DAVID OBERSTEIN
PORTLAND, OR
David has been farming on not his own farms since he was a teenager. Currently he is a farmers’ market manager in the Portland area, and also works on a CSA farm.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
I am currently a farmers’ market manager in the Portland area. I managed two small community markets during the summer season, that’s my full-time gig. Because of my addiction to land and soil and agriculture, I also have a part time job on a CSA farm. I am part of the farm crew. I have worked at that farm going into my fourth season this year. I have not always been farm crew though. When I first started on that farm, I was the harvest manager. I worked in that position for a full season before I felt the weight of the work get to me and pivoted to something more food systems related.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
My first farm job was at the age of 13 and I worked weekends helping on an organic vegetable farm. I have done that sort of work on and off since then, with plenty of breaks in between. Collectively I’ve done five full seasons on farms and since my late teens I have always had a part time position working as a farm crew member or higher at a farm.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
I think my initial draw to farming was a love for plants and food. I’ve always felt a deep connection to where food comes from going back as far as foraging wild onions and spring mustards in my back yard in New Jersey. Moving into farming was a way to deepen that connection to where food came from.
I had a family member who was also working on the farm at the time. I was drawn into working alongside them. Like most farming, it seems to be a family connection that either brings people in or helps to retain labor even when it’s not necessarily someone’s first choice because of the physical demands. Because of the limited amount of farm labor out there, family operations and working together as families are some of the few ways farms are able to make do.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
I continue to choose to work for other people because I have not gained enough knowledge as a farm crew member or even as a farm manager to understand how to operate a farm business effectively. So much of the work that I’ve participated in feels tangential to the actual success of the farm. Having your hands in the soil, harvesting, processing and distributing food doesn’t necessarily give you the skillset for how to start your own farming business. So every time I go back to farming and commit myself to a full season to another person’s farm, I am hoping and dreaming that I will one day acquire the skills and strength to start my own operation. I do feel like there has been a lack of dedicated training and imparting of that knowledge to give me the skillset to start my own business.
Ultimately I do have dreams of starting my own farm but the usual limitations that many new and beginning farmers experience have consistently held me back: lack of access to land, inability to save enough money to purchase land and equipment and infrastructure based on farm income that has never really made that dream a possibility.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
There is generally a sense of urgency and a drive toward efficiency that exists in all farm operations partially led by farm owners, but also just inherent in farm work as a whole that forces people to work grueling hours under difficult weather conditions with high physical demands that are nearly unattainable and in many ways unsustainable for farm laborers. In terms of specific demands, I just think that the long hours and heavy lifting and the general toll that farming takes on your body is somehow, has somehow, become inherent in farming. It’s an expected characteristic to working on a farm to have those intense demands. I generally think that is why you see so few people drawn to farming, why you see such high burnout rates on farms.
CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?
My dream farm is almost not realistic in the sense that it’s not motivated by profit, but doesn’t operate as a non-profit. A farm that creates equitable access to fresh and nutritious food and charges fair prices that are accessible to all. A farm that prioritizes rest. A farm that doesn’t operate with an extractive mentality. A farm that empowers all individuals working on it equally. A farm that is not just safer for all people, but truly safe for all people. A farm that is run cooperatively, where all partners have an equal say. A farm that provides a fair living for all those working on it including access to healthcare and paid time off.
I think that every farm has provided some but not all of those qualities for me and for others involved. I don’t place the blame entirely on farm owners for the physical demands or the financial limitations that are put on farm owners and therefore farm laborers.
I have not had an employer that I felt exploited me with the intention of exploiting me. I really think just the nature of the capitalistic system with poor government supports for small agriculture just creates an environment that makes it really hard to provide effectively for farm workers.
“It almost brought me to tears the moment when I was frustrated by slug damage on a crop of turnip greens and then I slowed down to watch a slug eat. I could hear it taking bites out of the individual greens. It made me acknowledge that there are other beings that we are working with who are trying to live their lives, too. I bet that slug was enjoying that crop as much as I would have been in my kitchen.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
Despite all of the challenges and the demands of farming, I can’t think of any other place in the world that makes me happier. Working on farms, having my hands in the soil, spending time connecting with plants and living by the cycles of nature brings me a deeper satisfaction than anything else in my life.
