MICHELLE WEEK
PORTLAND, OR
Michelle has been farming for 4-5 years on farms not her own, while also doubling down on her own farm, Good Rain Farm, at the same time. She also works as a field instructor at REI, and has a work trade at another local farm.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
Currently I have just been reinstated with my field instructor position with REI. I do that weekends, it’s more heavily situated in the winter time. I work every other week as a work trade at another farm, and I spent a lot of time working on my own farm. It’s so funny, I spend so much time on the back end of my farming, being super legal, and capturing screenshots, and I’ve realized just this level of cavalier with other farms. For example, my work trade has zero documentation, no waiver or agreement, it is all so loosey goosey. For me, I have a deep fear of liability and legality issues that I over-document everything for my farm. I spend time on these other farms because I want to be learning systems and methods and the why. I want to learn from someone’s 20 years of experience. I think that if that didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be doing it. I do a lot of back end bullshit right now. I’m working on website development. We have a lot of programs on my farm more geared toward accessibility and education.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
I’ve been farming since 2017 farming, farming. I’ve gardened my whole life. So for about 4 to 5 years. Again I worked in the off season for a couple years and I double downed -worked on my own farm and for another farm at the same time. I would say I’ve been farming for like 10 years even though it’s been four years. I didn’t grow up being told that farming could be a career. I missed a lot of time to learn and I desperately want to make up for it.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
I loved to garden and tend to animals and stuff. Eight after the last presidential election in 2016, I wanted to make a greater impact. I have always been involved in environmental movements and sustainability, whatever that means these days…it meant something different ten years ago. I wanted to make a bigger impact. I spent a lot of time doing lobbying and policy work; I sat on boards of directors, but I still felt bogged down in bureaucratic bullshit. We thought farming and feeding people could be a really immediate way to make an impact. To steward the land in a sustainable and transparent way, to allow me to connect more deeply with where my food comes from, seed to food, dehydrating it and the process of it, and sharing that with community. We started a large garden in 2016 and it became clear that a garden wasn’t going to be efficient to support the demand.
We can define agriculture in a lot of different ways. As we envision market farms now that is kind of what we do now. More uniform and larger food production, efficient. Being able to feed more people for the same two hours I spend out in the field.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
It’s a work-trade, it’s not for income. It did lead to a little bit of income last year, opportunities when this person goes on vacation, I’m their default. I’ve been with them for several winters. I’m a good farm baby sitter. I waffled this year. It’ll probably be my last year given the growth of my own personal farm. Then again I don’t know, the food is really valuable. Learning from someone who has done it for so long, learning the system. The weird little nuances of how they define a bad kale leaf from a good kale leaf. What is quality produce versus not. Winter farming is a little different. There are experiences like that and I pick up on the teeny tiny nuances. It’s nice. I get to connect with a large farm crew that are all work traders. It’s a good networking experience for me that I haven’t seen other farms offer. It’s an invaluable piece of it, I have met tons of other farmers who work the off season.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
One of the bigger ones that stick out to me on farms, for the mid size farms that I tend to work on, basically the immediate boss is the immediate owner of the farm. Any of complaints or HR is very hard to communicate because you are literally communicating to the offender. There is no mediator or a little bit of buffer there, so you kind of asking, is this worth losing this opportunity over or calling them out or not? Is this something they are open to hearing and working through or will it cause tension? You are always evaluating experiences, deciding if it’s worth it or not. They would all be worth it or things to talk about.
I immediately thought of this one time I was out in the field four years ago working alongside another person and they were telling me about how they really wish they had their dreadlocks back. This was a white femme person. I don’t know where this came from, why we were talking about it. It came up partly because of having the dreadlocks and a positive experience they had in the Philippines and how they were going to go to a permaculture course and get certified to teach and go back to Philippines to teach it to people there. Like clearly Filipinos weren’t participating in permaculture? THEY DO! They were talking about all these things and not seeing the forest for the trees. A huge portion of subsistence existence out there is food forest. It’s a way of being in the land, maybe you didn’t see it from your white gaze out there? I remember pushing back on it a little. I was so caught off guard, what just happened? What privilege, what white saviorism. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a clear experience of that since.
