EVAN STERBICK

PUYALLUP, WASHINGTON

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

  • Currently what I’m doing is winter work out at our farm called Mother Earth Farm. We grow vegetables and fruit, but mainly vegetables all year. It’s for Pierce County food pantries. We have a team of three year round staff, two full time and one part time and then we hire three seasonals during the main season. Right now we are doing winter projects and the most winter farming that we’ve ever done. Soon we are going to be putting up a mobile high tunnel. My co-manager Tara and I are going to be putting that up. It’s the first time we’ve ever put up a tunnel ourselves so we are collaborating with other farmers to learn how they did it and things they want to change, so we can learn as much as we can from the people around us. 

    We compensate the people we ask questions of and are interviewing about their high tunnel experience. We are part of a nonprofit, Emergency Food Network, and through them we can pay these farmers for their time, which is really quite nice. If this was our own farm that we were managing, it would be more of a financial strain so this way we can compensate farmers who help. 

    We have a lease with the people who own the property. Those people said in the lease agreement, the number one rule is we cannot sell anything that the earth produces at the farm. Everything has to go for free. We don’t go to market, we don’t have a produce stand on site, everything is picked up by local pantries or picked up by Emergency Food Network - they are the food bank for the food pantries and will distribute the food to those who can’t make it out to the farm site. 

    We just try to be as accessible to everyone as possible. 

    The farm is 8 acres, but we rest 2.5 - 3 acres at a time and then we have an acre of orchard. 

    I have worked there for a year.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?

  • This would be my fourth season farming in total. For a small amount of time I worked in Oregon, but that was just the beginning of my farming experience and I was helping out at a community garden. 

WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?

  • My education has been through public health, specifically community health. I would say farming started there because I worked with a professor who focused on food sovereignty and food insecurity. I loved learning about the facets of that and things that applied to everyone around us. I was really intrigued by what food sovereignty entailed with everyone that I met and the people that I hadn't met. From there I was able to intern at a farmers’ market and through that internship I had direct access to farmers and just began asking them so many different questions, whether they were organic or not, small or large, on the east or west side of the Cascades. Everyone had a different answer to why they started farming, if they enjoyed it or not, whether they had done it for generations. It was the best experience that led me to really great people who led me to my earliest farming experiences. I found my first farming job through one of the market booths. 

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

  • To be very straight forward, it is really scary even thinking of starting a business. I didn’t go to school for business. I’m lucky enough to have people in my life who know how to do their taxes let alone run a business and I couldn't imagine doing business taxes. I haven’t had my own farm from the fear of going into it solo where my partner would support, but wouldn’t be a part of my active creation and longevity of the farm. It would be just me right now. I haven’t found the right person yet for co-ownership of a farm. Sometimes that can get dicey, miscommunication can happen, relationships can go under. Even starting a business is so daunting and finding the right time to even think of creating a business with all of the added things in life that we have to deal with - family, relationships, friends, sleep or health, little things go wrong with vehicle, the work that we are actually doing to keep food on our table - the work that I do at the farm, which is full time. To put on top of that designing and creating a business that you can sustain yourself feels like a monumental task. 

    Right now I'm very lucky to be learning in a managerial role, co-managing with Tara. We get to learn how we would run a farm, the different aspects we have to take care of, the documentation of receipts, the seed and crop planning, doing all the work learning. We don’t do all of the financial side, but we do create a budget…a lot of things that have to do with the practice of running a farm. So far I've been learning a lot about how to create an approachable business model for myself. Right now i’m very lucky to be learning in a managerial role, colmanaging with tara. We get to learn how we would run a farm, the different aspsects we have to take care of , the documentation of receipts, the seed planning and crop planning, doing all the work learning, not all of it, we don’t do all of the financial side, we do create a budget , a lot of things that have to do with the practice of running a farm. So far i’ve been learning alot about how to create an approachable business model for myself. 

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

  • Something that is most present in my life right now is the space and the recognition needed to rest. I am currently seeing a lot of farmer burnout at the farm that I'm working at right now. It can be pervasive and spread from person to person. I don’t know if there is a comparable way to measure rest from the farm staff to our nonprofit office staff. When our office supervisors come to the farm, sometimes they will comment on things that haven’t gotten out since the last time they have come out. We can’t push ourselves to do certain things because our bodies and minds are tired. I would say the toxic, no rest culture that we have is really difficult for us especially when we head into winter and some people are expecting us to have more presence in the office because we have rainy or snowy days. We are just tired, farming all year to meet quotas for grants just puts such tolls on our bodies and we don’t get time off unless we take it off with our PTO, and some people don’t have that collection of time off. 

