Braiding a Holistic, Healing Model for Agriculture

In addition to the inspiration offered by Grandma Lila, to execute this farm-osophy is a source of great privilege via inter-generational inheritance. Being a Jewish woman and passionate knowledge-seeker who lived through the Great Depression, Grandma Lila was determined to live frugally and save meticulously so her children and grandchildren could have economic access to higher education. This pursuit enabled me, in turn, to attain a Bachelor's Degree, apprentice on a commercial farm for nine months, and purchase the 12 acres as a “first-generation” farmer under the age of 30. The forces of academic training in ethical theory, especially environmental ethics, and acknowledgement of this privilege converged to produce within me a determination to utilize my intelligence, physical ability, and privilege to do what I deem is the work that can create the most good: farm in a holistic, healing way. Being able to do this essential, life-giving work of tending to Mother Earth and nourishing the community, however, should not be a privilege (nor is it sustainable to be such).

I am laying bare my privileges, so the extent of the ludicrous obstacles, challenges, and risks new-entry, particularly first-generation, farmers face can be gleaned. It is also to illustrate how new-entry farmers can be supported via common-sense policy such as parity. Relatedly, it is to share my personal journey to supplement the research, insights, and anecdotes eloquently provided by others with the perspective of a young, “first-generation” farmer.  In doing such, I acknowledge that there are additional privileges which go unstated or I am likely not cognisant of.

Foremost, I have gratitude for being nourished with an abundance of fresh, organic produce throughout my childhood, including from a CSA, that generated a deep love of healthy food that is surely a contributor to the decision to pursue farming. Next, rather than having to work while studying at college, I was able to spend time outside of class volunteering on an organic farm off campus (that I had a car to drive to) that evolved into an internship for academic credit. This credit allowed me to explore a new passion for organic, small-scale farming, as well as gain experience from two incredibly kind, supportive mentors who were generous with their knowledge. In part, it also enabled me to graduate a semester early (alongside conducting a Directed Study on the structural violence of the US im/migrant farm labor system). In effect, I was able to secure an apprenticeship on a commercial, permaculture farm in North Carolina. Having no student debt and further financial support from my parents, as well as health insurance under my father’s plan, I was allowed to undergo the rigorous, formative agricultural training in exchange for a minuscule “living” stipend from early spring to late fall that, even for me, made car insurance and cell phone payments nearly bank-breaking. While the apprenticeship was characterized by intense physical and intellectual exertion, had it not been for my privilege, this vital, hands-on learning and workforce development experience would have been impossible.

Thereafter, the velocity and momentum of my privilege continued in stark contrast to the farm workers I had personally interacted with or read accounts of as part of the research for my Directed Study and community organizing efforts as co-founder of the Student Coalition for Migrant Workers. Quickly, I rose to a year-round managerial position on a farm that is part of a world-leading YMCA at Frost Valley by conducting a site analysis and drafting a plan to optimize and expand production that was approved by the CEO and Senior Team. As an employee of the non-profit, I had a salary (albeit modest), housing, paid time off, access to health insurance, retirement fund, and resources to further hone my skills.

Bari managing that farm at Frost Valley YMCA in Claryville, NY

Managing this farm also allowed me the time to build relationships in the community and plug into advocacy, policy, and grassroots organizing work that has bloomed into a deep passion. Unlike many commercial farmers, I had the time to occupy leadership positions within a few organizations, including National Young Farmers Coalition and Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, which have broadened and deepened my network, as well as provided me with well-rounded skills. In parallel, unlike many seasonally hired farmers, I was able to utilize the slower bits of the season to delve into self-education and work part-time in grantmaking, as a prep cook, and in catering while maintaining stable pay. Further, I was able to leverage my salaried position, “side hustle” savings, and inheritance from Grandma Lila in order to purchase 12 acres of farmland in December 2019. Due to my connections and experiences in grassroots organizing and advocacy, including serving on Congressman Antonio Delgado’s Agricultural Advisory Committee and organizing a policy discussion centering racial equity in farm and food systems with numerous NY senators and assembly members, I was able to move near the farm by gaining employment on a 2020 US congressional campaign in NY-27, the district my farm is situated in. Just two weeks after the election, I joined the team at Providence Farm Collective (PFC), a non-profit dedicated to uplifting immigrant, refugee and BIPOC farmers residing in the City of Buffalo with access to rural farmland, agricultural education and technical assistance, and markets to generate sales. As the full-time, year-round Director of Development, I support PFC farmers by securing funds and building social capital needed for the farmers to take up leadership in the organization in the coming years while my farm is developed. With this position comes health insurance, salary and paid time off.

Still, with all this incredible privilege of whiteness, inheritance, education, and health care, starting an agricultural small business is immensely difficult to an irrational, frustrating extent. To be clear, the challenge is not with regard to the physical labor in varying weather conditions; I cherish this aspect of farming. Instead, it lies in the illogical and unethical structural barriers sewn into the fabric of the American agricultural paradigm. These conditions systemically reward a form of agriculture that devalues and diminishes Mother Earth, farmers, farm workers, and consumers while pitting each against each other for the supposed benefit of a few in the supply chain. These corporate benefactors perpetuate a perniciously myopic, counter-intuitive, self-defeating model of agriculture which condemns us to a disastrous fate of pernicious ecological and human illness as environmental externalities degrade farmland, threaten future food sovereignty, and impose disproportionate harm associated with climate change, pollution, dehumanization of farmworkers, and food apartheid imposed on BIPOC folks. 