I see it over and over again. I’ve definitely met people who are white passing who talk about the world in that way, how they see themselves, like I’m here to learn and do this and then move to a poor place like Detroit or some other “poor place” and bring the sustainable farming to them. Why do you have to go find these perceived poor places to do that? There are definitely people here who could use the help, too. I see that so often - is it a sustainable ag thing? I don’t really know. It’s prevalent in the northwest. It’s virtue signaling. People are really sympathetic to the cause but when it comes to putting boots to the streets, it doesn’t necessary translate so well.
There is a local regional group that matches interns up with farms, and they charge on both ends: they charge tuition to interns and fees to the farm. I’m not sure if it’s wrong or bad or not. I keep hearing reports of one particular farm. One person described it to me and said, ‘Every day I woke up and told myself I wasn’t going to cry today’. How is this state wide organization for interns continuing to work with this farm? It’s a verbally abusive person. The intern lives, sleeps, eats trapped on this island for a season. What kind of clout does this farm have? And as an intern, you already paid the tuition, how do you advocate to get the money back? I’ve heard from 5 people about the same farm. A white cis male, another intern, who was vegan at the time, and they kept pressuring him into slaughtering chickens. We didn’t see eye to eye (I raise meat) but it is forcing values. He’s the only one that I heard actually got up and left and advocated for his tuition back. It was a privilege and power move. He had that opportunity. What about female of color farmers? What is their ability and mobility?
Now that I’ve gotten to know the people in the organization, I’ve been raising awareness, asking them to address it. There is zero accountability. I keep pushing back and being vocal. We are not developing young farmers if we are beating their souls.
I definitely didn’t want to work for white male farmers and continue to build wealth for them. I can’t even - even the nicest ones still tokenize me as a young Indigenous female farmer. I am Native and French. I get some weird comments still sometimes. Their intent is to make compliments and be nice and honor me or something, but the reality is that it’s sexist, racist weird shit. It’s so hard to explain to someone, that was a nice gesture but really bad implementation. That is one of those where you run your options and go, okay thanks, bye now. Some of the female white farmers that I worked for, I worked for one who really romanticizes Black culture. When people get it into their brain, it’s so hard to crack that open and talk about it.
I wanted to take more control and make more of an impact. We are doing our first ever annual report on our farm - we do a lot. I was feeling like we don’t do enough, and now I’m trying to think we do a lot. 15%of our CSA was free of charge to our community, we had a scholarship program. We donated food and we donate money. It was supposed to be a worker coop, but then my original farm business partner and I went different ways. It was a really hard experience. It’s a sole proprietorship right now and I’m always running it with a cooperative mindset. I am always happy to allow crew to suggest ways of doing things, ideas and programming because I didn’t feel comfortable doing that where I was.
We accept WIC, SNAP, and accessible rates.
We have a buy one/ gift one for seed saving education program.
I didn’t feel like I could do that on someone else’s farm, divert the income, amongst this shift and awakening, I’m seeing so many people make excuses and not what to do anything. They recognize problem and not really doing anything.
Long long before I was farming and was in the environmental movement, I realized the social injustice of environmentalism. I connected dots with my own Indigenous identity. and felt the disconnect.
CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?
I try to be real. Look I’m still learning. I’ll correct myself. If I use someone’s wrong pronoun, I’ll correct myself. I’ll allow for humanness to happen. I’l allows crew to correct others and correct me. They feel like they can support that I’m still learning. I don’t think I’m the best leader on earth. I think I tell them that, too. Just having that humility helps. A decent amount of my crew are unpaid interns, we do a lot of education and practice stuff, and because of that we are practicing new things and new ways of teaching, bringing new things to the farm. I’ve done it on other farms, but now we are going to do it on my farm. Collective learning is helpful too in feeling more heard and supported.
Everyone gets a CSA share.
Labor is so expensive, minimum wage out here is $12/hour. A livable wage is $15/hour. I don’t pay myself. I recently made $2000 on the farm.
