Queer Farmer Film Project

Article on Grist.org

2011-10-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hi Dear Followers,

Check out this article on queer farmers and the queer farmer film project on Grist.org! Queer as Farm Folk, by Vanessa Barrington.

Also, we are still editing! It is a time taking process- expect something from us in 2012! Stay tuned!

Updates and Finding the Eco-Queer Movement

2010-12-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

We haven't forgotten you dear followers, we are just busy editing editing editing away!

In the meantime, some recent mention of the QFFP:

-an article called "Finding the Eco-Queer Movement," by Joshua Sbicca on Oakland's own Planting Justic e website.

-oh, and did we say that we were mentioned in Curve Magazine ("the nation's leading lesbian magazine") back in July/August? you can read the article "Lesbian Localvores" here.

Stay tuned, we love you.

Fruit Loop Acres

2010-08-15T08:55:00.001-07:00

Meet Kay Grimm and Sue Spicer of Fruit Loop Acres in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Fruit Loop Acres is a 3/4 acre permaculture fruit farm in the heart of the city. Like many post-industrial midwestern cities, much of this urban center is fledgling, depressed, boarded up and faced with significant challenges to accessing good fresh food.

Amidst blocks of abandoned lots and boarded up homes, we were so lucky to visit with this truly queer farm which was a shining green beacon of hope and good food and an example of something really different and beautiful in an unlikely location.

The amazing fruits and nuts (which include many Indiana natives) grown at Fruit Loop Acres is available to people in several ways- they have a u-pick by appointment service, they sell produce to local restaurants, and they also have a delivery service called Basic Roots Community Foods which has been around for 5 years and in collaboration with other sustainable farms delivers fresh produce to customers in Indianapolis.

Kay and Sue told us that the name for Fruit Loop Acres comes from several double entendres- fruit because they are a fruit farm growing many delicious heirloom varieties of cane fruit and stone fruit, the word fruit as synonym for queer, loop because the farm is located near the loop of interstate highways running through the city and because in line with permaculture principles and practice the farm is a closed loop system always recycling and reusing what they have on hand rather than brining in outside inputs.

compost

The gayest looking bee hive I've ever seen!

In addition to tending a permaculture food forest in her backyard, Kay (also proudly known as Krazy Kay, which she told us is a name people have given her and she is OK with being called as long as the "krazy" is with a K...) is an installation artist of sorts. Using recycled and scavenged materials Kay uses her farm as a space for her installations, here are some photos from around the farm:

Fruit Loop Acres' beautiful back fence made from recycled doors. Check out the babe in the window...

look closely...

When we asked Kay and Sue what their definition of a farmer was, they gave one of the best answers we have heard so far, "Someone who grows something bigger than themself." What a perfect way to sum it up.

Our southern and midwest trip has come to a close. Thanks for following our tour. We are almost done with production and have just a few California interviews to do this Fall. We are going to start editing soon and are applying for Frameline's completion fund. Stay tuned...

Homestead Ranch

2010-08-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

Meet the Skeebas- Marek, Courtney, and Denise- the farmers of Homestead Ranch in Lecompton, Kansas.

Homestead Ranch is a small 3 acre family farm that raises La Mancha and Boer goats. Since Kansas' raw milk laws are strict and allow the sale of unpasturized dairy products only from the site where they are produced and the farm is in a rural area making travel to the farm by customers an unreliable business model- the Skeebas transform their goat milk into soaps and lotions which they sell online and at the Lawrence farmers market.

We met up with Courtney, Denise and Marek for their morning milking. After visiting Alabama and Arkansas, we were of course interested in their experience as queer people living rurally. When we asked them do describe how they identified, the most important way they said was, "...as a family..." This just about melted our hearts. Courtney and Denise said they have felt extremely supported and respected by their neighbors both for being farmers and for being a queer family.

Check out that soap, so beautiful. Courtney and Denise are both self taught caretakers of goats and soap makers. We talked in depth about the long and hard trial period it took for them to get their soap recipes perfected.

Here are some of the kids born this year.

