NEWS + EVENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS

FARMWORKERS IN CONVERSATION: ESTATE & BENEFACTOR FARMS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 AT 4PM PT | 5PM MT | 7PM MT register here

Not Our Farm is excited to host our second in an ongoing series, Farmworkers in Conversation. In this conversation, farm workers based across the U.S. will discuss their experiences working on estate farms and benefactor farms.

We define estate farms as private farms run by wealthy or celebrity owners. The food produced at the farm typically stays within the estate. We define benefactor farms as working farms funded by an outside benefactor who may be paying for supplies, wages, or more. The farm manager and/or farmworkers may or may not decide where the food goes.

In this conversation we will discuss the benefits, difficulties, and particularities of working on estate & benefactor farms. These experiences will be placed in the historical context of agriculture in the U.S., where agricultural systems are founded on colonization and enslavement. We will also connect these experiences to the present realities of climate catastrophe, pandemic, and socio-political turmoil. We are curious to explore how one of the ways the wealthy are preparing for a tumultuous & resource scarce future is by creating self-sustaining & regenerative food systems for themselves. Farm workers on estate and benefactor farms may also have the ability to try growing practices, sustainable techniques, and soil building practices that are more difficult to prioritize on for-profit farms that have small profit margins. We wonder how some of these farms and their practices might present possible models for sustainable farming futures.

Please join Not Our Farm and our speakers for this important conversation! Hosted on Zoom on Wednesday, September 18 at 4pm PT | 5pm MT | 7pm ET.

*This event will offer closed captioning and will be simultaneously interpreted into Spanish by Cooperativa Brújulas.

FREE SCHOOL FOR FARMWORKERS: FARMER BURNOUT

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 AT 4:30PM PT | 5:30PM MT | 7:30PM ET register here

Free School for Farmworkers presents a facilitated discussion on Farmer Burnout! …or should we call it “How did we even make it through August?!” Gruelingly long, hot days. Chips for dinner. Never ending task lists. Weeds growing faster than crops. Cherry tomatoes ripening as you pick them. Mosquitoes and squash bugs mocking you. And you wake up and do it all again.

Farmer burnout is real and can make you question if you made the right career choice. It can numb you to the joys that brought you to farming in the first place. It’s a hard place to be in, especially when the farm work doesn’t necessarily stop and you may not be in a position of power as a worker to make changes that could bring you ease on the job.

Come join us at Free School where we will learn how burnout works through our bodies and our minds, and explore tips for burnout detection and management. Together, we’ll also discuss how we as workers can institute personal and crew practices to prevent or ease burnout.

This conversation will be facilitated by Laura Fredrickson-Gosewisch, a farmer, market manager and bodyworker who works to create spaces of wellness in farming. We will also be joined by seasoned farmworkers Liz Wang and Kelly Skillingstead, who will share their own experiences with burnout on the farm. We would also love to hear your burnout survival stories!

Join us Wednesday, September 25 at 4:30pm PT/ 7:30pm ET on Zoom!

*This event will offer closed captioning and will be simultaneously interpreted into Spanish by Cooperativa Brújulas.

**Please note that Free School for Farmworkers sessions are a farmworker-only space.
Free School for Farmworkers is a collaboration between Not Our Farm, University of Wisconsin-Extension and FairShare CSA Coalition