In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can—and will—overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world—we change ourselves. ~ Jules Dervaes ~

Jules Dervaes is the founder and director of the Dervaes Institute, incorporated in 2006. He has established a number of organizations dedicated to self-sufficiency, simple living and environmental sustainability, including the URBAN HOMESTEAD^®, FREEDOM GARDENS^®, URBAN HOMESTEADING^®, BARNYARDS AND BACKYARDS^®, and The URBAN HOMESTEAD^® Supply store.

Mr. Dervaes came of age during the turmoil of the late 1960s. He moved to New Zealand in 1973, where he lived simply and homesteaded a small plot in an abandoned gold mining town where he raised chickens, goats and bees and grew his own food. After returning to the U.S. in 1975, he continued his homesteading journey on 10 acres in central Florida while running several self-employed businesses -- one in lawn maintenance and the other as a bee keeping supply and honey business.

In 1984, he moved across the country with his family to one-fifth of an acre in Pasadena where he continued to live simply and grow a garden in his backyard. As his young family grew up, he educated his children in back-to-basics and environmental practices. They built solar ovens, grew and harvested vegetables, created their own projects, learned outdoor survival skills, tended hives of bees, and immersed themselves into learning about the natural world and the environmental issues affecting it. Sustainable agriculture was a serious concern for the family and they began to transition their diets into vegetarianism and organic foods.

A period of drought in Southern California during the early 1990s prompted Mr. Dervaes to remove his (dying) lawn and replace it with wildflowers and herbs, and, later, edible landscaping. In the Fall of 2000, after hearing of the introduction of GMOs into the food supply by U.S. biotech corporations, Mr. Dervaes decided to take matters into his own hands by pushing the limits of sustainability and growing as much of his family’s food as possible. This personal challenge of extreme city self-sufficiency was called the URBAN HOMESTEADING^® lifestyle by Mr. Dervaes and his family and they began to publish their results on the internet.

This impromptu journal on their website, Urban Homestead.org, became the first, largest, and most comprehensive Urban Homestead^® website. In 2008, Mr. Dervaes authored the "10 Elements of Urban Homesteading" as a guidepost for the worldwide fast growing movement that was following the example he created in Pasadena, California.

The Urban Homestead project has proven to be the leader of urban sustainability and the one-tenth acre garden now can produce over 6,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables annually and has reached an even higher achievement of over 7,000 lbs in 2010. The family also runs a successful business, Dervaes Gardens, providing fresh, organic produce to high-end restaurants and to the local community via a "Front Porch Farmstand."

Through the family's adventures in establishing this lifestyle, growing and preserving their own food, installing a solar power system, home-brewing biodiesel for fuel, raising backyard farm animals, and learning back-to-basics skills, these modern-day pioneers have revived the old-fashioned spirit of self-reliance and resourcefulness. By documenting and freely sharing the steps they have taken towards a self-sufficient life, the Dervaeses have inspired millions of readers to pursue a sustainable future and have generated a 21st century Urban Homestead movement.

Mr. Dervaes, his family and their Urban Homestead have been the subject of numerous articles in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), ABC’s Nightline, CNN, Sundance Channel, Food Network and Radio New Zealand.

A lively and engaging speaker, Mr. Dervaes is a much sought-after speaker on a wide variety of topics related to his experience and success in the Urban Homesteading lifestyle and his deep concern for pressing environmental issues. Some of his notable appearances include: Georgia Organics Conference, Decatur, GA (March 2009); John Thackara workshop, Orange County (February 2009); Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, Nevada City, CA (January 2009); Education for Sustainable Living Program class, UCLA; Burbank First United Methodist Church; All Saints Church, Pasadena; Smith & Hawken, Pasadena; Ten Thousand Villages, Pasadena; Art as Social Action – Slow Food class, UCLA; Green Building Program, City of Pasadena; Eco Farm Conference, Asilomar, CA.

Additionally, a short film created by the family as a visual aid to Mr. Dervaes' presentations called Homegrown Revolution has been featured on Oprah, won multiple awards and is currently being shown in film festivals nationally and internationally.