Arkansas: A Safe Space for Unicorns

2010-08-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

As we pulled into Arkansas we were excited to continue our journey in the rural south. We were headed for the Natural State's town of Proctor to meet with Brandon Pugh of Delta Sol Farm.

After exiting the interstate the winding country road we followed to Proctor was completely surrounded on all sides by 1,000s of acres as far as the eye could see of fields of rice, cotton, and soybeans. We saw cropdusters flying low and dropping dust clouds onto seemingly endless fields of moncultured food.

Meet Brandon Pugh and his dog goose. Brandon is a gay farmer growing organic flowers and veggies for market and CSA on 3 acres of his family's land. He grew up in Proctor and comes from a family of conventional farmers. His brother and father farm in the area conventionally, and despite the prevalence of mainstream agriculture there Brandon has resisted using chemicals in his fields, even though he has wanted to- as he told us the Arkansas heat makes the weeds grow incredibly fast.

Delta Sol Farm lies amongst fields of soybeans which you can see beginning in the distance. Brandon told us a story about hand weeding carrots in end of his field which borders with a neighboring soybean farmer and having the cropduster drop fungicide on him.

Much of Proctor looks like this.

Brandon's fridge looks like this. Note the amazing tribute to Cher and Madonna. Brandon was our gracious host for our evening in Proctor and we got to chat about his deep love for Madonna and dancing to her songs in the field. While Brandon did grow up in Proctor, he found his organic farming roots in California- he is a graduate of the well respected Farm and Garden program at the University of Santa Cruz and ran Sol Food farm in Sonoma County before deciding to move back to Arkansas to start Delta Sol. Brandon said that he is out to his family and greater community and has experienced very little discrimination based on being gay. A greater struggle for him seemed to be meeting other like minded gay men in his area.

Brandon sells veggies and flowers at 2 markets in nearby Memphis, Tennessee. Brandon told us about his idea for making t-shirts for Delta Sol farm that instead of the John Deer deer, have a unicorn instead and said that his farm is for sure a "safe space for unicorns..."

His beautiful stand full of produce that is...

c e r t i f i e d f a b u l o u s ! ! !

The Saturday market where Brandon sells is in the parking lot of the First Congregational Church. Check out their flag- bike repair!

Thank you Brandon for giving us a great reason to visit Arkansas.

Sweet Homo Alabama

2010-08-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

Our tour unexpectedly took us to visit with 3 queer farmers managing a certified organic CSA and market farm in Northern Alabama. As we drove into the tiny town of Falkville we were bombarded by religious evangelical messaging signs with firey flamey backgrounds reading, “You think its hot here?” Though it has been over 100 degrees and miserably humid everyday, we wondered if Alabama was a safe space for queers. Spending less than 24 hours listening to the stories of the 3 queer farmers we met with we discovered just how welcoming and safe this part of the rural South can be.

Welcome to Falkville, Alabama. Population: 1, 219.

Meet Oliver Flowers- farm manager. A queer and trans tomatopicker extraordinare with amazing farm fashion! Can you say boots and short shorts?

This is Suze Bono, also farm manager. A Pennsylvania native- traveller, farmer, and food processing genius. She's harvesting herbs and beautiful Zinnias. And she can bake delicious bread.

This is Elijah Mountain, chosen brother of Oliver and queer farm volunteer. Raised in Baltimore and once a student of computer science, Eli is getting his hands dirty on a farm for his first time this year. He is a practicing Christian and attends a local church and he thinks garlic is really gay. I bet you will see him talking in the movie about all of that.

The Northern Alabama farm we visited (which will remain nameless for now) spans over 200 acres and farmers Suze, Oliver and Eli with a rotating crew of WWOOF volunteers grow flowers, herbs, veggies and fruit on 3 acres. Suze and Oliver are partners and found the farm by chance while looking for winter farm work last year. They love it so much they plan to stay on for at least another season.

