Sara Franklin: “Everything We Were Being Taught Was Backwards”

posted by brooklynfoodconference, on May 28, 2009

WORKSHOP—PASSING THE HOE: OUR NEW FARMERS SHARE STORIES AND EXPERIENCES

Sara Franklin is a former farmer intern on three farms and currently works for World Hunger Year.

: Sara Franklin. Photo courtesy of Sara Franklin

I was studying public health and was really interested in nutrition. It took me a couple of years to realize that everything we were being taught was backwards. Food science is a creation of industry and the academy. Feeding yourself and your community things that have been broken down into nutrients and built back up in a processing plant is not good for you. It’s not good for the environment. It’s not good for anything.

I didn’t know what to do about that. I didn’t feel that I had a whole lot of power to change what I was eating at the time (I was living out of dining halls), let alone what my community was eating. So I left Boston, where I was living at the time, and went to South Africa where I did some work on breast feeding. (Breastfeeding isn’t talked about being part of the food system, but it’s very much part of it. It’s how we all get our start, most of us at least.) In South Africa, I was struck by the irony of all this amazing arable land that people under apartheid had been displaced from. They were moved into urban areas and no longer had a way to feed themselves, and were eating crap as a result.

But, in these giant slums, I also saw a resilient urban-agriculture movement being born. Community gardens were being born—community farms really. These are not little half-block plots. People were growing in big multi-acre plots that had been left to grow wild. They were also farming in patch gardens and raised beds or breaking up concrete and planting.

I came back from South Africa in 2007 with an awakened awareness to social justice and how land access and food plays into all that. I wanted to be part of it. It was as clear as day—this was the way I could make a change for myself, for my health, for my family, for my friends and my community. To me, it was the only tangible work that really felt like it had value and the potential. So that’s how I started farming.

I started with a nonprofit just outside of Boston called Waltham Fields Community Farm, a nine-acre, all-vegetable farm that trains young farmers and also works to provide food for lower-income folks in the Boston area. They donate about 30% of what they grow every year.

I just fell in love with it. As people here have already said, this is the hardest work you’ll ever do. You’re exhausted. You sleep, you eat, you farm, and if you’ve got some extra time you’ll see the folks who are near and dear to you. It’s full-time-overtime, and I just fell in love with it though.

Then I thought, “I need to finish school,” so I did that. I then moved up to Western Massachusetts and farmed, for a full season this time, in Northampton at a “semi-urban,” (according to my former bosses) homestead. They’ve got about seven acres about a quarter mile from the center of town, well actually a city—it’s about 100,000 people.

They were building from the ground up, which is an amazing thing to be part of. We were building barns and post-hole digging, running from crop planning to business planning. We started a farmers market and did CSA recruitment. It was an amazing learning experience. I recommend it—if you can get in with people who are starting, you’ll learn very, very fast. It won’t necessarily be easy and there might not always be wonderful chemistry, but you will learn a lot and you’ll learn very, very, very quickly.

This past winter, I was down in South America, in Uruguay and Argentina. My boyfriend is from Uruguay, and his family has had cattle for generations. That helped me get familiar with a kind of agriculture with which I have had no experience.

Now I’m on hiatus. I guiltily admit that I had a really rough season last year. I know that I want to farm but needed to take some time to step back and figure out how and where. There’s a lot that’s been said about building and using your network, but you don’t have to do it all at once. You can jump in, but you can also step back. Taking some time doesn’t mean you’re any less interested or any less dedicated. It’s all right to regroup, recuperate and figure out how you want to do it.

Right now I run a garden here in Park Slope, garden on my roof in Kensington and work very part-time at a big garden in Millerton up in Hudson Valley some weekends. But I have a full-time day job with a nonprofit where I work with hunger and food issues. That’s very important to me and is something I want to integrate into my eventual pseudo-farming lifestyle. I’m trying to figure out how to use my network and my skills and bring it all together.

Workshop Description: Passing the Hoe. Our new farmers share stories and experiences. People all over the country, particularly young people, are increasingly interested in agriculture. This workshop offers new and aspiring farmers the opportunity to learn, discuss and network with experienced and established farmers.

Other Speakers: Severine von Tscharner Fleming (the Greenhorn Project), Michael Grady Robertson (Queens County Farm Museum), KayCee Wimbish (Awesome Farm). Moderator: John Agostinho (Queens College)

Some Other Writings by Sara Franklin

Fertile Ground USA
Sara kept a daily blog of her 2008 growing season at NoHo Town Farm. more
Another Warning or the Real Deal: Swine Flu
This swine flu thing. Outbreak, epidemic, pandemic. Has the potential to be all three. And it’s VERY scary. more
Big Ag Tries to Cultivate Fallacies in the White House Soil
Just a few days ago, the big wigs of Big Ag tried to rain on Michelle Obama’s parade. more
First Family Breaks Ground with Kitchen Garden
The news hit my desk yesterday afternoon: the First Family is planting an organic food-producing garden… more

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— Transcribed and compiled by Paige Churchman

Food Democracy

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