My peers, the new-entry farmers and I, who are toiling to cultivate a model of agriculture and contribute to a food system of reciprocity and collaboration that is ecologically regenerative, economically viable, and socially just, consistently cite access to secure land tenure, capital, health care, infrastructure, markets, technical training, business/financial management education, climate change, and affordable housing, as well as the burden of student loan debt, as primary obstacles to farming. Furthermore, there is plentiful empirical data and anecdotal evidence proving that the barriers and obstacles faced by farmers of color are even steeper despite their endless, brilliant contributions to agriculture. 

Starting a commercial farm is acutely capital intensive, especially as farmland becomes degraded, fragmented or developed for residential or commercial use, and, inevitably, more expensive. With increasing seriousness over time as I accrued savings, I browsed online for land most evenings before bed. After befriending many peer farmers in the remote, small towns of the Catskills, I came to know the importance of farming near a developed market. I similarly discovered that it is highly incompatible with my disposition to drive down to NYC every week to conduct sales. Plus, I could simply not afford land in the region. Having grown fond of Western NY from my time spent there learning and farming, in addition to my romantic partner having grown up and currently living in the Buffalo region, I narrowed my search to this area where farmland was more affordable and more robust markets were proximal. After walking the properties I could afford, the outlook felt grim. One was pictured as slightly shruby, able to be tamed by a pass of a weedeater; however, on arrival, I was overtaken by an overgrowth of maturing trees as my feet sunk into waterlogged soil. Another was flat and clear with decent soils, although in a corn monoculture, but shrouded in a canopy of domineering, industrial electric utility lines. Plus, it turned out, the sellers were not actually prepared or motivated to sell. There were only so many properties I could examine directly in Western NY while managing the growing season a five hour drive away. 

About a week after returning disappointed, I came across the property that is now the home of my farm. It was fragmented into two discrete parcels after being previously divided from a larger parcel with a house and pond that had been sold months beforehand. I surmise this was done, despite its agricultural zoning, to create two more highly priced plots for building future residences. By completing paperwork with the town, I was later able to reunite the two parcels. My partner and his family offered to walk the land, take pictures, and collect soil samples for me. It checked off the important boxes: road access, developed market proximity, gentle topography, sun exposure, good parent soil physics and low taxes. Yet, the affordability came with compromises: no water for irrigation or washing, no infrastructure, no deer fence, no electric utilities hooked up, no on-farm road. Still, it felt right in my mind and soul. Without having experienced the land in person, I made an offer. Essentially, the farm is a 12-acre “vacant” hayfield (a tabula rasa with incredible potential) for which I paid $55,000 in cash. Through a $1,500 Putting Down Roots grant supplied by American Farmland Trust, I was able to cover most of the legal fees of the real estate attorney.

A blank slate- the future market garden site of Healing Poem Farm in summer of 2020

As a young farmer and with the high cost of farmland, I had to make a compromise to secure a land base to get the farm started by investing in relatively less expensive land upfront and having to make major capital investments for infrastructure down the line. Still, my savings and inheritance allowed me to make the purchase without initiating a debt sheet. My mind is driven by a thirst for painstaking rationality, and I was raised in a household driven by financial prudence. As such, the holistic plan for the farm was founded on the continual honing of knowledge and skills, as well as gaining of social and financial capital. By managing the farm in the Catskills where I had a stable salary, I rationalized that I would be able to invest incrementally in the farm to get it production-ready in the most respectful, healing way in relation to the soil that I am aware of. For example, rather than moldboard plowing and greatly disturbing the soil to establish the beds, silage tarps and compost were used to smother the sod and perennial weeds in a way that simultaneously augments soil health without tillage.

Farm road gets installed in October of 2020

Future costs include perennials I intend to plant in shelterbelts between the bed blocks, which can cost up to $25.00/plant. Among numerous other ecological benefits, having flowering hedgerows with native, perennial nitrogen fixing shrubs and mineral-mining ground covers will support soil life by sheltering soil from erosive winds, creating microclimates that will stabilize soil temperatures, and send dense roots into the depths of the soil to increase the abundance of soil organism habitat and food that will, in turn, increase the bioavailability of nutrients for crops.

Overall, this incremental, iterative approach means that I will not be able to generate cash flow or return on investment from the farm for a few years. I am employing these practices out of intrinsic regard for Mother Earth and soil, as well as calculating that this investment will show a marked economic return by reducing weed, pest and disease pressure while increasing long-term crop vigor, resilience, and yields, thus significantly contributing to the eventual profitability of the farm business. This slow approach also allows time for thorough observation so that I can situate elements of the farm efficiently and advantageously. Had I been reliant upon a loan to purchase the land, I would be in the position of many fellow farmers of sub-optimally rushing to get the farm started to generate revenue with attendant costly future regrets.

In addition to these investments are the more unpredictable or even larger costs associated installing deer fencing (approx. $25,000), building season extension infrastructure (approx. $40,000), and creating a space for washing, packing, and cold storage (approx. $55,000). Due to the cost of this vital infrastructure, it will be several years before I can begin full-time commercial production, and I will likely have to take on debt.