It almost brought me to tears the moment when I was frustrated by slug damage on a crop of turnip greens and then i slowed down to watch a slug eat turnip greens. I could hear it taking bites out of the individual greens. It made me acknowledge that there are other beings that we are working with who are trying to live their lives. I bet that slug was enjoying that crop as much as I would have been in my kitchen. I don’t get that same sensation, have those same feelings of connection when I do other work.
I jokingly say that I am addicted to farming. I actually feel that there is some kind of sickness inside of me that brings me back to a career that ultimately will be more challenging than so many other ways that I could make a living.
I spent 15 years working in the restaurant business. Those jobs fed me well and took care of me financially, but they did not feed my soul. I’ll admit, I feel really lucky to be working in food systems and be working as a farmers’ market manager right now, but I just did that stupid thing where I quit my job and I’m taking another full-time job working on another person’s farm. I’m going to do three things. The CSA farm job will pivot - I’m partnering with the farm owner to grow out dry beans on her property to start a dry bean CSA. It’s so stupid, but it’s so fun. I can’t wait until September or October to dance on beans. I’m going to do that as a side hustle because you always have to have some sort of alternative income when you’re working on a farm so I’m going to keep working one day a week at the farmers’ market and then work on a friend’s farm full -time.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
I have always struggled with identity in my life in general and knowing exactly what the appropriate classification that I fell into, the appropriate identifier. With all of the experience that I’ve had on farms, I have been very hesitant to call myself a farmer. I have regularly called myself a farm laborer, a farm crew member, a farm worker. And I think part of it is not being an owner/operator makes me feel like I am less of a farmer when I don’t have lead of an operation, when I don’t make ultimate decisions. It doesn’t make me feel lessor, but I don’t think I qualify as being called a farmer. Until I know what it is like to experience the losses, understand the risks, and celebrate the successes of operating my own farm.
Gosh I was so close, when I was a farm manager, I was the closest I’ve ever felt to identifying as a farmer. It was the first time I ever owned a straw hat. Ultimately in that position, I felt like I was still as important in that operation as every seed that went into the ground, as every tool that operated on that farm.
Because this is a similar struggle that I’ve had through most of my life, how I perceive my presentation to the world doesn’t matter as much as what my actual contribution is or how I’m perceived by others. I hesitate because I feel like i have more to learn and more to experience. But for all intents and purposes, the amount of time I’ve spent on farms and the passion I have for farming probably qualifies me as a farmer.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
I think that at the farm scale that I’ve worked at - in operations that are 50 acres or less - we need farm workers having access to fair compensation, a living wage or better, having access to healthcare considering how physically and emotionally demanding farming can be and how prone farmers are to injury, being granted appropriate break times, and paid time off.
Farm workers having access to food on their farms. Admittedly I’ve never worked on a place that didn’t grant me access to food on a farm, but I do know that many farm workers are not fed by their farm. That makes me really sad.
Big picture and in order for farm workers to move into the farmer category, we need access to affordable land and not just affordable land, but land that is feasible to make a living growing on. Access to infrastructure, access to resources whether those be education or consultation, access to markets. And if those things aren’t truly accessible or affordable, then I think that would be fair to have them subsidized considering how important it is for people to have food access. The current state of agriculture is leading towards higher owner/operator age of farmers and fewer and fewer young and beginning farmers committing to that career. Without appropriate access to resources, I fear that farming will continue heading toward the type of big agricultural consolidations that we’ve seen in the last 80 years in America.
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....)
God I love the farmer lunch. I have had very positive experiences with farmer lunches. I think it’s essential for people to feed themselves to sustain the type of work that is demanded of farmers. I think that farmer lunches give teams the ability to connect while also slowing down. I think that they give farmers who are really interested in food culture the ability to share whether that be ancestral food culture, sharing a new exciting dish that somebody has created, the ability to share stories and feel connected to the people that you ultimately depend on day in and day out. The ability to eat some raw vegetables that you literally just pulled out of the ground and probably taste the best that they ever will.
I think that ultimately farm lunch helps farmers to nourish their bodies and gives them the ability to nourish their souls, too.