  • Something that I’m thankful for is that we have a really friendly farm staff, friendly meaning approachable. We have queer people and straight people on our farm, but there are no toxic masculinity white supremacy focused people - we don’t have those people or that presence. I can’t describe what a blessing that is to not be on your toes or cautious, you can just be yourself. I could see that being such a hindrance to the workspace and how sacred it is to farm if a presence like that was on the farm. We have had conversations, some of our staff especially the staff that are BIPOC saying that it’s not a solely BIPOC space because not all of our staff are BIPOC, but at least in the best way we can be as safe as we can to every one of our staff.

    In 2021 we had the same staff that we had in 2022, besides one person, which was me. The other co-manager who was before me identified as a cis straight male. I came in identifying as a queer cis woman, and there was a shift that I was told just on comfortability of topics and different things, but we were lucky enough to have all of the same staff. They were hired before me the year prior and we just fit so well. We have two people who are returning and two people that are not. Tara, my co-manager, and I will have to figure out what that means for us when we sit down to have interviews about how we screen for that. We have discussed that we are nervous about it, but we haven’t discussed how we are going to do it.

  • On our staff, one person is Trans, one is Black and me being Queer, granted we aren’t encompassing all, we at least have different perspectives and experiences that we can bring to the leadership on the farm. I think that is probably one our biggest assets, we have a tight core team. I’m so grateful for it, we are all family. I would say trusting in them and these conversations to ensure to the most that we possibly can that we are continuing to make this space safe for all is something that we can do.  

    It’s nice because we are separated from the nonprofit by physical distance. We run our own show. Our values are that we want to feed people. That is what we are there for. We want to bring great food that is organically practiced to our neighbors in need. Our next priority, maybe they are equal priorities actually, is being kind and a family to each other. We want to maintain that, of course. 

    It’s nice to have the separation from the main office because they have different values for us. Us having that separation, we get to make what we want it to be. 

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

  • I’m going to say first what could make it better is not this whole non-profit complex.
    We have to meet a certain poundage per year, that’s a whole thing. If we don’t meet that poundage, we run the risk of not getting the grants we need to make the program survive. The farm has been running 22 years, it’s on its 23rd soon, and that is our whole goal from the point of the non-profit, how many pounds are we getting per month and does it surpass or is equal to last year’s? What I would love is for that to change and for us not to rely on poundage and having to hit a certain number, instead I would love to grow as much as we can possibly can so we can get food out on the table, but also respecting the land and the rest that the land needs and respecting our bodies and mind and the rest that we need. That would make it a dream, make it our thing, if we were funded to grow good food and get out as much as possible by respecting ourselves and the land. And then we wouldn't have to only grow the most high yielding and high poundage produce. We could grow fun things that are diverse for our neighbors and be culturally relevant to folks at different pantries and different areas. I think that would be really awesome. That would make it a dream. 

    Something that the farm does well is I'm paid well. Yes, I am paid well compared to other farms. I do have a managerial position that ups my pay from our seasonal staff. But our seasonals get $17/hr and in this area that is really good. I make $26/hour and I could live on it. This is the first farming job, my first job ever actually, that I could live by myself and have my own apartment, though it would be more modest. I’ve never been able to do that before. 

    They offer health insurance and dental and eye care. That’s a whole other thing, if I had my own farm right now and was paying myself, I don't know that I would be able to afford all of that. 

    This next season is our “test season" to see if we are going to survive. We used to work with a local women’s prison and the farm had a partnership with them for years, for a long time. They would send out four to eight women every Monday through Thursday, March through October. This was their highest paying job in the prison and they got $1.17/hour. Everyone wanted to do this job. It was only those who had certain qualifications who could get the job; they had to be within 2 years of getting out of prison and had to pass some classes. We worked with them and they were able to come out from 9am - 3pm, so they were there for about 6 hours and we were able to use their labor basically as seasonal staff. [The farm didn’t have other hired seasonals before 2020 really. They had two managers or one manager, a seasonal, and then the women from the prison.] On the farm because there were so many more people, they were able to farm so much more. Pounds were up in those early years. During that time when they were working with the women, our calculations for how we measured pounds was off, meaning managers in the past had said, ‘ok a full bin regardless of what produce is in there, could be lettuce, cabbage, squash, chard is equal to 30 - 35 lbs,’ so all our calculations were elevated and off for years, plus we had so many people farming. When 2020 hit, the program for the women in the prison shut down, and we haven’t been able to get them back - they haven’t had any outside source of labor for these women. Our numbers also changed - we started calculating truly what the weight was and our numbers went down to 50k, 60k, 70k per year pending on weather and stuff, and we had to hire so many more people and we had to pay them well. Our cost went up for what we were putting out, how much we had to pay to run the farm and also our poundage went down severely. 

