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feminist farming, what does that mean?

(from the original email i sent out months ago, as izzi and i were looking for other folks to work with...) 

BARE BONES FARM POLITICS

we are organized around feminist anti-racist principles, where womyn, transgender, and genderqueer people create a supportive & encouraging core of leadership.  we approach this work with an understanding that our present day experiences have been built on the brutal history that is tied to this land and our ancestors.

through genocide and colonialism, slavery, forced migration, environmental racism, genetic engineering, and the encroachment of technology, we inherit the privileges, struggles, and sorrows of those who have lived and labored before us.  we work in solidarity with others today- to create community, share food, teach & learn skills, dismantle oppression, and live creatively and lovingly, as a resistance to all systems of domination. 

we are organized cooperatively and are committed to working through our struggles together, sharing ownership and empowering one another.  we generate income through selling our vegetables, but instead of capitalism, we structure our principles around cooperation. 

The goal of putting this out there now is to begin creating a working group of those of us who are passionate about food justice, while also recognizing that the creation of this group is belated. Here are some things pulled from the original email, with some questions about HOW to plug in, as farmers:::

kale in november... which we are eating now, as it overwintered.

ORGANIZED AROUND FEMINIST, ANTI-RACIST PRINCIPLES- how does this look on the ground? What ethics are woven through our whole process? Who can we look to in order to learn from? How can the “organization” reflect these major principles? As we are a work-in-progress, what are the goals we are always reaching for?

WOMYN, TRANSGENDER, & GENDERQUEER PEOPLE'S LEADERSHIP- what forms does this leadership take? How are cis-men (individuals who were assigned male-bodied at birth, and who identify as men) accountable, and what is their place in this project? What is our shared analysis around binary gender? What are our individual gifts and limitations?

HISTORY TIED TO THIS LAND & OUR ANCESTORS- who were the original inhabitants of the land that we are now farming on? What has the legacy of farming in the “state of wisconsin” given to people and taken away from people? How do we see ourselves fitting into this history?

GENOCIDE/COLONIALISM- how are we examining the present-day colonialism that continues to perpetuate? How do we see ourselves as “owners” of this project/this farm? how do we mourn the genocide that has happened on this land that we are poised to be stewards of?

SLAVERY- how do we mourn the legacy of slavery that continues to perpetuate in the lives and minds of all people who have inherited this history? How do we link the slavery that continues today- in florida, throughout the planet- to our own privileged consumerism? How can we bridge connections to land & farming for those who have significant historical trauma connected to this?

FORCED MIGRATION- how do we resist the xenophobic, racist discourse on immigration in the u.s.? How can we connect our privileged farming with the large-scale exploitation of farm laborers? How can we continue to build a small-scale farm system and dismantle the large monocropping factory farming (& subsidies) that force the migration of millions of people?

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM- how can we support access to land and healthy food, especially for people of color in the city with limited opportunities for gardening, and/or limited transportation, time, or nearby grocery stores? Where are madison's food deserts and how can we be part of changing this? How can we help defend the sovereignty of tribal nations in protecting their food & water supplies from contamination, mining, and land speculation?

GENETIC ENGINEERING- how can we educate and inform ourselves and others about the overwhelming threat of biotechnology, and how it is poised to make clean, organic food a thing of the past? How can we resist this perpetuation of economic globalization & colonization? How do we respond to the growing health problems that result from genetic and other toxic food-engineering?

ENCROACHMENT OF TECHNOLOGY- how can we continue to perpetuate our bare bones, low-tech approach, as we build and grow? How can we involve & inform without exclusive reliance on technology? How can we utilize the bullhorn of technology to promote food justice?

WORK IN SOLIDARITY- what is your definition of solidarity and how does this look to all of us who share privileged identities? What does it mean to have “solidarity not charity”, especially when working with folks who are not farmers? How can we approach collectively working together from a place of trust, and a sense of doing something that we each could not accomplish on our own?

CREATE COMMUNITY- how do we work to make connections both within and outside of our comfort zones? How can we prioritize “showing up” for our community? How can we elevate the emotional, holistic needs of one another in order to create a community that can sustain itself beyond our inevitable internal struggles?

SHARE FOOD- how can we centralize our common wealth of food, and move from a place of abundance, not scarcity? How can we teach cooking skills, preservation, appreciation of food? How do we see the food we eat as part of our cultures? How can we encourage that connection, of sharing cultural exchanges while sharing food?

TEACH & LEARN SKILLS- how can we be patient and willing to share the knowledge and skills that we each possess? How can we be determined and committed to learn the skills and knowledge that we lack? How can we recognize that our learning/skill-sets are holistic, not simply those of farming & the growing of food? How can we honor and recognize “hidden” skills & knowledge, seeing them as crucial to this farm?

