At the opening plenary of this year’s Eco-Farm Conference held at Asilomar Beach, CA, which brings together farmers, environmental justice advocates and policy advisors, organic certifiers and buyers, academics, foodies, permies, and all around hamish people for four days of workshops, panels, and networking, an older gentleman and longtime organizer, welcomed the hundreds of attendees with a self-admitted, unusual gusto.

As he looked out over the crowd, it occurred to him that the “white hairs” did not dominate as they have in past decades. Conceding that one of his generation’s greater fear was that their hard work in organic agriculture, food security, and farmland protection, would be ignored and discontinued by its increasingly urban progeny, he asked for those 30 years of age and under to stand up. Among a mass of encouraging men and woman, I got to my feet, and felt all at once an inclusion and erstwhile obligation that comes when the collective hopes of the torchbearers are conferred upon its young. It was many moments like this, where with the casual comment from a farmer or a self-revealing admission from a food service director, I was reaffirmed of the vital role our practice of sustainable principles has in every facet of our lives.

Johari Cole, who farms row-cropped veggies with her husband seventy-five miles south of Chicago and is a member of the African-American organic farmers’ collective, the Pembroke Farmers Cooperative, has managed to raise a family and successful business in one of the poorest counties in the country. The tall and charismatic Cole picked up work as a fashion model for a stint in order to bring in extra cash, describing how assistants berated her for all the soil they had to scrub out from under her fingernails.

While preparing to yawn through John Williams of Frog’s Leap Winery’s autobiographical presentation, who I assumed was just another Napa Valley deep pocket, I learned that he built his empire with an unusually keen eye towards sustainability of his land and business. As he tells it, he and his partner’s two major guiding principles were to make great wine and have fun doing it, “because profit appeared to be an unreliable motive.” Today, their winery boasts the first LEED certification for a business of its kind, runs on 100% solar and geothermal energy, and dry farms their grapes so that little water is used in their actual cultivation. Not because they have to, but Frog’s Leap has chosen to be an example of how a resource-intensive industry like viticulture can be done with a profound respect for the earth.

One of the more remarkable revelations at Eco-Farm came from Dan Cautie, of food service giant Sodexho at CSU Monterey Bay. Undoubtedly the only man in suit and tie all week, Dan began by deeply thanking everyone for having him. As we were about to find out, after he moved to California several years prior, he started to absorb the mantra of “seasonal, local, organic” from people who patiently explained to him its encompassing principles. Dan thanked us all again, and as he stepped forward and leaned in closer to the mike, he whispered with a smile, “I have awakened.” The farm to college program he runs with counsel from some local sustainable food projects, and which is responsible for supplying the University’s dining needs, started humbly with fair trade coffee, and has since grown to source over 30% local, organic food. Hearing Dan wax poetic on the “black gold” that his fully compostable eatware will one day become makes one do a double-take, narrow the eyes, and really wonder if corporate greenwash could really sound that genuine. Dan assured the appreciative audience that Sodexho is starting to listen, all on up the chain.

What became apparent to me, though, despite all the embattlement of disenfranchised farmers and farm communities, is that the Farm is a center for real change; the folks at Farms Not Arms can tell you all about it. Not only that, but the Farm is a center for healing, of the land, of its neighbors; the folks at the San Bruno County Jail’s Garden Project might know something about that. When a farm runs its implements on veggie oil, when it rotates its crops in order to rebuild healthy soil, when it fully convert to zero waste, when it bolsters the fresh food supply in its community, when it gives people a place to rediscover their roots, atone, and begin anew, it does what we all have been mandated as a species to do, but have forgotten, which is mimic nature’s patterns and carve out a harmonious niche in the natural world.

It is not surprising that the many stories I heard of someone who got the hair-brained idea to begin farming, as naive and romantic as they were, knew that it was the only thing to do. And despite their lack of initial capital or knowledge, those brave folks usually all acknowledge that first taste right off the plant–a grape, a strawberry, a snap pea–that first taste when their world was shattered by a transcendent joy, only to gently re-form and re-focus, with new meaning and articulation. It is their stories that sustain me, assuring me that as we tread lightly along that path that celebrates the simple yet unpredictable enterprise of feeding ourselves, we must continue to remind ourselves of the wisdom of respecting our inheritance.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing the new crop come in.