Can an urban farmer earn a living wage? | Teresa O'Donnell | TEDxHouston
The speaker shares how her life path has been accidental, leading her from pediatric ICU nursing to launching initiatives focused on community well-being. She illustrates this by detailing the struggle to help uneducated refugees find work before pivoting to proving that a single acre of local market gardening can generate a living wage. The overarching lesson is that true impact is achieved by building robust community bonds, surpassing mere economic opportunity.
## Speakers & Context
- Unnamed speaker (self-described non-planner): Traveled from pediatric ICU nurse burnout to pursuing an MBA.
- Brother Pat: Described as a "great planner" who creates and follows short-term and long-term goals.
- Setting: Discussion of personal and professional growth, culminating in an initiative called "Planet Forward."
## Theses & Positions
- Career paths can often emerge from unplanned experiences rather than careful planning.
- An individual's well-being is comprised of five universal, interconnected elements: career, social, financial, physical, and community.
- The potential for positive social change (e.g., helping refugees) requires identifying a niche that connects existing skills or resources to unmet community needs.
- Large-scale systemic change (like transforming land into productive farms) requires perseverance through periods of apparent stagnation and failure.
- The ultimate focus of community investment should be on creating holistic *community well-being*, which is broader than just food production or opportunity.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Five essential elements (of well-being):** Career well-being, social well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being, and community well-being.
- **Market gardening:** A term used by the founder of Urban Harvest implying the ability to generate money from gardening efforts.
- **Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions:** Model where people pay weekly to pick up a bag of produce.
- **Pioneers:** Label given to the refugee farmers who agreed to try the new endeavor despite initial uncertainty.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Company Investment Initiative:** Company mandated employees to read the book *Well-being, the five essential elements* and initiate a focus on one element at work.
- Physical well-being $\rightarrow$ Hiring a chef for daily lunches and bringing in a yoga teacher twice weekly.
- Social well-being $\rightarrow$ Planning social events both at and outside of work for families.
- Community well-being $\rightarrow$ Speaker volunteering to help local community groups.
- **Refugee Skill Assessment:** Initial plan focused on helping highly educated refugees (doctors, lawyers, engineers) via resume reviews and mock interviews.
- **Pivot to Farming:** The discovery of the potential in market gardening led to training refugee farmers on local seasonal growing techniques and sales methods.
- **Project Momentum:** The project moved from securing necessary skills/resources (market gardeners, church land, refugee farmers) to establishing an operational model (building, training, planting, harvesting, selling).
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Start:** Speaker starts career as pediatric ICU nurse $\rightarrow$ Burnout $\rightarrow$ Attends graduate business school.
- **Software Company:** Worked for 26 years on software/services for corporate legal departments.
- **Five Years Ago:** Company implemented the well-being initiative.
- **Initial Community Focus:** Investigated refugee issues in Houston, initially focusing on highly skilled, settled refugees.
- **Pivotal Shift:** Encountered newly arrived, undereducated refugees from war zones via airport pickup in Hobby Airport (near midnight).
- **Research/Realization:** Learned that to be a refugee, one must flee their country and apply to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; established wait time is 5 to 10 years.
- **Second Inspiration:** Saw a PBS special on Tippi Hedren, learning that teaching basic skill (nail art) to Vietnamese refugees created an industry.
- **Second Opportunity:** Read about *market gardening* and learned that one acre could support a family wage.
- **Project Implementation:** Secured three acres from a church, recruited 14 refugee farmers, and began training them through the following seasons.
- **Setback:** Project stalled for several months due to failure to secure a land lease.
- **Resilience:** Project restarted 10 months later after a drought; successfully proved living wage capability on one acre.
## Named Entities
- **Houston Chronicle:** Source of the initial article regarding resettling refugees.
- **United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):** Body through which refugee status is applied for.
- **Hobby Airport:** Location where the family of nine from Somalia was picked up.
- **Somalia:** Country from which the initial group of refugees arrived.
- **Tippi Hedren:** 60s movie star known for *The Birds*, who later became an international relief coordinator.
- **Sacramento:** Location where Tippi Hedren worked with Vietnamese refugees.
- **Vietnamese Americans:** Community that developed an industry from nail artistry skills.
- **Urban Harvest:** Local nonprofit community garden/school garden training organization.
