BARI ZEIGER
WESTERN NEW YORK STATE
Bari has been farming on farms not her own for 6 seasons. She recently took a position at a farm collective centering refugee farmers and farmers of color, and working on land and food access. She has worked extensively in the gig economy, federal policy + congressional campaigns all while prepping her own a 12 acre parcel.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
I’m in a transition phase right now. It’s all unfolding very quickly.
Last December, I was on a farm that I had been managing for 3 years, a non-profit farm focused on production and education, part of a YMCA, just one program or element of this outdoor education nonprofit. I had purchased of parcel of farmland in western New York, was also working in the culinary space (gig economy, weekend and nights off the farm, farm to table catering, prep cook two days/week for extra income in winter), reviewing grants with Northeast SARE, and chapter leader in the Catskills for the National Young Farmers’ Coalition and involved in their federal policy work.
At the end of the summer, it felt like I was ready to move to western NY to do what I needed to do to start my own farm. There was also an impetus to get more involved in politics , community organizing experience in food and farming, and I joined a congressional campaign in September. So I transitioned from farming to working a campaign job.
Most recently I joined the staff of an organization called Providence Farm Collective, a land and food access organization that centers and uplifts refugee, immigrant, farmers of color with turnkey farm plots, peer to peer education, and a youth program.
I’m in an administration and development role, lots of grant making and funders, less so farming. A lot of the time, in order to secure capital to start a farm, a lot of people/us end up in non-profit spaces.
Land is so hard to access. It’s expensive. I was able purchase 12 acres of land, all in hayfields, with varying levels of adequate drainage, outside of Buffalo, south-facing. I went to college in Western New York and am originally from New York. This year I installed a road and the road cost $16,000. It’s 500 feet long. There are lots of silage tarps and cinder blocks because I wanted to tarp the area that will become the market garden that will be low till/ no till.
There is so much to learn about forming a legal entity in a small business. I formed an LLC, actually had some branding and logo design done. I am making small progressive steps. My experience has been one in which I burn myself out working on farming, gig economy and advocacy, investing all my savings into the farm and then starting again, rather than taking on a loan and debt.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
This is my 6th year farming. I started when I was a junior in college. I started volunteering on an organic farm run by two folks who were super nurturing and they taught me about organic farming and the importance of organic foods from a health and ecological perspective. I was a philosophy and environmental studies major, connected dots between food and social systems and economic and political systems.
Ag is a nexus for a lot of issues and themes in our culture and society and I gravitated to that. I enjoy physical labor and being outside.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
A love of food, a love of the outdoors, and love of mother earth. And just communing with others over food. What kept me in farming most recently has just been the social justice component of food and environmental justice component of food. A love of super flavorful food, it hooks you. The supermarket in January is so disappointing.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
Certainly in college it was to have an experience in a place where I could be myself, a place removed of social pressures, to look or be a certain way or do a certain type of work - it felt very liberating to me. To learn more about gardening and farming itself. Actually when I had moved to North Carolina to work on an organic permaculture farm, a way of life farm, at that time I had plans to go to law school. I was working on the farm, living in a 1980s camper, and studying with my headlamp in the evenings and mornings for the LSAT. I took the LSAT while I was at the farm. In college I did a thesis paper on farm worker rights. I was involved in a student coalition for migrant workers on my campus. I was considering public interest law, farmer/farm worker advocacy. What I had realized was my real passion, what galvanizes me, is the actual work in the field. When I went to North Carolina, I wanted to experience a more intensive farm. I wanted to experience a more efficient, economically viable farm, and understand what it means to be a farm worker/farmer.
When I had initially joined the farm at the YMCA, I thought, “Okay, I want to have a summer in a managerial position on the farm.” I was interested in the opportunity. I had worked in camping and youth education a few years prior in high school and college, and this combined my love of farming, youth ed and camping. It was a summer gig while I applied for law school.
