Commentary
I’ve just returned home from the Utah Farm and Food Conference in Cedar City, and it was unlike any conference I’ve ever attended.Sara and Symbria Patterson, the mother-daughter team behind Red Acre Farm, hosted the gathering. Sara began farming when she was just 14 years old, and by 16, it was the sole source of income for her entire family. Their operation sits on only 2 acres, but it has far more heart than acreage.
Sara and Symbria are the extraordinary balance of chaos, fight, and love that creates something truly special. Life has not been easy for them. Sara lost her father, and Symbria was widowed some years ago. Their house burned down. They have faced serious medical uphill battles with other family members. And yet they walk through the world with so much grace, quietly making it a better place for everybody in Utah. The farm and the community they have built are a reflection of that resilience.
Red Acre is a small vegetable farm with a modest commercial kitchen attached to a charming farmhouse. Dormer windows, plank wood floors, antiques scattered throughout, and a farm stand open several days a week create a feeling that is equal parts hardworking and deeply loved. High tunnels hum with winter produce, a walk-in cooler is neatly stocked, and the surrounding community shows up in a way I have rarely seen.
The first morning, there was a fundraiser right on the street in downtown Cedar City. Volunteers sold pancakes, eggs, and sausage, and even a local city council member was out there flipping flapjacks and frying eggs. It was the kind of thing that surely would have been illegal somewhere else, but here even the police chief walked up and bought breakfast off the side of the road. The community supports this farm like almost nothing I’ve ever seen. It was an honor to watch.
That spirit of local support is matched by serious statewide impact. The Red Acre Center, a sister organization to the farm, has helped pass more than 20 bills in Utah aimed at protecting small farmers and preserving food freedom. They are doing the kind of quiet, relentless policy work most people never notice, but every farmer benefits from.
People traveled from all over Utah and across the country to attend the conference. I was honored to be the final keynote speaker of the weekend, but the audience was the real story.
Utah is generally considered a conservative state, yet organic farming draws people from every corner of the cultural map. Each lecture hall was filled with traditional conservative Utah residents, many from the Latter-day Saint community, sitting side by side with purple-haired, blue-haired, barefoot attendees with nose rings and tattoos. I overheard one older woman whisper, “I’ve never seen so many nose rings in one room.”
The opening ceremony captured the spirit perfectly. An indigenous woman began by acknowledging the original people of the land. Immediately afterward, a fifth-generation cowboy took the microphone to thank President Donald Trump for his work on behalf of cattle ranchers.
That was the vibe all weekend. Different worldviews. Different politics. Different life stories.
Yet the same struggle.
What struck me most was this: It didn’t matter how people dressed, how they voted, or how they identified. Everyone in that room is fighting to keep a farm alive. Everyone is searching for a way to survive in a system that seems designed to crush small producers.
One of the most moving moments came from a short film about a young woman farming in Iowa. The film showed a beautiful piece of land and a farmer working herself to the bone, trying to keep payroll covered and the operation afloat. Eighty percent of what she said resonated deeply with me—her frustration with a rigged system, with poisoned food, with the corporate stranglehold on agriculture. The other 20 percent touched on ideas we probably disagree on—language about safe spaces and equity, and her pride in running what she called “the queerest farm in Iowa.”
There was a part of me that could have dismissed her because of those differences.
But then she stood up to speak after the film aired and shared that she had lost her farm since the documentary was made.
In that moment, I didn’t see a political label. I saw pain I recognized. I saw exhaustion I’ve felt. I saw a woman who gave everything she had to grow real food, only to be defeated by a broken system.
And I realized something important.
Food is what can bring us together.
It is easy for me to judge people who believe differently from me. But growing nutrient-dense food for your community is an act of resistance in today’s world. Anyone willing to do that is my ally.
This courageous young woman and I might disagree on plenty. But we are both entrenched in the same failing food system. We are both fighting for a path forward that doesn’t end in foreclosure and burnout.
When I really looked at her, I didn’t see an adversary. I saw a fighter.
And we need more fighters.
So when I took the stage for my keynote, I asked the audience a simple question: Can we let nutrient-dense, chemical-free food be the thing that brings us together?
Can we agree that keeping chemicals out of our food, water, and soil is more important than the labels we attach to one another?
Can we go out every day and be the best cell in the body of Christ that we can be?
And then I added, because I knew not everyone in the room shared my faith: “If you don’t believe in Christ, can you be the best cell in the body of nature that you can be?”
It’s easy to write people off. But if only 23 percent of Americans are currently fit to serve in the military, then only a small fraction are fit enough to farm. I cannot expect that small group to all share my exact political views.
What I can do is look for common ground.
And perhaps soil itself is that common ground.
Perhaps food can be the bridge to the future we are all fighting for.
At Red Acre Farm and Center, I got a glimpse of what that future might look like—people with wildly different backgrounds united by the simple, sacred work of growing real food.
If we can build on that, there is hope for all of us.