We joined them for their early morning CSA harvest and had the chance to talk with them about their experiences living and farming as queer people in the buckle of the bible belt. We wanted to know if they were out- they said they weren’t necessarily hiding it but weren’t broadcasting their queerness either. Suze talked to us about how people show they are heterosexual through their behavior, the same way some people show queerness through behavior. All 3 farmers we talked to said that they have been welcomed into Falkville with open arms(they are all not from Alabama), despite being viewed as a little wierd. People tend to see their farm as different than others in the area mainly because of their small scale, because they are farming organically and will spend hours going row by row to look for pests and kill them by hand instead of simply spraying chemicals, and because none of them are from the area.

Queerness seemed to be largely irrelevant to the farms relationship to the larger community- as Suze told us it would be inappropriate to talk about it with a farmer friend who comes over to help about sexual preference and identity. Its just not something that comes up in conversation, rather, they connect deeply with farmers and neighbors over farming techniques and advice. Though their farm is viewed as different, and they are certainly viewed as different both because they are outsiders and due to how they present (Suze mentioned she is often read as male and Oliver talked with us about being an effeminate transgender man- AND they are partners often read as a straight couple or as a gay man and dyke in a relationship...) the bottom line seemed to be that people in the community who have gotten to know them respect them because they are hard workers and good farmers and haven't seemed to care about them being queer or not.

The crew checks in...

Peacock!

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

figs from...

this huge 17 year old fig tree!

there were also pecans!

We loved visiting this farm. If you are ever in Alabama, there are a few sweet homos waiting for you there...

Department of Fagriculture?

2010-08-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet in Washington DC with Perry Stevens, the LGBT Special Emphasis Program Manager for the USDA's Natural Conservation Resource Service. After hearing about my project, he got in touch and wanted to pick my brain about my the movie and LGBT farmers. His current work is to make the internal USDA a safe place for LGBT employees through awareness trainings around queer issues. Though it was exciting to meet with him and hear about the work he is doing at the USDA, my main interest in meeting with him was to have a greater understanding of the USDA's relationship and stance on queer farmers. Should we be viewed as a minority population and be eligible for special grants and loans? Is this something queer farmers would even want- government help and recognition? How do USDA employees interact with queer farmers? Have there ever been complaints filed to the USDA from either employees or from farmers on the basis of gender or sexual identity?

The USDA has historically not been a friend to minority farmers, especially farmers of color. For example, see the Pigford Case- a class action suit filed by black farmers that was settled earlier this year for $1.25 billion dollars after black farmers had complained for many years that they were subject to unfair treatment while applying to local county committees for farm loans and assistance. Black farmers were consistently denied USDA farm loans or forced to wait longer periods of time for approval than non-minority farmers often causing farms to shutdown because of foreclosure or financial disaster.

Considering this horrific historical relationship to minority farmers, I wanted to know what the USDA was going to do to be an ally for queer farmers. Mr. Stevens didn't seem to have too many immediate answers, as his focus is currently on increasing awareness and leading the USDA's employees to create queer friendly workplaces. He mentioned that it would most likely be around 5 years until real the work of outreach and focus on queer friendly customer (farmer) service from the USDA side would happen. In good news, he did mention that to his knowledge, no discrimination cases have ever been filed with the USDA based on issues related to gender identity or sexual orientation.

St. Louis Screening and Q+A

2010-08-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Please join us this Sunday, August 8th for a screening of the Queer Farmer Film Project short

7:30pm drinks and snacks

8:30pm outdoor screening of the short followed by a Q+A and Agnes Varda's film The Gleaners and I

Slow Rocket Urban Farm

1938 Cherokee Street

St. Louis, Missouri

Hope to see you there!

Common Ground

2010-08-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

Meet Julie Puhich and Nancy Laich, 2 of the farmers at Common Ground Farm in Olympia, Washington. Both Julie and Nancy are long time farmers in the Olympia area and collectively run the farm with Julie managing the field veggies and Nancy overseeing the goats and orchards. Common Ground was one of the most magical, welcoming, and aesthetically beautiful farms we have visited yet.

Common Ground grows diverse veggies and fruits for their 40ish CSA boxes. Members pick up directly at the farm or are delivered to in Seattle. They are growing some serious food here!

