SAJO JEFFERSON
RHODE ISLAND
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
In this past year I’ve worked at a rooftop farm in Brooklyn and Queens and I worked at an educational farm in Harlem area on Randall’s Island, a small island off the coast of Manhattan. I was a crew member and teacher there, although that job started at the beginning of pandemic, so I was mostly growing, not teaching so much.
This fall, when my job ended at the farm in New York, I moved to Rhode Island for personal reasons and found a job working at a 63 acre organic farm, with a small peach orchard and apple orchard, but primarily veggies.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
I started my first farm job at the very beginning of 2017, so almost 5 years, but not consistently. On and off partially because of what we’re going to talk about now. I haven’t been able to find work that could really sustain me so I’ve jumped around a lot. Different seasons, different places, one season on each farm and a bunch of different places.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
Initially I was very jaded with the college I was going to and felt pretty disconnected from the land where I was, or actually becoming more interested in the land than I was in the schoolwork and I didn’t understand how what I was learning in school connected to the things that are so central to our lives. I think I wanted to know about the earth and prioritize that as a central part of my learning. If I was going to learn stuff not directly related, I wanted it to be grounded in respect and honoring. Also being a Black person in college being with a lot of other young folks of color, observing our different experiences with food.
I was in a Black studies class, learning about slavery, and I hadn’t thought about the relationship how, our in entire world, our entire hemisphere, slavery and exploitation has changed the foods that we eat, and food is so central in our lives.
I grew up in western Massachusetts. I’m actually waling here as we talk, visiting my family, looking at big cornfields. Growing up, that was a big part of my landscape. It was a part of the place that I knew. We had a CSA as a family growing up. My parents didn’t talk about it much, but that really impacted me. That CSA was something that I always wanted to do, go to the farm to pick up veggies even if I didn't eat them.
That is where I was coming from when I dropped out of school and started farming.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
Mostly for learning. I considered some schools and I didn’t want to pay to work for someone. Part of what I bought into, a little bit of a myth, is that you could work on someone else’s farm at baseline crew level and be mentored enough to have solid knowledge pretty quickly. I don’t know if it’s the situation I was in, but all my bosses were way too busy to teach me. I learned by doing. I went into it looking for mentorship and working experience, but maybe looking for a little bit more learning oriented experiences than production learning experiences, and I kind of got more of the one I wasn't anticipating.
Do you want to own your own farm?
More now than ever before, I do want to work at a farm where I have collective ownership. Not owning the land, but having agency in my work. I didn’t thin I wanted to until I started farming and going to places that I had high hopes about and being disappointed. I started realizing that the thing I wanted I would have to collaborate with others to realize, something we would have responsibility over.
I haven’t wanted to have my own farm partially because of my lack of interest in making a profit from growing food. I don’t think I know anything about business, and I’m not particularly interested in business. I want to have a living wage and support my community with my work.
I’m not trying to live in or participate in a food system that continues to perpetuate capitalism and extraction.
I want to grow food in a way that centers life and not profit. What does that look like under capitalism?
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
When I look at all the farms, or even non-profits that are also growing food, I see a lot of structural issues, more than just the farm being fucked up. I think that what’s been hard for me to accept is that I kept thinking, the next farm will be different, the next farm will be different. The main thing I’ve noticed is understaffing. There is too much work, that is the main thing.
Too much work and an expectation of work that is so high that it’s hard for people to meet it and not get burnt out, especially if they don't have a stake or there is not an opportunity to really benefit besides getting paid an hourly wage.
I was working ridiculously long hours and not getting overtime and working harder and always being pushed to work harder. I think that was really alarming to me.
I thought sustainability meant for people, too, and I haven’t seen that in many places, even in farms where I really admire the work they are doing.
It doesn’t seem sustainable in terms of workload and yeah, you know, that coupled with not getting paid, not even minimum wage sometimes, doesn’t really make sense.
I think recently I’ve been realizing in some ways I’ve bought into this even though I don’t have these values outside of farm work. Myths like rugged individualism, and myths that if you work harder, that means you care more about what you’re doing. They are myths I don’t believe in, but found myself having to overdo what I’m capable of doing to prove myself that I love what I’m doing.
It’s not about wanting work to be easier, but it’s about having self determination over my work space and work load and agency to determine where my bar is. I’ve been thinking about that a lot after leaving my most recent farm.
