SHOSHANA NACHMAN
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Shoshana has been farming for 3 seasons. She has woven in and out of farming over the years, working in reforestation, going to graduate school, and working as a wildlife tech, before coming back to farming and committing to it as a career.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY DOING? (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING, ETC)
Right now I am working full-time and year round at a farm in Maryland, about 30 minutes outside of Baltimore. I am the vegetable farm manager here so I’m growing everything. I’m growing on 2 and a quarter acres diversified vegetables with a petting farm, grass fed beef and pork. I don’t get pulled over to the meat production, but I help out on the petting farm and winter care. My main job is vegetables
It’s a market garden style. I am going into second season farming there.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FARMING?
I guess I’ve done 3 full years at this point. I started off as volunteering on an organic vegetable farm and then a few years later ended up as a farm hand for a full season in Maryland. Then I found my way over to a manager position where I’ve ended up year round and feel really lucky. It’s actually stable.
WHAT INITIALLY BROUGHT YOU TO THE FIELDS?
I guess two things. I got my degree in environmental science and biology so I was already interested in conservation and ecology as a field, and then my brother signed my parents up for a CSA and that was my first real introduction into it. That was the farm that I ended up volunteering at. I picked up the CSA one time and asked about helping out on the farm. I really loved it. That’s how I initially got into it. Through my degree, I had become more aware of our food system, how multifaceted it is and then the perfect timing of my brother going through a similar discovery process and discovering the whole CSA model.
I’ve woven in and out of farming.
I volunteered for two seasons in the summer. I went back to school and didn’t know if I wanted to do plants or animals. I did internships while in school, got a job in reforestation right out of school, and then the same school offered a graduate position. I thought I should take it and I tried that for 4 months and it was a flop. Then I remembered farming and that’s when I got the farm hand position. I thought I would go back to farming the following year, but in the winter I became a wildlife tech and thought, here is my chance to try out wildlife biology. I went to Idaho and got an industry job in environmental science. I hated the industry job.
So then I thought, this is it, I’m farming for real this time. My boyfriend was about ready to kill me by this point. He said, if you’re committing to farming, you have to come up with more of a plan and show me your commitment. That’s how we ended up at the farm where I’m at now. It’s what has stuck with me, it’s the integration of what I wanted.
It’s a long winded story.
It stuck this time.
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN TO FARM FOR SOMEONE ELSE (NOW OR IN THE PAST?)
One of the first reasons is that I felt like I didn’t know enough to start my own enterprise. Two, as a business person and actually growing my own food, I felt like I needed more experience under my belt. I’m not naturally entrepreneurial. I'm more of the standard person who goes into farming. I really love farming and being outside, but I need to make money at the same time. I wanted to gain more experience. I guess I could rent land and potentially farm, but financially buying a property would be totally unrealistic with property tax and the price being so high. I didn’t want to leave Maryland.
It makes a lot more sense to continue learning and have mentors and have all that.
The finances and just being a manager, having a crew that I’m telling what to do for the day, there are different hats that farmers have to wear. I’m just constantly learning and in the process, in that learning curve. How do I become a better manager? How do I expand our business sustainably without killing us? All of those questions are coming into the picture more.
WHAT ARE SOME ISSUES FOR FARMERS WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S FARM - ISSUES THAT YOU'VE WITNESSED OR EXPERIENCED?
Having access to the finances because it’s a family farm. It makes it hard to help make decisions to grow a business without knowing how much the vegetable business brings in. I did ask how much we brought in, in order to understand how to effectively grow the business or add on operations. I can’t really do well in a manager position if you don’t know the numbers behind it. It’s a mother and daughter family farm, and I respect that too because they have people come and go all the time. But we’re going to be the ones who stay here and see the farm continue on, and it’s a big trust thing. They want to know we are long term committed to their operation.
It’s hard to figure out how to approach those topics tactfully. I don’t want to step on their toes and go too far.
It’s hard to try and grow a business that I have a fair amount of input in and yet not understand everything behind it.Some smaller issues are I’m getting pulled over into operations that I would have no interest in running if I had my own farm, like the goats, or the petting farm. I have to do it because I’m on somebody else’s farm. It teaches you how much you would want to take on yourself. I can learn lessons before making mistakes on my own.