Here are some of their baby goats and milking goats. Julie described the goats as the "heart of the farm, " not only because they are physically located in the farm's center but because they are used in conjunction with so many important aspects of their farm- eating extra veggies, providing fertility for the farm, offering milk and grazing the land on rotation.

The babies were so happy to see us!

Through this project I have discovered that there are quite a few queer goat farmers out there. I don't think it is coincidental that queers are drawn to goats- they are very queer themselves. Strong personalities, individualistic and creative, polyamorous, feminist and lesbionic-

all qualities found in these amazing creatures. For a deeper understanding, I suggest reading the chapter in Brad Kessler's book Goat Song that talks about goat reproduction- I think you'll find the detailed descriptions of males in rut proof enough.

Meet Lucy, Common Ground's resident queer goose. Nancy told the magical story of Lucy who lives among the milking goats and has had many doe partners in her life. She usually chooses one doe, mounts her, and continues to cuddle up.

Some beautiful shots from around the farm...

poppies fading, asparagus background, bees on lavender...
oats and wheat

pallet fence held together with bailing twine, do-it-yourself recycled material style

Thank you to Leu for taking these beautiful photographs and for help in the field and to everyone that hosted in the Pacific Northwest.

Next up: meeting with Perry Stevens in Wasington DC-the USDA's National Conservation Resource Service's GLBT Special Emphasis Manager.

2 Brown Chicks

2010-07-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

Meet Joanne Alcantara(left) and bOo Torres (right), the heart and soul of Seattle, Washington's 2 Brown Chicks Family Farm. Recently married and about to relocate their family farm to Juneau, Alaska 2 Brown Chicks have been a small-scale, community oriented urban agriculture project that has inspired people across Seattle to grow, raise, and catch their own vegetables, chickens, and water.

Torres and Alcantara, both queer women of color are not just farmers, but dedicated organizers and educators in their community. They sell fresh eggs and also raise free range and no hormone chickens that they sell and use as an educational tool to encourage people to learn to raise their own food. They sell laying hens, chicks, and also chick starter kits which include everything you need to raise baby chickens with the option to sell back the equipment to the farm when the chickens are grown. Genius! Through their build-a-chicken coop workshop days, people are invited to their farm to learn what it takes to raise chickens and to construct their own chicken coops from recycled materials to take home to house their birds. Including garden fresh lunch, the entire day is available to folks for an affordable $40.

Here is an example of one of the coops at 2 Brown Chicks Family Farm made from recycled material including dresser drawers for nesting boxes.

2 Brown Chicks encourages people to grow their own food whenever possible, and also to save the water necessary to do so through simple rainwater catchment technology. They purchase recycled 55-gallon food grade barrels and re-sell them. Their farm is a living example of how easy it can be to save water- here are photos of some of their rainwater catchment barrels:

Visiting with 2 Brown Chicks in Seattle was a great reminder that growing food and raising animals sustainably is deeply connected to cultivating sustainable communities. At least 50% of the profits from the farm go back directly into the community, mainly through their Community Activist Fund which funnels farm profits to local activist organizations that are specifically working for justice on issues that affect women of color, queer and youth-led organizations working toward sustainable communities, immigrant rights, universal healthcare, and the end of U.S. dominance in the world.

Thank you 2 Brown Chicks for your queer community oriented politicized sustainable farm dreams! Best of luck in Alaska...

Gay Farm Tour 2010 in the works!

2010-07-05T21:08:00.001-07:00

We will be wrapping up filming this Summer with a final tour of the Pacific Northwest and a return to the South. Our intended dates are:

July 21-23 Seattle area

July 23-28 Olympia, Washington and rural Washington

July 28-August 1 Portland, Oregon and rural Oregon

August 2-15 Southern Loop!

North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana

If you are in these areas and we haven't heard from you, get in touch soon!

Queer Farmer Field Day

2010-06-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

If you are in California, check out this event coming up! The Queer Farmer Film Project short will be shown, along with several other films.