The guy who owns the farm, he doesn’t sleep! He works on the farm all day and gets on the tractor all night and sprays his plants. If that is the bar, how do you work up to being in his role as the owner without doing the same thing he does?
That is tough for me as a Black person. The relationship with that and the line between that and exploitation, it’s really strong.
Even in farms with justice goals and values, farmers are expected to martyr themselves for a cause, and that feels not right to me and confusing when I feel like I believe in food justice and liberation and relationship with land. So yeah, that’s been one of the major challenges. And I think that is a foundation that has a lot of symptoms. I think that is probably where I ‘ll leave it. There are a lot of ways that manifests.
CAN YOU TELL ME THE QUALITIES OF A DREAM FARM NOT LEADING TO OWNERSHIP - THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO WORK ON?
Living wages and employment that can sustain people so they aren’t floundering in the winter and figuring out what the heck to do. I’m not opposed to bartering as long as the barter is really fair. If you’re going to pay $500/week and house and feed them, the cost should be calculated. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’d like to see people being paid money and the self determination to choose what they spend it on. People can trade things other than money, but I want it to be an equitable trade.
Cooperative decision making. Someone like yourself who has been farming for over 10 years, even if you’re just on the crew and not in a managerial position, not having that kind of hierarchy where a crew member doesn’t make any decisions. A different kind of opportunity.
The farm that I worked at in Brooklyn ran really well, even though I have qualms with it. As a crew member, many of my managers there have said as long as I get my job done I can do it in a way that works for my body and works for me rather than do it the exact same way…as long as we get to the same goal.
Actually taking care of the land. The farm I just worked on was an organic farm, but that didn’t really mean much difference in terms of how land was being treated. The soil had been tilled so many times it was basically just dirt.
The owner of the field would plant crops and barely had time to take care of them. There were 6 people on 63 acres. We were harvesting thousands of pounds of veggies for their storage. These plants were being neglected. I feel like staffing, making sure you have enough people to work the land so no small group of people will be doing more work than what is possible for 6 people to do.
Paid lunch break and a long enough lunch break to rest. Just having it feel overall more like a job. Farming is one of the most important jobs. Feeding people is essential to all of our livelihoods, not just farmers. Treating people like doctors. I’m not saying they should get paid as much, but getting paid something closer to that would be an amazing thing.
Having clear boundaries around time. Having clear levels - it’s not clear how someone becomes the favorite of the farm manager/owner and gets to be promoted. As a Black person, I’ve felt like if I have to be on the farm 7 days a week to get to be appreciated, that is not worth it to me, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be a good manager. Maybe not a good manager on that kind of farm, but work / life balance is so hard to find for everyone who is doing this kind of work.
Getting paid more would make a lot of things easier.
I don’t know where that money could come from. Chris Newman, he really talks about thinking about colonization and the relationship with how our farms are still running and how if the farmer is still exploiting people to run a farm, then we aren’t really moving in the right direction. A lot of farmers resonated with that. I care about this and will keep doing it and trying, but I don’t want to work for $12/hr.
It would have to mean we are creating the kind of food system that we want to see.
“I think recently I’ve been realizing in some ways I’ve bought into this even though I don’t have these values outside of farm work. Myths like rugged individualism, and myths that if you work harder, that means you care more about what you’re doing. They are myths I don’t believe in, but found myself having to overdo what I’m capable of doing to prove myself that I love what I’m doing.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
All of the incredible conversations I’ve had with crew mates in the field. I love having my hands in the soil. I love watching the plants grow. I like working hard and feeling tired and also energized by the work that I'm doing. I like being outside all day and doing it with creative strategy to get food into the communities where the farms are. People can access it financially and physically and they feel a part of the farm. It is so powerful and incredible. The dream feels far away at times, but definitely keeps me coming back.
There is an ancestral connection thinking about my great grandparents working on the land and wanting to honor them. I am a descendant of enslaved people in this country. I remember that through my actions, I’m doing that when I'm farming. It’s a practice of memory even though I don’t know that much about my ancestry. That has been really important to me.
I’m a forest. As a kid, I was constantly outside. Coupling that with restoring the soil and the land and feeding people is the most beautiful work, so I don't ever think that I’ll stop growing food. It has never been a question even though I’ve run into some serious challenges and disappointments.
It’s more about what do we need to change? What do we need to be creative about? What do we need to admit to ourselves that’s not working?
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?
The difference is I feel like the farm workers are the real farmers.
