I could prosper.

I made a decision to head for greener pastures 25 years ago and it was the right decision.

Both of my children are millennials. Both are teachers and both save very large percentages of their incomes. They don't have a desire to be farmers or homesteaders, but they are certainly on track to be able to pay cash for those things, should they have a change of heart. They live frugally but they don't want for anything. They just don't do the really financially draining stuff like drugs, alcohol and financing things. And neither of them spends a huge amount on rent. They don't have cars. My youngest daughter was quite attracted to the bright lights of London, but now she his back on Vancouver Island, spending about a quarter of her income on her upkeep.

Both me and my oldest daughter have done some third world traveling. And both of us agree that our system is much more conducive to people getting ahead, should they decide to put in the elbow grease and stop spending money frivolously.

I will soon be married to a millennial a little younger than my daughters. She comes from dire poverty, but she's a worker and a saver and ultra frugal. I'm going to her country in three weeks and I will be there for 3 months. If she gets a visa to come back with me, I expect that our combined income will be 70 percent savings, which we will invest in the means of production.

She has three siblings that are all going to school on my dime. But once school is done they are expected to be productive and not subsidized. So I have in a way put myself in the middle of the financial futures of four millennials. Her two sisters will be fine. One of them is only in grade 8 although she's an adult. They all went to work as house servants at 8 years old. But they are bright and motivated, so I'm hoping that my input helps to cancel out the very poor start that all of them have had. I'm not so sure about her brother. He seems like a hopeless case because of mental problems. That gets really serious in places that don't have a social safety net. I will probably create a permanent farm job for him.

While I think this is true and valid, I also think that the category of "affordable places" has changed (degraded) significantly. When my parents were young affordable land could be had in places like canby Oregon, Vancouver island, or the Olympic Peninsula. Millennials and younger have to go much further and often to much harsher climates to find affordable land

Good thread.  Didn't read every post, but it seems like everyone has something to say on the topic.  Here's mine:

I was born in 1994, I'll be turning 25 this year.  All throughout high school, whenever the topic of college came up, I had deaf ears.  It never appealed to me at all.. If someone mentioned what college they were going to or what loans they were applying for, I just thought "...that sounds icky".  I had no alternative grand plan, yet in hindsight I literally thank myself every day for being stubborn about it and not even considering going to college.  I would in no way be able to do what I'm doing now, if I had accepted the notion that I needed to get a degree to be able to live with financial and personal independence.  In fact, it is clear to me now that it's the opposite:  I have no degree at all, and no debt thereof, which allows me to be completely independent in terms of lifestyle.  If I had invested years of my life racking up debt in college, instead of actually learning how to manage my life, I'd be a slave to whatever degree I would've squeezed out of it.  

I didn't really get my shit together until about 2016, after almost 3 years of goofing off after high school (moved across the state to chase a girlfriend, smoked a bunch of weed, didn't save a dime but also never went into debt).  I then got slapped in the face with reality via a breakup and moving back in with my dad.  After a few too many months of semi-depression, I got a restaurant job making decent money.  Somehow, a seed of the idea of buying a house was planted in my mind, and for about 2 years I saved all the cash I was making.  Literally went straight to the ATM to deposit it every night after work.  At this time I had no idea about or interest in permaculture, farming, horticulture, etc., I just wanted my own space.  I was starting to become educated in the real world, and realized my own conservative values, the importance of personal responsibility, and how to think and plan long term.  College teaches nothing in those realms.

I ended up getting a house in the city with a tiny bit of land (.18 acres), and the mortgage for this house was my first and only major debt.  I have a credit card, which I use for gas and pay in full every month.  I use it as a tool to build credit.  I've never had a car payment- I drive a 2001 Dodge Ram which I bought with cash.  
Anyway, I was the only 23 year old I knew who owned property.  Even worse- at one point, I was the only person my age (who I knew) with more than a couple hundred dollars in their bank account.  I would hear friends talking about how they had to wait til their next paycheck to make a certain purchase, and I would silently think "what the hell is this person doing?  They make the same amount of money as me, but I have twenty grand saved and they have zero."  Intentionally or not, my friend group has certainly shifted.  

So as soon as I moved into my property, I started planting fruit trees.  Just a banana and a papaya to start with, but gradually my interest grew.  Now, the entire property is a food forest.  I started to get really into horticulture because I wanted to grow my own plants... one thing led to another, and now I am running a fruit tree nursery and edible landscaping business from my backyard.  Being entirely self taught and equipped with the same stubbornness that kept me out of college, I ignored all the hoops I was supposed to jump through before starting this venture (become a master gardener! take a horticulture course at the local college! work for someone else first! start small and slow!) and just dove in and started producing.  At least as important as being independent via entrepreneurship, to me, was having social status.  I guess it's the same reason I wanted to buy a house- I wanted to be the only millennial who owns property, I wanted to be the only one running a tropical fruit nursery in their backyard.  I wanted people to come to me to see how these things are done, because I love to share it.

