Now a nonprofit educational enterprise, the manor is among the New York-area farms attracting locavores, green-minded students and urbanites suffering from nature-deficit disorder who yearn to raise produce and livestock for a day, a week or longer.

Revealing the inspiration behind his latest epic, Avatar, legendary filmmaker James Cameron recently described himself as a "nature geek", and said modern humans were suffering a degree of "nature deficit disorder". It may not be a medically recognised condition, but "nature deficit disorder" is a concept gaining traction with childhood and behavioural experts around the world.

Many members of my generation grew into adulthood taking nature’s gifts for granted; we assumed (when we thought of it at all) that generations to come would receive these gifts. But something has changed. Now we see the emergence of what I have come to call nature-deficit disorder. This term is by no means a medical diagnosis, but it does offer a way to think about the problem and the possibilities — for children, and for the rest of us as well.