When I talk about myself I think of myself as a farmer, but if someone was making a distinction between farmer and farm worker, one designates ownership and the other doesn't. It doesn’t have to mean formal ownership, it could mean agency as part of a collective. Farm workers do not have agency. You see that certainly on the big farms in the Central Valley in California and also on small farms, too, where people don’t have agency and are seen as expendable cogs in machines. The thought is there is always more farm labor and always more young people.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
Yeah, I would. That’s because I know the farm workers, even on the giant farms, have actual skills and knowledge.
I only call myself a farmer when I’m actively farming. When you’re doing it, it’s a lifestyle that consumes your entire life. When you’re not doing it, out of respect to people who are farming today, I’m not going to call myself a farmer, it’s not an identity.
I don’t see it as part of my identity. It is part of work that I do and a lifestyle I live when I’m working on a farm.
I think in an ideal world, farmer would mean the people who actually hold the skills and tend the land, that is more often farm workers and not farmers in that sense.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
I think it would be awesome especially for young Black farmers who are trying to work for older Black farmers to be funded by organizations temporarily because there are so many Black farms that are struggling and so many Black farmers who want to work for Black farm owners who don’t have the money or capacity to take crew on. If that money came from elsewhere, crowdfunding or grants, farmers could work on farms like that.
If I was able to get funded to work on a farm that I cared about, I could work on a lot of farms that I can’t right now because of the money.
I’d like to see farm workers get different kinds of care, whether that is body work to support their bodies or healthcare while they do physical labor or therapy, stuff like that. I know that a lot of friends who are also farming are struggling with mental health and keeping mental health up especially if having a hard farm season.
I’d like to see more farms, especially those with a justice lens, opening up pathways for collective ownership or a cut for some of what they grew. Workers receiving some of the profits from sales. I don’t see why not.
Big picture, I want to see efforts for reparations and thinking about farms ceding land to Black and Indigenous farmers. I’d like to see that more often, and it doesn’t have to be farmers - anyone. It doesn’t have to be formal ownership, even signing contracts for land use. Steward land that isn’t really being stewarded and having Black and Indigenous people in those roles rather than contracting out to white companies.
Living wages, maybe not an hourly wage, maybe salaried farming and full-time/year round work, which I don’t know what that looks like for the winter, so maybe not year round work necessarily. Opportunities for farmers to stay multiple years and having reduced hours in the winter, not being let go at the end of the season.
If there is more money in general, it will be supportive to farmers/farm crew to be able to advocate for and have more boundaries around their work. Have more clarity around how many hours they are expected to work. G
Getting overtime pay! Washington state just passed that. I read on twitter that now this guy, his father works at a dairy and milks cows. He works overtime and was not being paid for it his whole life, but now his boss is telling him to work fewer hours and do same amount of work. People always weasel around these laws.
We need cultural shifts from the culture of white supremacy and the culture of the workplace. We need political education on farms, people really learning about how big ag works and the industry and putting farmers in positions not just to work, but to be changing the industry that desperately needs transforming. People are so busy working they don’t have time to engage in these things. So this would happen with increases in pay mostly. And better staffing.
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’ve had great experiences eating lunch with my coworkers, but if you need time away, it’s been hard to do that because everyone is around.
But it’s too short. There is not enough time to leave the farm if I need to and that makes it really hard to get a break, a physical break or time to digest my food properly.
Sometimes I skip lunch if I have a shorter day or if i know how many tasks I have to do, I’d rather skip it and shove snacks in my mouth and have a sit down lunch later.
A paid lunch is different, but I haven't had paid lunch in many places.
I like the experience of going to make lunch for the crew, as long as it’s evenly divided, which it was not always in terms of who did lunch. I liked those days and having time off work. I’m also a cook, so that’s an enjoyable thing for me. It’s good practice making food for a bunch of people. I was eating for free and housing for free, feeding two families that I was working with and one farm crew member. I liked that and we also had a pretty long lunch. I liked the way that they worked. We worked early and worked hard and then had time for lunch. We also stopped working pretty consistently every day, we didn’t go past 5. They were kind of a homestead when I was there.
I totally feel the nap thing, too. I had a job at the NY Botanical Gardens, teaching mostly on small scale food growing. I would often after the morning feel like I needed a nap. My boss was pretty against it, he thought it was very unprofessional of me. I would go off to a field in the Botanical Garden and take a nap, always feeling better afterward.