Genesis Farm
Genesis Farm is grateful to be a part of one more attempt by farmers and agriculture advocates to protect not only our land and our food, but all of our planet’s living communities. Transgenic seed has been inflicted on farmers around the world, and certainly here in the US without our permission and often without our knowledge. We view it as a tragic violation of our communities, our health, and our rights by powerful economic and political forces that seek to profit by gaining control over the very nature of life itself.
Since 1980, when Genesis Farm was founded by the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey, we have strived to be an ecological learning center that asks deep questions about how we, as responsible humans, can approach our lives. Our work is based on a scientific understanding of the evolving Universe, on the conviction that the survival of the human species must be considered within the broader context of how Earth is surviving, and on the belief that all reality is permeated by the presence and power of that ultimate Holy Mystery that has been so deeply and richly expressed in the world’s spiritual traditions.
Genesis Farm has held in trust a sacred endowment of land totaling 231 acres in northwest New Jersey. Over the years, we helped to found and host the Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm, pursued heirloom seed-saving initiatives, and are now constructing our own biodynamic demonstration gardens.
As such, we have often contemplated the value of a seed. Is it even possible to measure the worth of this complex yet humble life form? The seed carries memories that stretch back to the beginning of life itself. Wired into its DNA are the memories of all that has come before, millions and millions of years of accumulated knowledge that the plant has acquired to thrive, billions and billions of years of atomic, chemical, and molecular activity that flow seamlessly from the Universe’s tumultuous beginnings.