HANNAH PERRY
BROOKLYN, NY
Hannah has just finished her second year farming as a profession on not her own farm. She has been WWOOFing and doing work exchanges on farms for about 5 years.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
I just finished my farm season a week ago. I was a farm hand with a non-profit farm.
We work mainly on a two acre farm on Randall’s Island, which is on the northern east coast of Manhattan. It’s a non-profit that is focused on growing locally nutritious food and bringing it to the local communities. It’s mainly a veggie production farm, and it’s a full time job.
Tuesdays through Fridays, I was working on the farm and on Saturdays I managed the farm stand that we had in Lower Manhattan to distribute food, as well.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
Counting full farm seasons, this is my second year. I’ve been doing WWOOFing, month to month work exchanges on farms, for about 5 years, but as a profession, this is my second year.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
I think it’s a lot of things. I grew up outside of Philly and was just around farms all the time. Growing was a natural part of my communities, in schools and with family. I came to New York to go to art school. I studied art and was doing that for a little bit, but I started losing my mind in the city. I always reach this wall where I think, “This place is toxic, what am I doing here?” That is when I started WWOOFing, because I was a freelance illustrator and it allowed me the agency to work somewhere else. I started picking farms that were accessible by bus or a quick drive. I started doing month long stays every six months. I became more and more in love with it, in this way that it centered me in myself and purpose. Every time I came back to the city, I thought: why is it that I have to leave to do this thing that I love? I started managing the farmers’ market in the city. I think the engagement of food to the community, that connection, really just totally shifted my perspective of what my purpose was and what is important in life, in these confusing times we are living in.
It’s kind of beautiful the way it works out. Farming has the off season. It’s this moment where I return to illustrating for some income. I’m really starting to understand, through the farm season I’m observing and taking in all the beauty and learning and during the winter it becomes this moment of reflection and creation from that. A lot of my art has started to reflect my relationship with agriculture, in a spiritual sense. Throughout the season I write when I come home at night. I write what I saw that day: “Today we harvested the radishes and I noticed a lot of this insect….” documenting what I’m seeing in a creative way.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
Because there is a lot I have to learn. There is this humbling feeling of I’m not prepared to get to a certain point of owning my own farm, I would need to learn from many more people. With working for another farm, I’m seeking out guidance and sage wisdom, and I really like actively learning. I don’t think I have a desire to go back to school to learn about agriculture, but I like the community element of farms. I like being able to constantly bounce off of each other, other farm hands and farm managers. Why is this soil producing this? Having these hypothetical questions that perhaps someone has the answer to. I like having this community-based way of learning that I've found working on other people’s farms.
I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot (starting my own farm). I have realized I don't think I want to be the big boss, but I would like to create a collaboratively-owned farm. Something that is owned by perhaps me and a few others. I like the idea of that, of continuing what I love on other people’s farms with a community element. All the farms we work on, we have our own critiques, I think I do have that dream of starting something new in more of a community collaborative portal.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
The farm that I work on, it’s unique in the way that it is a non-profit that is run by someone that doesn’t know how to farm. It’s a non-profit that is based as an art non-profit - that is where their farming comes from. It’s owned by an artist and there is something beautiful about that, finding deep love of art and farming and having that interlace. But there is a huge disconnect between the farmers and the administration and the owners and those that don’t show up to the farm every single day. There are constantly critiques of: Why are we not producing there? The rooftop in the Bronx, we were struggling with production there; the farm manager was manning these two farms on her own at the beginning of the pandemic and it was understaffed completely. The core of what I’m saying is a disconnect between higher management and on the ground staff. Literally having the day to day connection and observance of land you are tending creates a huge division between us and administrators in priorities and understanding of what you are producing and how well it is producing or why it isn’t producing. We are constantly trying to explain to them, the rooftop isn’t producing because the soil is shit - it’s been terrible for years and we’ve been telling you that over and over again and nobody is doing any about it.
