ANONYMOUS

ALBUQUERQUE, NM

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)

  • Right now I am practically unemployed. I lost my main job at the beginning of the pandemic and slowly have been realizing that it is maybe not coming back. That was at a Cannabis grow, an indoor one. That is not happening, but right now I’m doing odd jobs gardening and delivery driving. 

    That’s what’s available in Albuquerque right now. I bought my home here finally. I got really tired, a lot of the farms were a live on the property situation, very remote, and all that they were really offering. I didn’t want do that anymore. 

    When I got to Albuquerque, most of the cannabis growing was indoors. I haven’t had a ton of luck finding jobs here. 

    A lot of cannabis here is transitioning to outdoors, but the transition hasn’t happened yet. 

    Where I was working, we were being transferred to the larger farm operation in Belen, which would be outdoors. They are still running, but had to cut staff. I am technically a furloughed employee.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?

  • In California I got my first job. I was the driver for the farmers’ market. I barely worked the actual farm, and it would have been 8 years ago. I’ve been farming on and off, moving around doing seasonal stuff, mostly in California. 

    Originally I just got hired. I was volunteering and taking WWOOFing positions in coastal California. I found a place that needed a driver who would drive all over southern California and set up for market.  It was great retail experience.

    Then I was working seasonally on Cannabis farms up north. Other farms were around and I would do day labor on garlic farms and potatoes. It was part of this hippy scene where you just worked the farms that were around. Then I got attached to one particular farm and I worked for them for 5 years, seasonally, every year for harvest season. It was an integrated an Cannabis and veggie farm, with chickens and sheep. At another point, I was a sheep herder, for a private farm with a 30 sheep flock. 

    Honestly the money for me came from the cannabis. 

    In Albuquerque, I worked at a farm in the north valley. It was bad. I worked there for a while and I went back to California, to a different cannabis outfit and worked there for a year full-time. 

    I have done a lot of drifting around. 

    I’m originally from Bakersfield, California. My brother worked in the agricultural industry, and I thought I would not go into farming, that it is disgusting and unsafe. I saw how bad it was for him. I thought, I’m going to the hippy thing. I don’t ever want to come home in the shape that he came in. 

WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?

  • I had never found any job that I particularly liked. Whatever retail was closest to my house is what I took. I was homeless for many years. This woman ended up renting out a casita behind her house for very cheap, and when I didn’t have the rent money, she would sort of work -trade with me. It was a hobby farm on the property that I lived on. I tagged along, and she would teach me. I decided that this is something I want to do full time. I lived in the part of California where there was both industrial ag and hippy work. I sort of found that a lot of my friends worked for these farm internships, but they were independently wealthy or volunteering. 

    I was looking for a paid way into it. 

    It was a big struggle. I Knew what I wanted to do, but didn’t know how to get paid to do it.  

    I don’t smoke weed and I don’t care about weed. It’s just easy to get hired. 

    I desperately miss growing food. 

    Most people I worked with in the triangle wished that they were growing food. If only pumpkins would sell for $2000/lb. We could all just grow pumpkins. 

    When I worked in farm country that grew weed, everyone just wanted to be doing more. My boss was trying really hard to intercrop blueberries with cannabis, even hiring scientists to learn. There is so much money in it (weed), you can afford these vanity projects. 

WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)

  • Because I will never be able to own my own land. That’s it. I would never choose to farm somebody else’s land. The only way that would be appealing to me would be coop or worker ownership of the land.

WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?

  • I worked sun up to sun down 7 days a week to get my own house. 

  • I was in a car accident. My car was totaled and while waiting on insurance, I lost job and apartment and I needed somewhere to live. I found a place offering housing and a little bit of money working on the farm. The housing was beautiful and the farm was beautiful. They were growing things that can’t be grown here. It seemed like a dream job, so I took the job. I signed leasing, contracts, everything. Immediately, the farmer who owned the land had no boundaries. He couldn’t stay out of my house. I was given a room, but couldn’t lock the door. His children came up in my house and said insulting things to me about how I had gotten the job. They said it was still their family’s house. I had no help in enforcing this. He paid less than minimum wage and said I couldn’t take it to the labor court/law. His farm hasn’t been reported to the IRS or UDSA.  I had to take secret photos, and it ended with a screaming match and he cried. It was bad. 

    He was constantly sexually inappropriate with me. He told a new hire that he could sleep with me. He was disgusting. He alternatively referred to me as his daughter or in sexual language. I had nowhere else to go until my car accident was settled. I had to find something/somewhere to live or be on the streets again, and he knew that. Everyone else quit because of his behavior and my work load just increased. He couldn’t pay us, but would sabotage the market. When we complained, he would tell us we were materialistic and too obsessed with money. He would say, “I thought you guys were cool.” Well, we don’t have a family fortune. 