The Rainbow Chard Alliance, Apprenticeship Program at the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), and the UCSC Lionel Cantú LGBTI Resource Center are hosting our second annual

Queer Farmer Field Day

Saturday, June 19th

At the UC Santa Cruz Farm

You are invited to come celebrate the summer with other

LGBTQ and supportive gardeners, farmers, and food lovers.

All sexual/gender identities welcome

Festivities from 2 to 9 pm.

Farm Tours @ 2 & 5 PM

Workshops (Beekeeping, Fermenting, Pickling, & more!)

Work Party

Potluck Dinner @ 6 PM

Live Music and Films

All participants will be encouraged to bring their own gloves and garden tools, plate for dinner, and food to share. The CASFS apprentices will provide one large dish to serve to the group at dinner. Families and youth welcome. Unfortunately, no pets will be allowed on the farm during this event.

More about our sponsoring organizations:

Rainbow Chard Alliance is an autonomous group of Queer Farmers' working to redefine the family farm, fight for issues around both social justice and food justice, and promote local, sustainable, organic food consumption in our communities! To join our listerve email rainbow-chard-alliance @googlegroups.com

The Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems is a research, education, and public service program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system. To find more information about CASFS, visit our website at www.casfs.ucsc.edu and our blog at casfs.blogspot.com

The Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture provides training in the concepts and practices of organic gardening and small-scale farming alongside issues of Social Justice within our food system. This full-time program is held at the Center's 25-acre Farm and 3-acre Alan Chadwick Garden on the UCSC campus.

UCSC's Cantu Queer Center provides a comprehensive range of educational, informational, and advocacy services and works to create and maintain a safe, inclusive multicultural environment for UCSC's GLBTI students, staff, faculty, and alumni. For more information go to www.queer.ucsc.edu.

Directions to the Farm

To reach the UCSC campus -

Via Highway 17 south from San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area -

* Cross the mountains on Highway 17 and proceed to Santa Cruz.
* Take the "Highway 1 North, Half Moon Bay" exit off of Highway 17.
* Follow the signs for Highway 1/Half Moon Bay onto Mission St. (Highway 1 North).
* Turn right on Bay Street and follow it onto the UC Santa Cruz campus, where it becomes Coolidge Drive.
* (Note to reach Highway 17 from 101, take 101 south to Route 85 south to Highway 17 south.)

Via Highway 1 from the south -

* Follow the signs to Highway 1 North/Half Moon Bay. This will put you on Mission St. (Highway 1 North).
* Turn right on Bay Street and follow it onto the UC Santa Cruz campus, where it becomes Coolidge Drive.

Via Highway 1 from the north:

* Highway 1 becomes Mission St. as you enter Santa Cruz.
* Turn left on Bay Street and follow it onto the UC Santa Cruz campus, where it becomes Coolidge Drive.

Via the Santa Cruz Metro Service:

* Bus lines coming into Santa Cruz will deposit you at the Greyhound station. Walk next door to the Santa Cruz Metro Station and look for the University 1 bus.
* Once on campus, get off at the Campus Facilities stop and follow the directions below.

Once you are on the UC Santa Cruz campus -

To reach the Center's Farm facility — LOOK FOR SIGNS

* Just past the campus's main entrance you'll see a pullout at an information kiosk where you can purchase a temporary guest parking permit (no permit needed after 5 pm or on weekends).
* After purchasing your permit, continue up the hill and turn right at the Carriage House/Campus Facilities parking lot (the first right you can make past the kiosk). The Farm is a 5-minute walk across the street from the parking lot.
* Walk across Coolidge and follow the signs that say Center for Agroecology/Farm Pedestrians.
* Walk 1/4 mile up the gravel road that parallels the paved bike path to a short set of stairs and a wooden entrance gate. PLEASE BE CAREFUL NOT TO WALK ON THE PAVED BIKE PATH! BIKES COME DOWN THE HILL RAPIDLY AND CAN INJURE YOU!

For directions, call 831.459-4140 (pre-recorded), 459-3240

Queer Farmer Short in City College of San Francisco LGBTQ Film Festival

2010-05-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference

2010-03-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

APRIL 10, 2010

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

388 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn Between Hoyt and Bond

BLACK FARMERS AND URBAN GARDENERS
COMMUNITY FORUM

Join the conversation and learn how you can take action around food, farming and policy in the black community!