Seeing how other people do things is really helpful because there is no single solution to any problem. People approach things differently. It’s like learning how somebody came up with a solution versus another way.
I enjoy just learning from different people and meeting different people and different philosophies on how they run their farm. Some people are more concerned with work/life balance because they have a family or their relationships matter to them and other people are whole hog sunrise to sunset farmers because that is who they are. So just seeing different philosophies and styles of farming, it’s helpful to soak in and see what sits well with myself. What type of balance I want to strike in my life.
“I’m constantly justifying myself to other people and to myself that it is a legitimate job and you don’t have to own your own farm to be considered a farmer.”
WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK?
Climate change!
I would say that is the really big picture version of it. I feel like I am physically doing something to better the land. Obviously farming creates constant disturbance, but there are ways to mitigate that, knowing what we have to do to move toward carbon capture and reducing our footprint.
I took a class in college called ‘The Ethics of Consumption and Waste.’ It struck a cord with me. All the traditional “modern industrial practices” and what we’ve recently decided to do in the recent history of farming is so destructive on so many levels. On scales of food justice and the ecosystem and just increasing the amount of greenhouse gases we are releasing. In school I found it so incredibly frustrating and I wanted something on my small scale to solve a piece of that puzzle or to be a part of the larger solution.
I come back to farming because of creating community. I listened to a podcast recently where they made the comment that farms are creating the community. Farms are bringing a lot of people together, especially in suburbia, people are so isolated.
I can’t function in an office space. My mental health goes down. I need to be outside. I’m an active person. It keeps me healthy. It’s the type of work that I’m suited for. I like to juggle many different things and I get to do it all outside.
It’s a place where I can satisfy my frustration with the world; it’s the space that I can do that in.
I love the farming community that I’ve met especially in the Baltimore area. Here it feels like farming is a platform to tackle problems that most affect us and our families. Non profits are teaching people how to use food, addressing the whole climate change issue and capturing carbon into our soil as much as possible. Everybody is tackling what means the most to them through farming.
It relieves a personal burden on me to solve all the problems, which is impossible and very idealistic. It’s nice to be in a community where people really care about what they are doing and have a reason for being there.
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE DIFFERENCE (IF ANY) BETWEEN A FARMER AND A "FARM WORKER"/"FARM EMPLOYEE" BESIDES PROPRIETORSHIP?
Somebody who is a farmer owns their own farm and is the operator. They are doing their own book keeping and handling all aspects of the farm.
A Farm employee is the one out in the field. I’ve worked with the “farmers’ and they are out there with you, but they are more in the planning of it, as well.
I don’t think that is true, even though that is what my brain/gut reaction tells me because it’s so hard to own your own operation and some people that I meet who work on other people’s jobs or are piecing the jobs together (part time here and part time here), they are farmers, too. They want to participate in this, as well, and just because they can’t do it all in one operation doesn’t mean that they aren’t a part of it.
DO YOU CALL YOURSELF A FARMER? WHY OR WHY NOT.
Someone told me, “You’re not a farmer until you own a truck.” I have a Camry and it’s basically acting like a truck.
I think I had to commit to the profession, or to it as an actual career. I was trying out a lot of different jobs out of school and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I pretty much had to choose - is farming where you see yourself for the next 10 -15 years doing this job everyday for that long? My answer was, “Yes, I really like it,” so at some point last year was when I really started calling myself a farmer.
I had a dream about me justifying to my friends that I am a farmer and farming is actually a profession.
Most people in my family are college educated and think, ‘Oh that’s cute, you’re a farmer. You’re going through your social justice phase, but then you’ll go back to school and get a job.’ But they are also really supportive of it at the same time. They aren't taking it totally seriously, but they also see it as something they wish they were doing in the same breath. There’s a little bit of envy and little bit of “you’ll get over this” sort of thing. I remember being in my early 20s and thinking that I’m going to live a certain way. I’m constantly justifying myself to other people and to myself that it is a legitimate job and you don’t have to own your own farm to be consider a farmer.
WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WORKING ON FARMS NOT THEIR OWN?
