Growing into a Farmer

LOUDmouth Magazine, Spring 2006

Andrea Godshalk

I never fancied myself a farmer. It never seemed like an option. We
live in a culture that hides rather than honors farmers. But when
I graduated from college last spring, I made space for the little
voice in my heart that was whispering things my brain couldn’t
comprehend. It was no longer acceptable to get a pretty cool nonprofit
job with good pay and benefits. I wanted to participate in the
transformation of the world, and there didn’t seem to be much time to
waste working on things that kind of change the world. So when I
didn’t get a job that my brain thought was sensible and my heart
thought was less than enough, I planted the rejection letter in the
bright night darkness of a full moon. I never anticipated I would grow
into a farmer, but it makes sense now — the way things usually do
when we look back on them.

When I first found myself in the soil of a student garden at
Colorado State University, I was there for my own healing. I was put
in charge of planting carrots. But even while planting those tiny seeds,
I doubted they would do anything. When those seeds turned into
beautiful carrots, I was hooked.

The next summer I was offered the opportunity to help start a
community-supported agriculture (CSA) project on campus. Here’s how
CSAs work: At the beginning of the season, people buy a share of the
season’s harvest, which entitles them to a portion of the crop each
week. Because people have investments in the crop the farmers don’t
lose everything if there is crop failure. This is an important protection
in the quickly conglomerating world of big-business farms. CSAs are
also good for the shareholders because they allow a closer connection
to the land and the pleasure of knowing who is growing their fairly
priced, local and often organic produce.

Guided by my changing relationship to food, I took the
opportunity to help create a CSA. As with most things we experience,
we are not the only ones experiencing them. The shareholders were
discovering food in new ways as well. So while babies were born, and
kids learned to walk, while the days stretched to their peak and then
relaxed again, we rediscovered food together. We shared recipes and
cooking tips, saw each other through food pick-ups and potlucks and
found community.

It has become very clear to me that we will change the world
only through our relationships with one another. I cannot directly
affect the corporate takeover of media, government and food, but I can
teach people about what I know about these things. I can make sure
that the people around me know what is happening in the world and
how it affects them and their family and the food they feed their
family.

Farming is long hours of hard work. And until last summer,
someone else had been doing that work to keep me alive. This is one
reason why there is misery in the world: Some people are doing the
work of keeping other people alive. Farming is the first job I’ve had
that I feel isn’t contradictory, somehow, to the creation of the world
that I want to live in. I feel blessed to know the taste of this.

Andrea is a scarf-wearing nomad of the falling
empire. She believes that urban gardens are a good start and that urban
gardens with murals and mosaics might actually save us.