I’m driving alone on a pitch-black empty road, coming from the train station after catching the last train back from the City. Next thing I know, there’s a state trooper’s over-excessive spotlight glaring into my eyes. Here goes, I thought, interrogation from the tiny rural town’s chief A-hole in charge.
But the interrogation was of another kind. “You’re a farmer?!!” was all he could manage through a mocking grin with eyebrows raised so high I thought they would jump off of his face. I tried to soothe his confusion, and then found myself explaining why I had a Florida driver’s license, but lived on a farm in upstate NY, had previously lived in D.C. and just came from NYC where I was also farming last year. This didn’t seem to help. “Farming… in Brooklyn??!” he blurted out through refrained laughter as if I’d just told him that pigs could fly.
He was a brother from the Bronx-turned-state trooper Upstate. I was tired and didn’t feel like trying to figure out whether he was just bored and wanted to hear someone’s life story or if he was truly perplexed about my occupation. I couldn’t help but think it was the latter…this was not the first time I’ve received this reaction.
Just hours before in fact, I had met friends in the city for dinner – old friends from D.C. that I hadn’t seen in a while. We did the usual catching up, telling the other what we’ve been up to. Although they’ve known about my food and farming passions for a while now, they still performed the usual chuckle and lifted eyebrow routine when questioning me about actually farming, being in the country, and being the only brown girl out there.
It frustrated me a bit, but it’s been pretty common ever since I decided to delve into this world full time. This reaction is ultimately what sparked my interest in starting this blog – because I found all the different reactions to what I wanted to do so interesting, for a few reasons.
One, was a lot of the confused reactions to farming as an occupation in general – we are all so disconnected from the land and from our food that we find it unfathomable to pursue a career in agriculture; and/or that the fall of small-scale farming has been so great over the past 50 years that farmers are not even visible anymore and a career in farming isn’t an option for our generation. This has to change.
Two, was the different reactions I received depending on race – when I’d tell my friends that I wanted to farm, some of my Black friends would scrunch their nose up at the thought and make some reference to picking cotton, while some of my crunchier white friends would give me a “hell yeah” and mention their own interest in joining the WWOOF circuit. But in that crunchy circuit I felt like a transplant…
Come full circle after setting off on my journey to find farmers of color last year, and I find myself transplanted again – as the only brown farmer on the team and the brand new brown in town. I was in the town’s only bar last week, and the same reactions continued; but they were coming from other farmers, so this time I couldn’t help but think the surprise at me farming was because I didn’t look the part. “You look like a city girl” was the theme of the night from the guys lining the bar, as I stood there in my muddy boots and hoody, wondering exactly what a “city girl” looks like.
So what I’ve gathered is that “city farmer” “brown farmer” “young farmer” maybe even “female farmer” or just plain “farmer (in the modern world of 2011)” deeply confuses people. I really think this negative or exclusive perception of farming as a career is multifaceted. It’s due to a racial divide, but also an urban/rural divide, a generational divide and a gaping separation between humans and the land. We have to start changing this perception so that we can all begin to feel rooted, instead of transplanted. Then we can spread those roots more easily and make some real change for agriculture.
I really like this post. I can’t relate, to most of it, but I like it.
Natasha,
its a shame people always need to judge. Maybe just go further with these stereotypes…I’m a Dirty Farmer, Sharecropper or a Peasant Farmer.
In reality we’re agents of change (put that on yer business card!) or food entrepreneurs… I felt a similar pressure (without the addition of race issues). I told someone once that I run a “green business.”
Its hard enough work without having to feel unsuccessful about it. I enjoy speaking with the Hmong family next to me at the Market. I asked the teenager son & daughter about people judging them and others about being farmers. They said they sometimes feel the white folks can be condescending towards them (which might just be racism). I told them in the coming years local farms will be more lucrative and successful…who cares about old steroetypes!
Just remember we’re making a just and honest living and you don’t have to join the rat race anymore!
Greg
Greg, you’re so right! you’re the best 🙂
Brown Girl Farming
Great writing, keep going.
The land does not know your color or gender, just the love
you put into the soil.
Peace, Bob
Bob, that is the most beautiful thing I’ve heard yet on this journey. thank you.
Howdy, I found your blog searching for WWOOF stuff. You’re full time WWOOFer or farming in general? I’m really excited to read your stuff. 🙂
Ama,
No I am not a full time WWOOFer, I live and work full-time on the farm I’m on now; but I have used WWOOF from time to time. It is a great resource for aspiring farmers, allowing you to experience many different farms worldwide, but it has its limitations.
Hold on, hold on
Keep your hands on the plow, hold on.
Hi natasha,
I came across your blog from the Greenhorns site, and I’ve been excited have a chance to read some of your stories! I was wondering if you might like to contribute a story for a zine about food and community? It could be something new, or something reprinted (maybe this story/post?). Here’s a webpage with details:
http://www.hellomoon.org/zines/diyodw_03.html
Thank you, and I hope you have a lovely spring!
Interesting viewpoint, but exactly what I would expect the reactions of the “world” to be.
I don’t believe that any of the reaction you got from anyone at all was based on racism, hate, or any other unpleasantness.
In fact, I am sure that I would get the same reaction as a middle aged, high tech engineer, (Male of course) when I start to announce that I want to start a forty acre polyculture farm in the Ozarks, a twelve hour drive from here.
I think the reactions all stem from our stereotypes, which we all have, of course.
For example, I remember when I found out that a guy I worked with liked country music. That isn’t so shocking as the fact that he was 25 and happened to be black. Having never met another black person that liked country music, (and having gone to an urban high school, I have had numerous black friends) But it was just “weird” in a sense that he didn’t fit in my “Universe of people that are black.” So, my universe shifted just a bit. He was an awesome co-worker, and a I enjoyed working with him. And yes, black people can like Willie Nelson. Doesn’t mean that I do, mind you…
I think that stereotypes, whether about one’s gender, race, faith, occupation and so on, are designed to help us quickly assess a situation or a person as new things enter our sphere of interaction. Prehistorically, I think it was used to determine friend or foe, should I interact, flee, fight or hold hands and sing “kum ba ya”. The faster you could determine whether something is a threat, the better. In otherwords, it is a very basic animal instinct which made us wary of things outside the norm. It is the same thing that causes you to feel like a transplant when you are in a community of “white” friends. It doesn’t “feel” normal to you.
But in 2011, we meet new, and different people, all the time. That said, we tend to have never met a young black woman that gets dirty on a farm. We have met the old grizzled farmer, possibly of any or all races, and we have possible run into some younger Amish farmers. But a young brown woman farming? Never seen that before.
So everyone you meet, regardless of who they are, have to adjust their world view, because you don’t fit in their model.
So in summary, I’m really excited that you have gone back to the future, so to speak, and become a farmer. I think we need a return to a more agrarian society, and it should not be “odd” that anyone of any color or race decides to become a farmer.
I look forward to a day when I can walk into my office and announce “I’m giving up a life as a suburban code monkey to become a food creation specialist!”
“A what?”
“A Farmer!”
“Huh?”
“You know. Plant seeds, harvest food, sell crop.”
“Really? have you lost your mind?”
Way to go! I know you will do well.