I do checkins. I sit down with people, we check in and talk about things. And everyday I talk about priorities of the day. I like to explain the why, not just being told to do something that feels stupid or wrong (for example, why we harvest greens in the morning). I’m always there in the field and do my best not to micromanage and allow autonomy for them to do it their way. If someone’s particular way isn’t working for me, I ask myself why it isn’t working for me and try to figure out how I can explain it. An example - kale or collard, we harvest toward the end of the stem, it’s quality issue. Thinking through it helps me realize that it’s not a personal preference, it’s a quality assurance issue of why we might do things the way we do it.
It’s the plants and customers who are directing this whole thing, not me. I am pulling myself out of it. What is really driving this. If you weren’t in it, or heard the feedback, you might not understand the why or see the impact.
“One of the bigger ones that stick out to me on farms, for the mid size farms that I tend to work on, basically the immediate boss is the immediate owner of the farm. Any of complaints or HR is very hard to communicate because you are literally communicating to the offender. There is no mediator or a little bit of buffer there, so you kind of asking, is this worth losing this opportunity over or calling them out or not? Is this something they are open to hearing and working through or will it cause tension? You are always evaluating experiences, deciding if it’s worth it or not. They would all be worth it or things to talk about.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
I love it. I always loved being outside, hail, wind, too hot, it’s fine. I like being outside. I appreciate the community that has built up around it and feeding people. I don’t have the wealth to house people or all those needs - housing, shelter, food, clean water, I don’t know - it’s something that I can do for people that is within my capacity to do for people and I just love working with plants and working with animals and particularly we work with Indigenous foods on the farm. I am connecting with my own cultural foods, learning those stories, and the traditional ecological knowledge that comes with it. It is impactful and amazing to do that kind of work and survive in capitalism. I am getting paid to learn and share my Indigenous stories, to grow and reconnect with those foods, feed community, be outside where I get the most fullfilment and happiness from. I hacked the code and can get paid for all the things I enjoy do. Sometimes I feel like I’m scamming people! I’m getting paid for this.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
That was the most uncomfortable thing - in the second year. I still felt so new to it. I was at the time. I was in an apprenticeship program and my mentor told me I was a farmer. I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing, I felt unsure, uncomfortable, not confident. Now I do the same thing to my interns and crew. I send out newsletters to the CSA and introduce the interns as farmers. They probably feel silly about it. We put in the hard labor, hands in the earth doing the work. Recognizing that helps us also recognize that there aren’t just field workers out there. All the people out in the fields are farmers, they are farming, they know the plants, the produce, recognize pest and disease, when to harvest, it’s as intimate as you can get. They deserve that title of respect, if you would. I'‘m sure it’s different in different cultures. In our society, there is a level of respect and recognition of the skillset.
I try to use it more now.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
Definitely strong relationships with other people working in the field. I wish there was a better network. There is a lot of support for migrant farm workers and farmers, but not necessarily domestic farms. I have people who come and go from one farm to another, and I never hear from them again.
We need to cross pollinate, cross commiserate, cross brain storm ideas and solutions. You go off to work for a farm for a season, that is who you know and talk to and that can be isolating and can lead to difficultly articulating the problems that are happening or identify them as they are happening. Later whether you recognize it more or less, how do you address these problems. We need a network of people to support in that way, who reach out, offer mediation work, HR support and work with the owners.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT YOURSELF & YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMING? WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?
I’m just really glad that I found it. I wish that I was taught at a young age that this was a viable job.
Im finally getting over that hump that is confidence or achieving a level of education, I don’t really know. I did use to feel an extreme sense of needing to catch up, and I think that is finally subsiding. That was a big pressure. For my last few years, it has been attending every webinar, every class, every conference, every book, everything I can talk my way into, and I still don’t know if I’m at the point where I would opt out of something. I’m feeling less pressure to attend a thing now. Also that might just be fatigue.
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....)
All of that. I found it can be good community building and good conversations can come out of it. Sometimes I feel too exhausted or emotionally unavailable to have those conversations.
It’s a good option. I want to figure out a good way to articulate that it’s an option. We are taking lunch and you can go over there and no one will think you’re weird or wonder what is up. How do you eliminate that peer pressure. I’ve felt that way in all of the positions I’ve held, sometimes just wanting to sit in silence, but pressure being pushed upon me.
When I think of farm lunches, I just wish I had a cook on the staff, someone who prepared me food. I forget my lunches half the time.