DISMANTLE OPPRESSION- how are we attentive to “safe space” that oppressed people need? How are we looking within- at our own senses of entitlement, privilege, ignorance, & self-righteousness- to be accountable for ourselves? How do we individually take responsibility for these attitudes & inherited mentalities, and not force other people to police our behaviors? How can we be patient and loving with one another as we are each learning?

LIVE CREATIVELY & LOVINGLY- how can we each see the farm as a playground for building our dreams upon? How can we be patient & tend to the basic needs of the early stages of the process without becoming jaded or bogged down by it? How can we incorporate creativity into our problem-solving and our frameworks? How can we maintain laughter and loving concern for one another?

SHARING OWNERSHIP/ORGANIZED COOPERATIVELY- how do we make room for everyone's voices, especially when there are so many of us? How can we strike a balance (or is it the tension that our connection rests upon?) between autonomy and cooperation? How can we support each other in taking the lead in certain areas, when it means that we then individually have to let go & trust? How can we step up and lead with confidence, especially for those of us who tend to accommodate? how can we step back and allow others room to have their voices heard and prioritized, especially for those of us who tend to take the lead?  How do we let go of aspects of our individual visions in order to craft a collective vision that we each feel a strong connection with?

EMPOWERING ONE ANOTHER- how do we foster respect between ourselves, so that this shared encouragement and trust can get bigger & bigger? How do we understand our own boundaries and needs, and speak to them with confidence? How can we work to respect each other's boundaries and help one another build analysis, intentionality, and a deeper connection with our selves?

vegetables & herbs, dancing through my mind

extensive quotes from sharing the harvest by elizabeth henderson & robyn van en

the way is as important as the goal.

According to USDA statistics, off-farm income supports 84 percent of the farms.

Many farms are able to supply at least twenty shares per acres. . . for a single farmer to make enough money to live on, the minimum number of shares is around 100, if the CSA is the only market.

IN TERMS OF LABOR:::

living on a farm blurs the line between life and work- it is a lifestyle choice that usually means less cash, fewer consumer amenities, and more physical labor. . . many love relationships have turned sour under the strain of picking too many vegetables for market. Should we then conclude that the work itself is the problem? Or rather that we need to change the economics and learn how to organize the work better?

Wendell berry says-

farming is a hard life. That's what these rural sociologists were talking about in the start. It's a hard life, therefore nobody ought to live it. What a remarkable conclusion. There are several steps that are left out. What causes the difficulty? Does freedom come out of it? . . . does some kind of idea of community come with it? Does some kind of idea of stewardship, of essential, irreplaceable, indispensable stewardship, does that come with it? Do ideas of affection or love or loyalty or fidelity come with it? The basic question is, how hard would you be willing to work in order to be free?

For all employees earning over $150 a year, the employer is responsible for social security and medicare. The combined tax rate is 15.3 percent of gross cash wages (this does not include payments in kind, such as farm produce or lodging).

...According to carol, they share most work, but they divide responsibility according to what each cares more about, or dislikes the least.

Taking on interns has a broader importance as well. If we want CSA to continue to grow, experienced farmers must learn how to pass on their knowledge. . . when you explain to an intern how a repetitive job fits in the context of the farm's systems, you keep alive for yourself the interconnections that are so essential to a sustainable farm.

Most of the people who are interested in learning to farm come from non-farm backgrounds. They have a double set of lessons ahead: learning how to do physical labor, and learning how to farm... as cass peterson puts it in her letter to potential interns, “it takes time to learn some of the basic farming skills that most people nowadays think of as 'unskilled labor'. It isn't unskilled labor. Hoeing requires agility and practice. Harvesting requires judgment and speed. Marketing requires communications skills and experience.”

getting into physical shape is only the first necessary step. To use your body without hurting yourself and perform tasks with the least amount of energy takes practice and experience. Cooperating with other people on physical tasks adds another layer of complexity for which most people are not born with an instinctive awareness. When I bend to pick up a board, I can sense instantly if my companion understands what is required to move that board in the easiest way. If you grew up in the suburbs as I did, you might need a few pointers to master what farm kids take for granted as common sense.

Shane's goal is not just to train farmworkers, but to empower people to farm on their own.

From angelic organics-

a farm is a weaving. Everything that happens on it affects everything else on it. If time is lost because of a late start, or using an ineffective tool, or because a communication is misunderstood, the work still has to be done some time; it doesn't just go away. It will have to be done in the afternoon or in the evenings... otherwise, the weeds will get away from us, or the harvest won't be completed before the rain, or transplanting will be delayed and the crop will be impaired, causing our CSA members to receive shabby or inadequate produce.