- **Planet Forward:** The name of the initiative envisioned by the speaker.
## Numbers & Data
- Years in ICU nursing: **Five** years.
- Years running software company: **26** years.
- Five well-being elements: **Five**.
- Years waiting for permanent resettlement status: **Five to 10** years.
- Size of initial refugee family: **Nine** people (two adults, seven children).
- Acreage of land used for the proof-of-concept: **One** acre (out of three acres).
## Examples & Cases
- **Physical Care Example:** Hiring a chef for daily healthy lunches and a yoga teacher twice a week.
- **Refugee Initial Scenario:** Highly educated refugees (doctors, lawyers, engineers) struggling to find work in Houston.
- **Refugee Reality:** Newly arrived group from Somalia, composed of seven children and two adults, who were visibly exhausted and dressed identically.
- **Orphanhood Detail:** Three children were designated as orphans after their parents were killed; the mother cried so hard the children were allowed to accompany their aunt and uncle.
- **Skills Transfer:** Teaching basic household skills like flushing toilets, mixing hot/cold water, and using ovens/microwaves in the new apartment.
- **Nail Art Economy:** The simple act of teaching nail art to Vietnamese refugees created an industry still dominated by Vietnamese Americans.
- **Market Gardening Potential:** Experience from Urban Harvest founder suggesting one acre could support a family wage.
- **Pioneer Group:** 14 Congolese refugees who were all previously farmers and wanted to return to farming.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **MBA:** Degree obtained by the speaker.
- **Software/Services:** Products sold by the company to large corporate legal departments.
- **Yoga Teacher/Chef:** Services hired to improve physical well-being.
- **Van:** Vehicle used to transport the refugees to their new apartment.
- **Tractor/Farming Equipment:** Implied need/use for market gardening/farming.
## References Cited
- *Well-being, the five essential elements*: Book guiding the corporate initiative.
- **Houston Chronicle**: Publication featuring the initial article on resettling refugees.
- **United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees**: Organization determining refugee status.
- **PBS special**: Documentary viewed featuring Tippi Hedren's work.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- Initial approach: Helping highly skilled refugees (doctors, lawyers) via professional consulting.
- Revised approach: Focusing on vocational training (farming) for low-skilled, recent arrivals.
- Early Career Alternative: Starting a law firm (avoided due to MBA status).
- Work Focus Shift: Moving from abstract consulting services to tangible, physical production (food).
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- Initial difficulty in connecting the company's resources (software) to the immediate need (refugee job skills).
- The period of inactivity/stagnation when the land lease could not be secured was extremely difficult and caused self-doubt.
## Methodology
- **Observation/Curiosity:** Observing the needs of the first group of refugees (skilled) and realizing a deeper need existed.
- **Networking/Research:** Consulting local resettlement agencies and reading articles (Houston Chronicle) to understand the true depth of the crisis.
- **Skill Mapping:** Identifying replicable, low-barrier-to-entry economic activities (nail art, farming).
- **Community Mobilization:** Successfully convincing and coordinating refugee farmers, church land owners, and local trainers.
- **Proof-of-Concept Testing:** Conducting a controlled trial on one acre of land to prove the economic model.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The core message is that building community well-being is paramount and can surpass economic opportunity or physical development in importance.
- Final vision: *Planet Forward* aiming for "a farm in every neighborhood" to bring community wellness.
- Call to action: Encouraging the community to engage in such large-scale, community-building efforts.
## Implications & Consequences
- The emotional impact of witnessing the vulnerable and resilient nature of newly arrived refugee families profoundly shifted the speaker's life direction.
- The model proves that localized food production, when combined with community effort, can create localized economic stability and social cohesion.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"I don't consider myself a great planner."*
- *"I saw the very best and worst in people and I learned just tons about myself and other people."*
- *"the five universal elements that contribute to a person's well-being over their lifetime."*
- *"she said, 'Yes, they are having problems, but let me tell you who's really having problems here.'"*
- *"I was just along for the ride."*
- *"the mom cried so loud and so long and so hard that they let her bring them."*
- *"The first thing I noticed was an article in the Houston Chronicle about refugees."*
- *"I think God said yes, but not yet."*
- *"we proved you can make a living wage off an acre of land."*
- *"It really is about creating community well-being."*