    With our team of 3 seasonals working 29 hours/week and our two managers working 40 hours/week and Izzy, the part time year round working 29 hours/week, with that many staff workers we have to get over 100,000 pounds of food this year to maintain and have jobs next year. If we can’t, then we have to shut down because the non-profit can’t afford it. There is so much that goes into that from the women, our staff here right now, not being able to provide them jobs.  We have to be strategic in what we grow to meet the poundage numbers - winter squash, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers. It’s very intriguing, we’ll see. 

“I think that farmer burnout is such a difficult topic for people. It kind of tangles with capacity and maybe that tangles with shame maybe that tangles with anger of no rest and the feeling of push on - push on - push on. We all have seasons in life, literally sometimes we just need a break. How can we facilitate that break and make it affordable, reasonable, doable?”

WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?

  • Farming comes from my family or some type of soul connection to things that are living. I just love feeling the interconnectedness of myself and nature and the living earth that we live on. I don’t think I have a day where something is not creating awe in my heart and I feel so grateful for that. I just feel connected. I think that appreciation for the soil of the earth has come through my animals that I've been blessed to have - I think that is where that started. It just feels right when I'm outside and it feels right when I'm working with the soil and growing things that will further sustain my family and friends and community. 

    I truly love the people I work with. My farm family is a huge reason as well as why I come back to it. 

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

  • I call myself a farmer now. I encourage everyone who works on a farm to call themselves a farmer. When I worked for people who owned their own farm and I was their employee, I didn't want to call myself a farmer because they didn’t call me a farmer. They called me a seasonal employee or farm assistant. There it felt maybe like I was taking something that wasn’t mine if I would call myself a farmer even though I considered myself one. It felt like I was taking something from them while they were watching me do it, that I was making them feel insignificant, even though I was also feeling insignificant. When I became one of the farm managers, I just started calling myself a farmer and I insisted that if anyone on the farm wanted to be called a farmer, all of our staff should call themselves farmers. We just had a rabbit dinner on the farm and we talked about this very thing. The two staff that are leaving said they felt like frauds for calling themselves farmers because they didn’t farm anymore. I completely disagree with that. If you work with the land, you are a farmer if you want to call yourself that.

  • I find pride in calling myself a farmer and sometimes I find white supremacy and I find there is so much history with what a farmer has been here in the United States. Maybe it’s a reclaiming of the word, like queer, but maybe there is something different. I think I'm open. I want everyone to be a farmer if they want to, if they don’t, maybe there is something better. 

    –

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

  • I do know that little things that would help workers are seasonal stipends for our staff that come in mid-year for winter gear and water gear so their socks aren’t soaked. I’m pushing for that everytime that I can so that we can create a good working environment for our staff. The full time staff gets it but everyone else doesn't.  

  • I would say a bathroom instead of a portapotty. That is tricky because we are leasing land and I am not sure about plumbing on the land.

  • I’ve heard so much back and forth on the farm bill this year. Some people are really pushing for things and some of those things are to be facilitated by nonprofits. After working for one, I’m really nervous about what nonprofits and the aid that they give will look like for new farmers, specifically BIPOC  farmers. It takes so much group knowledge and experienced group knowledge, it’s like raising a child - we used to do it as a community, as a group, rather than isolated families like now. It’s the same thing we should have for farmers: we should not isolate or be farming in isolation. We should be farming with other farmers and be in community so we can help each other. I hope this new farm bill encourages that. I’m a little worried that we won’t give the right tools and knowledge to farmers who are just starting out. I hope that we do that somehow. 

    I would hate to already tank people who don’t have the access to generational wealth and knowledge. 

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

  • I think that farmer burnout is such a difficult topic for people. It kind of tangles with capacity and maybe that tangles with shame maybe that tangles with anger of no rest and the feeling of push on - push on - push on. I want to brainstorm with people how to communicate better regarding farmer burnout and how to help and encourage rest, how to make it okay in our field. That might be more of a societal thing, maybe that means people stop farming for a year, take a break and come back. I want to make it more approachable to talk about and not taboo. We all have seasons in life, literally sometimes we just need a break. How can we facilitate that break and make it affordable, reasonable, doable?

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....)

  • Sometimes it’s my favorite of the day! Let me tell you. We take lunch all together typically at 12 unless we start earlier. We have two microwaves and we take an hour long lunch or 45 minutes if we are needing it to be super fast.. We are pretty bad at taking the recommended 15 minute break during the day so we really try to take our time and be sacred with our time, go to the bathroom, we chat, heat up our food, eat slowly, sometimes we read, we always play with the dogs. We have different areas to eat - the greenhouse in the winter, in the park when it’s hot. Once a year we will do a BLT day where we will take lettuce from the field and tomatoes and make BLTs and homemade mayonnaise. We will also have other treat things. During the summer we make sure our freezer is stocked with ice cream and popsicles. Lunch is so important to me.I hate being rushed with a 30 minute lunch. I love being really relaxed and creating space.