From cass peterson-

farmwork is hard. It involves long hours at times, as well as sore muscles, insect bites, sweat and dirt, and the duress of cold, heat, and rain. Not many jobs require real physical strength, but you will need a good measure of endurance. If you are expecting summer camp, complete with weenie roasts, hay rides, and romps in the ol' swimming hole, please consider doing something else with your summer. We strive to have a good time, and we do like to kick back at the end of the day with a cold beer. But our success depends on a certain obsessiveness about what we're doing and a serious adherence to demanding schedules.

To make an internship a success for both farmer and intern, both sides need to be clear on expectations and responsibilities. . . it is a good time to ask them to draw up a learning contract, outlining what skills they especially want to acquire.

From SHARERS ON THE FARM:::::

time-study experts will tell you that the most efficient harvesting system gets the most vegetables cut, washed, and packed in the shortest amount of time by the smallest number of people... however, you might want to consider other values, such as community, education, and participation. If you rank these higher than efficiency, and you are sociable by nature, you may decide to involve your sharers in the harvest.

Many hands make light work and create an unavoidable feeling of accomplishment. “if your project does plan to have volunteer or mandatory help with the farm work, make member participation as easy as possible. At an orientation meeting or in the newsletter, list all the jobs that need to be done. Indicate the days of the week and hours of harvesting, critical times in the season for weeding, setting out transplants, and the like.” at GVOCSA, we sign members up for “special vegetable action teams (SVAT)” for jobs like planting onions, putting up the pea fence, and harvesting winter squash or garlic.

After signing up, each sharer receives a copy of the work schedule for the entire season. Anyone who wants to change work dates is responsible for trading with someone else and reporting to the schedule coordinator for that day of the week... we plan carefully for each farm workday, aiming to keep everybody busy at a relaxed pace... usually, we spend two to three hours picking, washing, and packing the food for that day's shares. With few exceptions, totally unskilled people can learn how to make bunches of greens, dig carrots, and pick beans, peas, corn, peppers, tomatoes, or berries.... we've agreed with our insurance company that we will not use chemical pesticides on the farm, and that only the farmers will use machines or ladders.

New CSAers, who have never been on a farm before, or even gardened, are often nervous that they will make a mistake or step in the wrong place. We try to reassure them by explaining as we go along where things are and why we have planted the way we have. Most of the tasks are so simple and clear that people quickly realize they will do all right.

Dennis stenson says-

there is just a rhythm to the dance, rather than a frenzy, and the working members share that dance with us and our interns. Supervision and planning play key roles in maximizing the blessing of those helping hands; they are working with us rather than for us. Time must be spent with each new task and with each new worker to show how, where, and when, rather than to tell. Constant follow-up is also essential, because anything taken for granted will be a mistake.

We encouraged families with small children to sign up for designated workdays for which we scheduled an extra adult to do childcare.

IN TERMS OF LAND:::

agricultural lease agreements are usually made for conventional production systems where the farmer plows the ground, plants it, puts down his herbicides, and then comes back a few months later for harvest. CSA production involves daily attention and potentially large groups of people coming and going to the farm. A landowner who approached me about land he wanted to rent suddenly switched his tone from friendly to chilly when he learned I have two hundred helpers.

The best arrangement is a clearly written lease for a term of three to five years, giving the CSA the option of first refusal and applying the rent toward the eventual purchase of the land. The lease should also include considerations of any improvements the CSA makes on its property.

According to american farmland trust, 4.3 million acres of prime and unique farmland were lost to development and suburban sprawl between 1982 and 1992, nearly 50 acres every hour.

The most radical (or perhaps the most conservative) aspect of rose valley farm was our total avoidance of borrowing. If we had the money to buy something, we paid in cash; if not, we waited. The need to make mortgage or other debt payments can add an unbearable level of pressure to running a farm and have a profound effect on all management decisions. Avoid it if you can.

Community land trusts are largely urban, and are devoted to providing the essential benefits of ownership to low-income people who have been excluded from the real estate market. A few, such as the pioneer valley community land trust in massachusetts, have farm holdings. Community land trusts usually retain title to the land, which they lease to residents. . . the leases are often for 99 years and inheritable.

According to chuck matthei, the “difference between the individual holding title and the land trust doing so may seem significant, but in fact, it may not be.” more important are the details of the legal agreement, whether lease or easement... defining the terms of the easement on a farm and the oversight this will require from the trust may entail a long process of mutual education.

Stephen decater says this:::

when we contemplated private ownership, we had two areas of concern. One was that to acquire complete private ownership would entail placing ourselves in a major debt for an extended period, even if we could find a lender. We were opposed to the concept of entering into debt, and did not have a credit history, having always operated on a cash basis. The other concern was that we saw one's relationship to the land as having moral dimensions. We saw land ownership not as acquiring strictly a commodity only to be treated as we please, but also as an office bearing certain inherent responsibilities requiring wise (just) usage and stewardship. We saw land as a resource that also belonged to future generations, a resource, which we had no personal right to appropriate or damage regardless of whether such a treatment was legal by current law or not.