The way that it works is there are the farm hands, and then the manager of northern farms, and the director of farms who runs the south Brooklyn farms. The director approves the budget, but it’s a system that is very hierarchical and they hold onto that so strongly. If you step out of that at any point, it’s looked down upon. The farm manager suggests the budget to the director, and the director sends it to multiple people to approve. It’s a huge chain that is naturally prone to have nothing happen. There are so many windows and doorways and obstacles to go through.
That structure of hierarchy put me in a really weird place as one of the only farm hands. We have apprentices that are on a separate part of the funding. I was the only general season farm hand, and I felt really disposable. There was a lot of inner workings of the company that weren’t shared with me. My other manager tested positive for COVID, the day before Thanksgiving and told every body but me. He emailed everyone who was still employed and not me! There was this one apprentice also who wasn’t reached out to. It almost felt like a metaphor for the treatment and hierarchy. Thankfully the other manager reached out to me right away. What! This is also a few days after my job ended, too. Does he really have this mentality that because the season ended I’m not part of this even though I saw him days before?
We have this system for the farmers’ market where we have a market price (higher price) and a community price (half the price for specific income levels in the communities that we sell to/EBT). We went to the market with this system already established. A lot of the people in the community outside of Chinatown don’t speak English, and I was put in this position of not being able to explain this complicated system that we have. It put me in a bizarre position of profiling people. Someone is walking up, like. a fancy person or a white person and I would have to decide what to charge them. I brought this up to my company, that this system is really flawed and we need proper signage in multiple languages. Also I’m a white woman and it’s putting me in a really uncomfortable position. Am I being a shitty white person that is just like profiling? It’s a really imperfect system. I brought that up to the staff meeting that, ‘hey I think this system is flawed…” Eventually another apprentice came and helped me at the markets and he was feeling the same way. He agreed, we were put in a weird position of deciding income. The owner got really upset. She said, “You just know!” She got really upset and I was never invited back on a staff call after that. That is where I saw really directly that it’s not my place and that is how this company runs. For me to want to make a structural change in how we are interacting with communities, I would have had to tell our farm manager who would have to send it to her director, who then sends it to the administrator who sends it to… and so on. Well, I took the agency to give everyone community prices after that. I’m just going to make this food accessible to everyone!
But I definitely would love to return next season, outside of complications of the company. The land is such a special, unique body to find in New York City. I love everyone - all the farm staff. It’s heartbreaking that there is such an alternative side to the company because when I’m on the farm and working with my people, it is the best place in the world. Who knows what the world is going to look like in 3 months, I’m really planting seeds in many different ways. I’m reapplying at that farm; I’m reaching out to more farms; I’m looking for farm work upstate and outside of Philly; I’m really just trying to see what kind of communities are out there. I’m also at this point where my farm and ag career has been based out of New York City, which I realize is very limiting in what I can do and what there is to learn. I want to be open to expanding to other places and community. I’m leaving the door open as much as possible and giving myself as many options as possible. I want to 100% return to farming next year and continue this path.
CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?
Giving the farm hands some sort of collective agency or ownership, some sort of communal decision making on the farm. I keep using the word community because it is the most important thing in the world to me. Establishing a healthy community among the workers and owners and having it feel like an equitable environment of decision making and caretaking. There are always things that I wish…I wish the non-profit farm where I work would give you a contract where it says they are going to hire me back in the spring. It would give me more stability, or some sort of base of stability, a commitment to continuing work.
A year round farm position? But I do like the seasonality of it. As I’m committing myself more to agriculture, I would be open to a year round position.
Overall care for the wellbeing of workers that could come in the way of healthcare. We have a farm hand who started as an apprentice. He grew up in the neighborhood where one of our farms is and he is pretty elderly. He’s hired full time and has been there 7 years as a community liaison. He was going through a really hard times this year and it felt so incredibly sinful that this company, which this man has been so devoted to, is not looking out for him. Why aren’t they helping him? Why is there not more of a commitment to each other? I would check in on him, but he wanted to figure it out on his own.