I began to realize how much power my voice had as a farmer in advocacy, in community organizing spaces, working in coalition with other farmers and ag organizations like National Young Farmers’ Coalition. I realized that I had to do some introspection and look past family and societal pressures and expectations and come to a place of acceptance, and to do advocacy and agriculture, whether you like it or not. Farming is a love hate thing. If you’re meant to do it there are definitely those days, but there is nothing you can do. I felt kind of like a moral imperative to do this work.
I realized that law school was a cerebral compromise between society and familial pressures and what I wanted to do, which was to farm.
At my root being I’m a changemaker in food and farming spaces and I’m able to do that as a farmer.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
I think there's certainly the issue of pay and housing. Making nothing in exchange for learning, but doing physical labor.
In North Carolina, I had a living stipend. Part of my pay was this hardly livable stipend, rice, beans and pork from their farm. At the time I was a vegetarian so I had a real contention. I had to eat this meat to subsist. It was a silvopasture operation, with a positive impact on animals, with diversified markets and revenue streams on a farm, but difficult pressure to change my lifestyle. Had I been a person of less privilege, this would have been untenable. I wouldn't have been able to make car payments or live. There is nothing left at the end of week - nothing in the mental or physical fuel tank, so you can’t work another job to supplement income.
There is such mental isolation in rural places, no car or connections, sometimes you feel extremely lonely, which is what we are learning during the pandemic. Loneliness can be such a physical and mental ailment.
It’s really hard to save up to start a farm or invest in future, you are in the red as a farmer or apprentice.
That imposter syndrome, can I really call myself a farmer? It takes a toll on competency and abilities.
I’ve worked on progressive farms, alongside people who identified as male and they learned how to drive the tractor and truck, and I was doing irrigation. Lots of gender based roles on farms.
Not learning the financial and business and behind the scenes aspects on the farm; what the books look like, what’s involved in maintaining a small business , how to do your taxes, become a legal entity…the nitty gritty granular information that is important to know.
The competitive nature of the managerial positions on farms. The jobs are so scarce. If you work on farms for a bunch of years, you’re ready to graduate. You want to be intellectually challenged, build your skills, but there is an unavailability of these managerial jobs. It amplifies a lot of injustices and inequalities in our society. Having a college education, being a white person, you’re more likely to get managerial role. It’s a perpetuation of inequalities.
What do you do in the winter? In the northeast, when the season is over, what do I do until the next farming season? I have to find gigs and am under employed. One year I worked at the front desk at a gym making protein shakes for 40-year old muscle heads. It’s hard to find meaningful fulfilling work in the off season. In the winter is when the farmer does planning and seed ordering and you’re not having a peak into what that looks like either as a worker.
Not having any time off working 60-80 hours/week, having to take personal care. I definitely ran into that in North Carolina. I was negligent of my self-care and ended up really dehydrated and got UTI. Having health insurance, based in New York state, I couldn’t find any health care provider or urgent care that would take my insurance. I had to self treat and use homeopathic remedies when I needed antibiotics, but I was lucky. I am really lucky it didn't become a kidney infection.
Working in the non-profit space on farms, there is a whole ball of wax in terms of obstacles, not really having folks understand about food and farming.
CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?
I think that in terms of a farm that I would love to work on is a farm that is economically viable, a farm where they have certain financial goals that they meet. A farm where a farmer is making their whole income on the farm, or at least 90% of it.
A farm that practices in a way that is ecologically responsible. A farm where I’m paid a decent living wage, which is extremely hard. A farm where there are opportunities to advance your skills and be rewarded for that advancement. A farm that is embedded and responsive to the community. A farm where you can make connections and friendship and feel like you’re having a hand in supplementing food access.
I pushed the farm in North Carolina to accept SNAP/ EBT and during my time there, they did that.
Mostly a farm where you can have ideas about how to make things more efficient, where you’re listened to. A lot of farmers hit a road block - they want someone who they can mold and shape to their systems. It’s almost a negative asset to have a lot of experience.
“There is such mental isolation farming in rural places, no car or connection Sometimes you feel extremely lonely, which is what some are learning during the pandemic. Loneliness can be such a physical and mental ailment.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
That intrinsic compulsion that this is my life work. It’s an ecological and ethical imperative. Being a farmer is a way to change a small ecosystem and political structures surrounding food and farming and beyond.
