SARAH ANN HORTON
NEW YORK CITY
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
So I am the Farm Operations and Training manager for a company called Square Roots, which is an ag technology company. We have a new farmer training program and I work a lot with workforce development for this new industry.
I’ve been at the company for two years, I’m the Brooklyn campus Farm Manager. I built production models that we use today. We grow in shipping containers.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
8 full years. I just entered my 9th season. February is my farmerversary.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
I actually grew up on a cattle farm in a small town in Georgia, but my family weren’t profession farmers. It was not how we made our money, but we did live on a farm so I had to watch animals give birth and die. I started working on production farms when I was 18, on organic vegetable farms in rural Georgia. I went to college in Atlanta and that is where I got into urban farming and job training. I traveled throughout Southeast and worked on organic farms.
I really just loved it. It was opposed to a lot of rhetoric that I was raised around, hyper conservatism, the post 911 Bush era that was pushing women into more traditional roles. You were only valuable for how you looked. I had a debutante ball.
With farming, I felt valuable for what I could do, not what I looked like. I really enjoyed that challenge. It gave me a space to be myself and I enjoyed it and ran with that. I loved it so much that I would figure it out.
And success has looked different at different times.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
I am definitely not opposed to starting my own farm. I’m 27. My parents own property back in Georgia. Access to land is such a blessing and is the number one hindrance to being a successful farm in any manner, just being able to afford land to grow food. I really want to be ready for that, but that means I need a lot of practice. Farming for other people is taking the opportunity without the risk. Typically it’s not the way I would maybe farm, but you have to learn about different stuff and with farming in urban environments, you learn how to zone for ag and work with the city, what types of permits you would need to handle certain chemicals. You learn to problem solve, which has been fun, and looking at all the new types of farming.
I like working with young people and training people. Part of that has been figuring out how to farm successfully and it looks really different. There is no right way to farm, though there are a lot of wrong ways. Organic farming or sustainable farming doesn’t have a lot of good education resources in the south. Someone needs to start some type of farm school down there.
I need to figure out how to make it profitable, or go the non profit model and work with community to figure out how to be successful. I have to take time and learn, I haven’t figured out the part that would make money. It’s just a dream right now.
I have healthcare right now and someone else pays for it. The company pays for dental, vision and health insurance.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
Land access is the biggest one. I ran an urban farm in Atlanta for 2 and a half years. The movie industry was there and it capitalized on abandoned lots filming dystopian films like The Walking Dead. The landlord was like, I can make more money renting my lot than you farming on it. And he wasn’t wrong. I set up the company to be sold and it got bought. We took the infrastructure and moved out.
In New York, there is some of that, but it’s more about how to train young people and how to be a really good manager.
In the country, you have a hard time finding people who are engaged and want to be there. My dad grew up on a farm. They made smart decisions and watched some of his friends get into financial trouble. He was mad that I went into ag work. He said he sent me to college to get away from farming.
My parents love it now because I work for Elon Musk’s brother. But it’s a scary time now - it's a startup and tech company and people don’t want to invest in new tech.
I have repetitive stress injuries andI deal with that. Its a hard industry and hard to do it in the city and hard to do it in the county.
The coronavirus has definitely affected food. We don’t know what sanitizers kill it or if it spreads in refrigeration. It’s a precarious industry to be in.
I think with agriculture, the quality of life sucks. A lot of times you don’t have access to a bathroom and are having to explain to male managers that I could have a UTI if I can’t take out my tampon. Having conversations about sexual harassment, you’re alone in a field and there is nothing you can do for the most part. No human resources department. Not getting paid anything. Minimum wage is $7.25/hour in Georgia with no access to healthcare, no overtime.
There is lots of stuff they do to you.
As a young woman, not being taken seriously. I am 5’5”, 115 pounds. I look like a mature 17 year old and nobody took me seriously. That attitude toward women is more prominent in the south.
Being dirty and hurting your body. I had no idea what holidays were. I had one vacation in 2 and a half years. I gave up so much of my personal life for the farm. I had shingles for 6 months, had complications and was on crazy medication. It does all kinds of shit to your nervous system. I couldn't stop working, I was building new technology. My personal life and support system fell apart. I’m doing really good now. I am still weaning off that medication, which was a wild ride of its own. It took a really long time to recover and I had two outbreaks from it. It affected my body so much that I had another one. I suffered damage to my nervous system, and mood dis-regulation, like severe depression, pain where I can’t sleep, and I lost my appetite.
I am doing substantially better.
Agriculture is stressful.
“There is no right way to farm, though there are a lot of wrong ways.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
I’ve done it for so long, it’s what I do.
I really love it. I really believe in it. There are definitely times where I need to balance myself to continue to give to this effort, I can’t only take care of the farm, I have to take care of me, too, but I really do think that it’s one of the most important things that we should do.
There are very few passions that I talk publicly about than food.
Teaching people how to grow food is really what resonates with me. It was a hard thing for me to learn. I did not have good access to education in south and it meant traveling, volunteering, road tripping to figure it out. I like making that resource available.
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?
Here is a funny perspective. I help to start the National Young Farmers’ Coalition chapter in Atlanta and the one here (in New York). We run into this conversation so often of who is a farmer. What I’ve learned, and I wouldn't say this is my personal opinion, is that the capitalist notion tied to the language of farmer very much associates it with land ownership. People don’t feel like they are farmers if they don’t own land. There is tons of food production in New York City that is mostly done by community gardens. The food sovereignty movement was created by communities of color. They don’t identify as farmers. There is land based trauma, there’s a traumatic notion with land access. They don't identify for that reason alone.
I’ve been in urban farming for last 5 years and people don’t identify with being a farmer because they don’t see farmers or farm land unless they visit their grandma. In the south, they try to reject it because of the negative aspect of farming, it’s associated with being poor. You don’t want to be a farmer for that reason. A lot of the identity is regional. We have really dissociated people from food production and food systems; most people don’t see food production. Being a farmer is a vague and romantic idea. That is why these words are conflicted, we don’t see the truth in how our food is produced.
For me, there is no difference in those words. I farm from excel sheets now. I have intimacy with the work and I make good decisions for the people on the ground. There are a lot of opinions on those words and when and how they can be used.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
This sounds really goofy but if Extension and, by proxy, the USDA and FDA, did financial lobbying for ag sectors to investigate new types of ag. People are doing amazing work, if the local university or government cares, the university will research those through Extension. Extension can work with guidance counselors to work with youth. No one told me that when I grew up I could be a farmer. It’s a thing I had to fight for.
We need visibility and exposure for young people. There are other types of fields out there that have to do with agriculture. Educational - you could be an ag teacher, or make research-based tools. There are cool ways to specialize in this work and we need people to make any of this work. We need a diverse field of people and we need to attract people to the field.
At my job, we do a lot of recruitment and hiring.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT YOURSELF & YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMING? WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?
I love to see other art about farms. I am getting a lot of our photos developed. I travel a lot and take photos of farms. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
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....)
From a management standpoint, I support a one hour lunch. It gives them time to socialize and do more than eat, like address a phone call if they need.
For my own personal eating habits, my ability to grow the food takes precedence over my relationship with the food. If I have a stressful day, I don’t like to feel heavy so I eat a small portion of bland things, like sweet potato with some meat, or lentils. I used to work in the heat and I couldn't get tired. I was working in 120 degree greenhouses, so I ate enough to give me energy, but not get sleepy.
I do like to sit and talk. I like the social aspect of food, it’s a big part of why I do it. But when left to my own devices, I eat very meager meals. People have a better experience when they sit for a one hour lunch.