Recently my friend Molly pared down her belongings, stored what she couldn’t carry with her, and left Brooklyn for the fields of rural Missouri to help in the construction of Factor e Farm. The goal of the young farmer scientists who run Factor e farm is to create a replicable, modern, independent off-the-grid farming community or “global village.” So far they are constructing buildings with clay bricks made of the local soil, planting orchards and perennial vegetables, farming local fish, collecting rain water to drink, generating their own electricity from waste vegetable oil and solar power, and working towards creating a “Global Village Construction Set” that would list all the tools necessary to replicate their system once it is totally self sufficient.

The mind-blowing thing about this project is that anybody who wants to start a similar community can do so virtually for free on the outskirts of many cities in the United States. Right now, arable land is cheap. Hell, I heard that in North Dakota they are giving away land to anybody who wants it. I say to all those who are actually taking up this opportunity, all the power to you. The idea is, if you can generate the money to create the system, you will reap the benefits forever. This quote from Factor e farm pretty much sums up their vision:

We are after the creation of new society, one which has learned from the past and moves forward with ancient wisdom and modern technology.

I will be following the progress of this project as Molly sends updates from the farm. You can follow her blog posts here. Learn more about their cost-effective farming methods and plans for the future of the farm in this video: