I started this project hoping I would be able to uncover an epistemic (knowledge) culture amongst farmers oriented towards the environment. I find that I am getting more caught up in the framework, which is valuable in itself.
Here is the main framework: 1) expensive land, humble business 2) demographics 3) resistance and communal organization to combat high land prices, amongst other things 4) why do people do this?
1)
Farming in the Hamptons is an ironic task. A subject of mine, whose family has been farming here for many generations, recalled a comic hanging up on his grandmother’s fridge. A man calls out to a farmer harvesting: “You realize your farming 200$ worth of carrots of 2 million dollars worth of land, right?”. Right, except inflate those numbers x30. The numbers don’t really match up, as you can imagine. Cost of living and production are incredibly high, leading to high cost of food.
2)
Then, you might split up the farming community in two-old blood and new blood. The conservative and liberal lines fall where might be expected. I am afraid that I am getting too much data from the new-blood, and too little from the old-blood. This is partly because I have contacts with new generation farmers, and partly because old generation farmers tend to be more secluded. New or old, most are white.
(“All I see is what could be productive land” says a young, first generation farmer who is now experimenting with permaculture.)
3)
What does this resistance look like? Some look to tax cuts, others to communal farms. There are many mechanisms in place to try and protect land from being developed. There is government support, and NGO’s who work very hard to make land available to farmers, create support systems, and prevent development.
Distribution of wealth is active and complicated.
(Farmers observe and ask questions about this vertical farming experiment. This farm is non-for profit, and donates produce to eleven different local food pantries, a senior care center, and a domestic abuse center.)
4)
I don’t have the space to cover the motivations of these farmers, it has something to do with freedom, love, and being stubborn.
Method and thoughts on further development:
I have been conducting interviews but also drawing on my past experience farming. I have mixed feeling about the process. The fact that I am doing this project over the summer is both a boon and a bane—the pressures of the season are highlighted, but people are more unavailable as a result.
I recently read Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Her work, as well as the overwhelming presence of land tension, local economies, and the uber rich tourist season, is making me eager to try to concentrate on theories of economy.
I am thinking of expanding my project, so I can include hydroponic projects in the city. I am interested to see how urbanity and controlled agriculture contrast against my current project. I’m hesitant to go in this direction, partially because I am not sure I want to go through the IRB adjustments, but also because I don’t know how available those hydroponic systems will be.
(A bouquet I made last year for a farmer’s market.)