'It's obvious there is another back-to-the-land movement' as many younger people seek to grow their own food

The 20th-century homesteading movement that began in the 1950s and stretched into the 1970s was anchored by people who rejected commercialized, materialistic living and turned toward independent living that reconnected them with the land. Many couples or families who sought a more down-to-earth life moved to Vermont and Maine, seeking to live "on their own terms," writes Kirsten Lie-Nielsen for Ambrook Research. "My mother was part of the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and '70s, a generational exodus to the countryside that was so noticeable it changed census statistics."

In the 1960s and '70s, "going back to the land was part of the broader counterculture movement," Lie-Nielsen writes. . . "rejecting many of the trappings of mainstream society. In the 1970s alone, over one million people were inspired to move to the country. It's no fluke that Vermont and Maine became homesteading destinations for so many — it's all about one couple named Helen and Scott Nearing."

The Nearings had moved to Vermont in 1932, in search of a less chaotic way of life. In 1950, they published Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, and in 1952, "they moved to Brookside, Maine, where they established a homestead that would eventually become the Good Life Center," Lie-Nielsen adds. "Yet it would be more than a decade before the homesteading movement really took off. . . . . Living The Good Life was republished in 1970. . . . The new edition became a sensation, inspiring a generation of back-to-the-landers, many of whom arrived at the Nearings' homestead hoping to learn from the masters of simple living."

Most homesteaders, "including my mother and her husband, embraced an entirely off-grid lifestyle," Lie-Nielsen writes. Eliot Coleman, a back-to-lander who followed the Nearings example, told Lie-Nielsen: "My first wife and I built a house for a thousand dollars back in '68. It wasn't big, but it was simple and warm. We heated with wood, we had a well that we dug that we got water from, we dug a root cellar where we stored food over the winter. We didn't have electricity, we didn't have a phone — talk about economics! Without those bills coming in, there was nothing that could stop us."

Overall, the "back-to-the-landers largely did not seek to enter into commerce with their farm beyond perhaps a modest roadside farmstand," Lie-Nielsen adds. "They just wanted to provide enough food for themselves and their families and live peacefully alongside nature. . . . Today, self-sufficiency is once again in vogue. After the coronavirus pandemic. . . many people began to research growing their own food and rural land sales increased." Homesteading advocate Warren Berkowitz told Lie-Nielsen: "Young people are definitely wanting either to farm, or to do something with food. It's obvious there is another back-to-the-land movement; I think our kids' generation is very food-related."