I, like most men, learn by doing.  What fun would it be to learn all about how to do something, before actually trying to do it?  I've realized it's a fantasy, just like the idea that a college degree "gets you somewhere".  YOU get somewhere by going there.  It's why I have such a passion for my nursery, because I get to learn new things all the time by DOING them... not by sitting in a classroom talking theory, or taking adderall to be able to finish that paper you have no interest in.  No, for me, whether that plant I'm growing lives or dies, I am learning something and developing a skill.  

The thing about not having debt, is that you have freedom to fail.  You don't have to settle for an unfulfilling yet guaranteed paycheck- you can actually try to do the things you've wanted to do, and if you fail,  you just have to work harder.  If I was living paycheck to paycheck with debt hanging over my head, I'd sure be afraid to try anything that might not work.  I have incentives to succeed, rather than threats to not fail.

To summarize, I'll say that getting to the kind of place in life where you have a lot of options, comes from saying NO to many things along the way- most of which are presented as necessities.  NO to college, NO to debt, NO to hedonistic spending, NO to friends who drain you, NO to expectations (specifically to this thread, your expectation of what the ideal piece of land is.  Don't be afraid to buy junk and fix it up, that's what I did.) and most importantly NO to the idea that there is only one path to a successful life.  There is a ton of gray area in life for you to experiment, mess up, and try again. Not so in a contract or commitment to a college degree/career.  Those things are black and white, and those numbers are what they are.  So I think the number one thing preventing millennials from having the option to pursue permaculture, is that they are chained to one thing or another which has drained their creativity.  With a college degree, you know exactly what you're going to get, and it's usually a let down.  Forging your own alternative path means you risk success or failure.  The success is much sweeter, and the failures make you learn more, faster.  

I hate to keep bashing college because I do believe it can be useful for some people.  But it wasn't useful for me.  You have to think of it in those terms, as if it's a tool.  Most people think of it as a rite of passage, which it isn't.  You are no less of a person for not doing it, and if you're not getting anything out of it then you're wasting your time.  
I believe I'm at least 8-10 years ahead of most people my age who are just graduating college- not only due to the time actually spent there, but due to the debt they likely have and the years it will take to deprogram the mindset that they are more worthy of something just because they jumped through a hoop.  
I'm so glad I opted out.

I think with any education, whether it was worth it depends on what you are training for. I would never pay someone to teach me how to prune trees or to teach me the dozens of other things I can learn from YouTube. If I want to get into heart surgery, I suppose some training might be in order.

Certainly in the work I do, level of education has never factored into whether or not I hire or fire someone. I'm only looking at ability and production. Sometimes a fourteen-year-old is more naturally capable than a 40 year old who has been trained.

But there are many jobs that reward the certificate, and the jumping through hoops. And not all hoops are easy to jump through. Both of my daughters are teachers. Schools are filled with good and bad teachers. Their earnings do not reflect which teacher is good and which one is not. That is a function of seniority, and whether or not they have gotten their master's degree. I know that those two things don't determine whether the teacher is good or not, but that's the system.

Conner Murphy wrote:
I hate to keep bashing college because I do believe it can be useful for some people.  But it wasn't useful for me.  You have to think of it in those terms, as if it's a tool.  Most people think of it as a rite of passage, which it isn't.  You are no less of a person for not doing it, and if you're not getting anything out of it then you're wasting your time.  
I believe I'm at least 8-10 years ahead of most people my age who are just graduating college- not only due to the time actually spent there, but due to the debt they likely have and the years it will take to deprogram the mindset that they are more worthy of something just because they jumped through a hoop.  
I'm so glad I opted out.

I chose the higher ed route, ......but still appreciate Derrick Jensen's echoing of your experience and that of many others:

"I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure. Less time wouldn't do it, and in fact, those who are especially slow go to college. For the exceedingly obstinate child there is graduate school.

I have nothing against education; it's just that education—from the Greek root educere, meaning to lead forth or draw out, and originally a midwife's term meaning to be present at the birth of—is not the primary function of schooling. I'm not saying by all this that Mrs. Calloway, my first-grade teacher, was trying to murder the souls of her tiny charges, any more than I've been trying to say that individual scientists are necessarily hell-bent on destroying the planet or that individual Christians necessarily hate women and hate their bodies. The problem is much worse than that, it is not merely personal nor even institutional (although the institutions we've created do mirror the destructiveness of our culture). It is implicit in the processes, and therefore virtually transparent."  -- 'A Language Older Than Words'.