Concepts of working with BIPOC farmers and refugee farmers is what drew me to the Providence Farm Collective, wanting to be an ally and uplift their voices.
And farmers are awesome. I always felt very socially isolated growing up in my youth and educational spaces. I found a beautiful community in food and have friends and can be who I am. The flow and exchange of open source information and technical solidarity. It’s unprecedented. You don’t see that a lot.
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?
I think that in many ways they are divisive terms. In many ways they perpetuate a certain narrative of who deserves and is eligible to occupy a certain cohort. They are racially and socioeconomically rooted definitions and I think that they are not particularly helpful terms. In terms of collecting demographic information - who occupies certain roles and how we get to root of problem, it is important to perpetuate justice and equity.
Since the 1700s folks the very elite wanted to divide working class and poor folks. There was a lot of infighting between of farmers and farm workers, a denial of basic rights to farm workers -overtime pay, right to collective bargaining. It’s rooted in racism and white supremacy. What I see is an othering, infighting created by power in our society. Folks quarrel with each other rather than band together to make structural change.
There is a lack of equality in opportunity and imposter syndrome that farm workers experience.
There’s also utility in making these differentiations to understand who had and has more access to opportunity and why and address it on structural level.
It’s important to understand nuances in farming and the food system - in some ways I understand and empathize both with farmers and farm workers. I don’t agree with denying farm workers basic rights and protections. I don’t necessarily blame it on farmers, but see farmers perpetuating it. The tide has to rise to uplift farmers and farm workers alongside each other.
It’s hard when you’re overworked and underpaid to lift your head up and see the bigger picture.
Farm workers face more vulnerability.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
It’s been really empowering for me working with the National Young Farmers Coalition when we talk about farmers. Often we have these conversation asking, who is a farmer? The staff affirm it: of course you’re a farmer. There is consensus in that affirmation. It’s very empowering.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
Connection - I think the project that you’re doing is really important because a lot of us feel similarly that there isn’t a platform to connect to and to hear the stories of others and realize that you’re not alone. We need a platform for connection.
We need structural change in our farming and food system - more protections for farm workers; a shift in our farming and food system so our food is more valued so we can have farms that are economically viable so they can afford to hire farmers and farm workers; opportunities in state and federal programs to support young farmer and rancher development; farmers being able to apply for funding and can pay more to farm workers.
Carpenters and electricians are unionized and tradespeople are compensated. They are earning a wage , a very good wage while they learn. Agriculture is different from these trades. Our politicians have painted it as very different because of the racialized roots of agriculture in our country. When it comes down to it, a lot of the work that has to happen comes down to doing work in racial equity and racial justice.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT YOURSELF & YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMING? WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?
I think that farming is tough, society makes it a lot tougher.
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....)
I’ve experienced lunch in so many different ways on farms.
In North Carolina, we actually had a 2 hour long lunch in the middle of the day because the farmer was going to do yoga and take self care time. What often happened was that the farmer would do tractor work. 2 hours was destabilizing and de-energizing. I just felt exhausted coming back to work, it made the day so long. We were an hour away from anywhere. You couldn't even go to the grocery store. We didn’t have time in the evenings because we would wrap up 7pm.
Two days a week, the farmers would make lunch. It had the awkwardness and we already spent so much time together.
At YMCA farm, I worked through lunch a lot.
Self care neglect is real in the middle of the summer. Most of the time, I skipped lunch. We had farm camp, an on-farm sleepaway camp and we had a kitchen staff. We would drop off produce at the kitchen and they would prepare it.
I’m a grazer so mostly I eat off the plants or dirty carrots, or split tomatoes.
Being able to sit down with other folks and with people not necessarily engaged with farming and having a meal that was prepared was nice.
It was also super hot and that also impacts eating - I was living in a camper on the farm in North Carolina, cooking on propane stove. It was too hot, cooking is not going to happen.