We need mutual care and equality around workers, managers, and owners. It needs to be rooted in open communication.
“It’s kind of beautiful the way it works out. Farming has the off season - it’s the moment where I return to illustrating for some income. Through the farm season I’m observing and taking in all the beauty and learning, and during the winter it becomes this moment of reflection and creation from that. A lot of my art has started to reflect my relationship with agriculture in a spiritual sense.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
The land! The bugs! The plants! The root of it all is this higher understanding of community support through food and the power that comes in helping people eat good food, helping them understand how to grow food, making that accessible, and understanding that food and food justice is at this root of equal existence in humanity. I’ve been saying this term recently, it’s this way back home, and home being to the land, to understanding how do we wake up every day, how do we exist? It’s through the energy that is coming through this food. I feel so much peace and purpose when I’m farming. With so much pain throughout our species and world, I can’t really make sense of doing anything else outside of helping grow food and feeding people. It’s the root of how we continue existing as a species and I want to share that. I do think urban ag is at a very beginning life form, but I think it has a lot of potential. The human population is prone to grow and grow and urban spaces are growing more. I think urban ag is definitely a root worth exploring. The more time we find ourselves in these concrete worlds, those little pockets of time you have to experience dirt is this jarring, intense juxtaposition in an urban space. It’s more powerful in its experience and purpose and it is crucial to share it with people who don’t experience it every day.
I want people to have more of a connection of where food is coming from, how it’s grown, who is doing the work.
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?
A farmer has this idea of, you’re a full time farmer, you have your own farm.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
I feel like I don’t have the right to call myself a farmer. A lot of the time I say I’m a farm hand. Farm hand has a lower stature sounding to it. I think that is also maybe my own ego and not feeling worthy of certain titles. I also do call myself a farmer sometimes, too.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
Having this place through what Not Our Farm is doing sounds really beautiful to have some sort of database or online community to connect with other farmers who do not own land. This can be in any work environment, but we get to this point where we all accept certain things in our work environment to be status quo. Like on our farm, we didn’t have a bathroom for awhile, and it kind of became this normal thing. After a while, we started thinking, ‘why don’t they just get us a portapotty?’ But it was this thing we accepted. Having this public community to other farm hands/ farmers, and being able to ask: Do you guys deal with this same sort of problem? How do you handle it? Having this comparative community, it helps you realize that, oh maybe I’ve normalized this treatment or disrespect because it’s all I’ve known here, but when I talk to other people and have this way of reaching out, I can understand that this is not right.
I live with a labor organizer who works for a union. What would it look like to have a union interacting with the non-profit where I work? I say this not knowing much about the National Farmers Union, but having this collective support is really important especially as a way of reaching out and communicating. I think power in numbers is a real thing.
I’ve started in my own way learning about sites and places that connect you to retiring farmers. It’s a beautiful way of acquiring land as a young farmer. There is something beautiful and heartbreaking because it’s the reality of the American farmer: an aging population, and I think having/hearing that there is a place to go to look at farms and connect to older aging farmers, it makes it possibly accessible to acquire land and systems. I recently read the book “Farming while Black” by Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm. It was an incredibly informative book in the way that she broke down what are all the sources of where you can find land, places open to funding you. It was a tangible way of dipping your toe in and thinking this is a possibility and people actually do it. That’s really helpful.
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 love lunch. I always really enjoy taking lunch with my farm crew. For us on harvest days we had this mentality where if it’s harvest day, come in with a big belly of breakfast because we will power through and eat lunch when we’re done. Some days we would eat lunch at 2; some days we would eat lunch at 4. It was this collective building and celebration of lunch, like, Yes! We earned this.
Our lunch was really social, but sometimes I wished I could sit in a corner and read and eat my lunch.
