We’re excited to share a guest post today, written by one of our farmers! Mika joined our crew last season, and we are honored to have her coming back in 2020, hooray!! In addition to her eight years of farming experience, Mika brings so much insight and compassion to our team. We are grateful to share her voice here. Thank you, Mika!

Farmer Spotlight: MIKA SHIBUYA

When I tell people I what I do, they share stories about their childhood garden or grandparents’ farm. They express envy. They tell me how grounding it must be to work with the earth and live at a slower pace.

In my experience, though, farming has been more about grueling overwork, a constant sense of crisis, and eventual burnout. Talking about farming to friends who don’t farm feels like trying to bridge a culture gap.

Many small farms reproduce the harms of industrial agriculture. I think a lot about the economic pressure on the small farm, and its impact on farmer health, farm worker rights, and social and power dynamics within small farms. I left my previous job because of a deeply unhealthy workplace culture, including toxic gender and race dynamics. I stopped trusting white men in leadership to farm in a way that addresses both the social and ecological ills of our food system. I continue to farm at Rock Steady, because I believe if we are to radically change the food system, that change has to be led by people of color, women, femme, queer, and gender-nonconforming folks.

I know that the food system needs to be changed. I was talking to a friend earlier this week about the challenges of surviving as a small farm. I spoke of the impact that financial pressure has had on the mental health of people I have worked with and for - farm owners and farm workers alike. The farm I used to work for has gone out of business and is now bankrupt. For many, farm debt is crippling. Farmers have one the highest rates of suicide among all professions.

My friend lamented that we don’t value - and pay - our farmers and our teachers enough. We don’t take care of the people that take care of us.

This is an access issue - if farming provides such little security, who can afford to take that financial risk? Who has the resources to start a farm? Or, alternatively, for those of us who work on other people’s farms by choice and not necessity, the flexibility to choose a low-paying job.

We need to grow within the capacity of the land, but also within the human capacity of the farmers who care for that land.

You ask me why I farm, and I talk about what hurts. I talk about what needs healing. I farm because I see farming as reparative work.

That work is ecological - we need regenerative farming practices that build soil and that keep local ecosystems intact. Those ecosystems support insects and animals that keep our pest populations under control and pollinate our food.

But that work is also social and relational. Farmers and farm workers are part of the farm ecosystem, and if we aren’t healthy, that system isn’t healthy. We need to grow within the capacity of the land, but also within the human capacity of the farmers who care for that land. If the vegetables are happy and pest-free but the farmers are sad, anxious, and overworked - that is an unhealthy system. It needs repair.

A seed is an investment in a future in which we imagine surviving - and maybe even thriving.

I farm because farming has shaped my values, and has become the only way I know of living close to my values.

Close to the earth and the human labor, human bodies, human hearts and human relationships where so much of the hurt is - but also the only place where we can find healing.

I farm alongside women and queers to undo the harm of being told that we were never meant to survive - because we were never meant to exist in the first place. I know our true wealth is in the land and in each other. Queer people have survived by finding each other and investing in each other and fighting for each other.

The future of small farms is precarious, but there isn’t anything more radical than planting a seed. A seed is an investment in a future in which we imagine surviving - and maybe even thriving.

Help us create a new paradigm in the food system.

If you enjoyed Mika’s post, consider forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on your social channels.

Also, registration is open for 2020 CSA and we are working towards ambitious fundraising goals. Click through to learn more, and send us a note with any feedback or questions!

Thank you for being here.

- Maggie, D., Mika & the whole Rock Steady team