Having good people to work for and who care a lot about work life balance and understanding you are person outside of your job even though farming can be really consuming. They make time for their family and friends and they want me to, as well. The sustainability of the job is manageable especially with these people. I have that sort of support network from them and they are inclusive. We have dinners and during the main season we will do stuff. I definitely feel like I'm involved with them personally. And the other farmers in Maryland are really supportive.
I’m part of the Beginner Farmer Training Program through Future Harvest and there is a facebook group that I’m a part of. Whenever I have a question about something, I can ask. It’s a great, supportive network of people who are willing to help you. I was looking for a plastic mulch spreader and a guy in Maryland reached out and said he could rent it out to us.
Small medium organic sustainable farmers in the area here are really open about sharing how they do things. Please come to my farm and ask me questions and people hand out their phone numbers and say, Give me a call, don’t hesitate.
Having a similar type of network would be helpful for people who are farming on not on their own farm. Creating this safe space just to communicate openly and ask questions, and feel like you’re not intruding into someone’s life.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT YOURSELF & YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMING? WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?
I guess preserving my body for the long run. I’m 27, so I’m pretty youthful. I can work hard and bounce back from it fairly easily, and I don’t have pain keeping me up at night. But I also don’t ever want to get to that point. It’s a really physically demanding job, especially on a small scale, mostly hand tools and hand labor. It’s definitely something I think about. How do I care for my body so I can be doing this when I’m 40 or 50 and still feel healthy and without pain?
I got short term disability insurance because my boyfriend advised me to, in case I get injured on the job so I have a way to live still. Thankfully I have a family that is supportive so if I did end up with a crazy medical bill I know that they would be able to help me out in some way.
When I can take it easy, I really do try to take it easy, like in the winter season.
I try to pace myself in the winter months, like actually slow down and rest and try to use as much equipment as we can to relieve how much lifting I have to do. Whatever golf cart we can use to putt around our tomatoes, it alleviates the workload so you’re not hauling heavy items all the time. I also do yoga when I can. I try to be cognizant of how I’m moving my body when I have to use it for strenuous labor, bending at my legs, being aware of how I'’m moving to protect myself.
It’s hard because you want to just do it all and run around and work hours on hours, but one day, when I’m in my 30s I’m not gonna feel that way. I have to remember my 20s aren’t forever.
Another question that keeps me up at night: How do farms provide a stable and respectful workplace? Farms need to provide careers, not just jobs, to their employees. Not everyone is or needs to be an entrepreneur. The farm managers and farm hands cannot constantly be on the move searching for another job. That is unsustainable for both the owners and employees. There are some farms out there that have great employee retention, and I would love for that to be more common. However, this issue also reaches beyond the scope of the small business and into our larger economic and social problems that influence how small businesses operate. I certainly do not have all the answers, or know all the questions to ask yet, but it’s something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I would say that the farming industry at large being propped up by subsidies and grant money is not a sustainable business model within a capitalist system.
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 guess it depends on the day and the season for me. Like right now, in these winter months, I am loving coming home and letting my dog out and taking an hour lunch to make myself a meal and actually chill out in the middle of the day. Right now, I have been soaking in the hour lunch.
In the middle of the season, it just depends. It’s also something that I’m contemplating changing. What I was doing is I would pack myself lunch and typically take a 30 minute lunch. I would encourage anybody obviously to eat if you are hungry. If it’s 11:30 and you’re starving, take time for yourself and eat now. Everybody’s body is different. Some can go all day and not eat, others can’t.
I let people do whatever they want to do. This one guy last year never ate lunch. Whatever makes you happy.
The more I listen to other people, I definitely like the idea of having everybody break together and take lunch and bring your own food or I could make a big salad for us to share, something easy.
I also understand the mentality that taking an hour seems insane.
The whole job is to grow food for people, so we should take time to enjoy it for ourselves. It can make the crew feel more cohesive, more time to talk and get to know each other, instead of coming in the morning and there is already a lot to do.
At another farm where I was a full time farm hand, one guy I worked with would go sit in his car and eat lunch alone. So I would eat lunch by myself when I found a 30 minute break in my work day. It wasn’t terrible, I was not offended, but I thought it was definitely weird. We work together all day and then he would go sit in his car alone and eat lunch. If you are that much of introvert ,you can at least quietly sit together.
