The Mission Statement of Living Energy Farm

The Living Energy Farm is a project to build a community, education center, and farm that demonstrates that a fulfilling life is possible without the use of any fossil fuel. Our mission is to serve as an example and actively promote lifestyles and technologies that are truly sustainable, and to make these sustainable technologies accessible to all persons regardless of their income or social position.

Living Energy Farm is a project to build an environmental education center in Louisa County Virginia. Employing both very old and new technologies, LEF will be a zero fossil fuel school and community. It will demonstrate that it is possible to live a healthy joyful life without the use of any fossil fuel. LEF will be a self-sufficient farm that will host youth interns in an educational program covering diverse areas of modern sustainable living, including organic gardening and orcharding, the use of draft animals, green building with low-tech and local materials, solar water and space heating, solar electricity, woodgas, biogas, composting toilets, greywater systems, bicycle repair, and other subjects. Most importantly, LEF will teach youth about the importance of sustainable technology in context, about when and where such technologies are effective and when they are not. The most powerful sustainable “technology” we will employ is cooperative housing in an income-sharing community. We will foster a lively community culture that will be an eye-opener for many modern youth. Though we will use some modern machines (such as solar electricity for pumping water), we will not have a general accessibility to electric power. We will pro-actively build a homemade positive social culture without electronic escapism.

  Status: Operational