    He wanted things to be informal on our end, not to bring the lease into it. And everyone else quit, sometimes in these huge screaming matches. Eventually I would lose my temper and participate in them.
    He always came back and would say, you need to honor this lease. He would cry and say, “This was my godmother’s house.” His daughters came in and accused me of sleeping with him. 

    Lease or no lease, it was their family’s house. 

    All of it came back to land ownership. 

    This was 2017. He’s a popular farmer for a reason, but he can’t make any sales at the farmers’ markets because he insults his female customers' appearance, he calls them fat. 

    He owns the land and it’s a hobby for him.

    That dynamic has come up so many times even in the weed industry when I”m living on the property. That dynamic has come up with even the nicest bosses. 

    I have never had it underlined and underscored like it was here. 

    Their family land ownership was sacred and I was this terrible person violating it. We almost did end up going to court because I gave him 30 days notice that I was leaving the property (and quitting), and he wanted me to leave immediately.

    The lease was in lieu of cash payment. The hours worked would be valued at $8/hr so there was a cash number on my lease. That’s why he couldn’t tell me to leave. I had worked so many hours that I had bought an extra month.

  • I worked for my boss for five years in California and I don’t own any of his land and I’m never going to do. It made me realize that you should never put your love and passion into another man’s land. Don't get caught up in the promotion. If you’re not a co-owner, you are just a farm hand.

CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?

  • When I worked in central California at a food and meat farm, what I saw there is sort of my standard. They worked so hard to maximize their profits, not so much so they could give people pay increases, but at the very least bonuses and the stability of employment.

    The owner of the farm was out there picking veggies at 4am. They were passionate about working harder and smarter for us and they helped a lot of employees gain permanent citizenship. We became activists for the farmers. They provided the best housing they could and built better housing if they couldn’t. They worked so hard, it was not just a landowner doing a favor by giving you this job. The landowner was making the best decisions and realizing the impact of their decisions on the workers. 

    It’s the gold standard. 

    It’s well loved for a reason. I would work there again in another life where I lived in California again.

“I worked for my boss for five years in California and I don't own any of his land and I’m never going to.. It made me realize that you should never put your love and passion into another man’s land. Don't get caught up in the promotion - if you’re not a co-owner, you’re just a farm hand.”

WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?

  • I take these jobs indoors and it’s not the same. I like being outside. I like living with the seasons and really feeling the seasons. I like the dirt, an unusual amount. It’s silly passionate stuff. I like living with the seasons. I don’t like my life being the same in March as it is in November. I’m just not as happy. I’ve been working indoors, and I work with Food is Free, we do volunteer harvests and donate to the food bank. While I’m out there for a few hours, I’m happy again.

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?

  • I would define it really just as a proprietorship.

    Where I was growing up, we had 3 categories:

    Grower - in the Central Valley, usually a phenomenally wealthy person. He owns the farm land, usually lives in LA, mega owner of industry. Big distinction that they don’t farm. 

    Farmer  - owns the farm, sometime works it.

    Farm employee - works the farm.

DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.

  • Not lately because I've been unemployed for 6 months. 

    For a few years I called myself a farm hand. At one point I did use the phrase farmer, and people were quick to remind me that I didn't own the land. 

    I definitely do think that is the difference. The farmer is the owner, regardless of how much he works.

WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?

  • Honestly, a familiarity with labor laws. I have coworkers that don’t really know their rights.

  • I guess also a cultural shift away from the idea that you should give extra unpaid work to prove your passion. 

  • Maybe a space for people to talk to each other not just about terrible farms, but spaces to talk with others who aren’t farming their own land. To know what isn’t good or normal, or great experiences. Just for the non-owners.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT YOURSELF & YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMING? WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?

  • I think with how hard I’ve seen us work (us non-owners), we should be looking toward a coop model of ownership with a fairly easy transfer (you can quit easy) of your share. That is something I would want to see. I don’t have the capacity, knowledge, money, it’s hard to be a farmer, but I would love to do it in a coop way sometime in my life. 

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION/TAKE ON THE FARMER LUNCH? (DO YOU TAKE LUNCH, DO YOU SKIP LUNCH, DO YOU ENJOY TAKING LUNCH WITH YOUR CREW - FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING, IS THERE PRESSURE TO BE SOCIAL....)

  • People should definitely take lunch breaks. I’ve been at places where we all have to hang out together, but I NEED MY NAP. I I don’t care if it’s ten minutes. I’m dead serious. I have my entire back of my truck fitted out for a nap. I would be so reinvigorated because it’s so hot and it’s hard to manage. I would be ready to go again.
    I have a bed back there. I gotta have my nap. I would never give up my right to my little nap. Some days I don't feel like my nap, so I’ll eat and talk with my coworkers, but I need that option.

    We need time in the middle of the day to manage the physical stress. 

    I’m a nap based life form. I can’t work through a hot day without one.