What’s for Dinner?
Connecting the Dots Between Food Access, Policy and the History of Agriculture from the Black Perspective

PANEL DISCUSSION

Maya Wiley, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Social Inclusion

Kolu Zigbi, Program Officer for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Jennifer Steverson, Public Programs Curator at Weeksville Society Heritage Center

Space is limited to 150 guests. Stay tuned for registration information.

For general information, please email blackfarmersconf@gmail.com.

Queer Farmer Film Project on Queericulum Panel 3/13 in San Francisco

2010-03-07T16:49:00.001-08:00

If you are in the SF Bay Area and you want to get your faggotry on next weekend, please come check out Queericulum an event at Mama Calizo's Voice Factory, whose organizers are slating it as "The school of a gay man’s dreams: a day full of homo-focused work/playshops with an evening dinner theatre cabaret finishing with a nighttime dance party."

The Queer Farmer Film Project will be participating on a panel in a workshop called Fagriculture. Here is the write up for the workshop: Fagriculture will focus on how the Queer community is responding to the need for more farms, farmers, urban “fagriculture”, local and healthy food, and how we can play direct and indirect role in making that happen. We all eat and we are all concerned about the cost to our health and health of the planet to the effects of industrial farms and food. We are responding by reclaiming our role in growing more of our own food, preparing and sharing with with the community. The workshop will feature several panelists sharing their own stories of how they became food and farming activists. Panelists are rural farmers, city farmers, filmmakers, urban food advocates, gardeners, ecological designers.

Saturday, March 13th

Mama Calizo's Voice Factory
1519 Mission at 11th

Fagriculture panel 10:30AM-12

3 Upcoming Benefit Events: Portland and Seattle!

2010-02-04T21:07:00.000-08:00

1. Friday, February 12th

People's Co-op

3029 SE 21st Ave

Portland, OR

7:30 potluck and music

bring something to share

8:30 10-minute film short screening

followed by q&a with director Jonah Mossberg

2. Saturday, February 13th

In Other Words Bookstore

8 NE Killingsworth St.

Portland, OR

7-9PM

10-minute film screening

followed by q&a with a panel of Portland area queer farmers

Monday, February 15th

ENVY The Plant Store

1546 15th Ave

Seattle, WA

6-9 PM

Food and Drinks

Music by Neil Young's Necklace

7:30 10 Minute Film Screening

this event is in partnership with Out For Sustainability

and Alley Cat Acres

**P L U S**

AFTERPARTY

@RPlace

9-12

BYO ipod if you have one

for a DIY DJ frenzy

21+

NYC Benefit Events a Success!

2010-01-17T15:18:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to all who came out for the Queer Farmer Film Project benefit events in NYC. We packed the house at Bluestockings and threw a really great party in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. We raised a lot of money, thank you to all who donated and helped us move closer to our production goals! Here are some photos from the queer farmer panel/discussion at Bluestockings:

From left-right Karen Washington, Bilen Berhanu, Owen Taylor, Dana Gentile, Jonah Mossberg.
The discussion was a really interesting forum for talking about queerness and farming. Some of the questions I asked the panelists were, "What is the relationship between queerness and agriculture, if any?" "Is agriculture a safe place for queer folks? And if not, what needs to change?"

Slow Food did a blog post about the event, which you can read here: Farming?! That's So QUEER!

Out-FM, WBAI 99.5FM's queer radio show covered the panel and put together this piece about Karen Washington which you can find here: Black Queer Farmer Karen Washington. You can also listen to an interview I did with Out-FM here.

We estimate that about 200 people came to the party on January 9th. Here are some photos from the fun:

   Sikelianos and Sikelianos sing it.
   thank you Bell's Roar
   My Gay Banjo twing twanging

   everybody loves gay farmers

NYC BENEFIT EVENTS

2009-12-26T15:12:00.000-08:00

Please join us in NYC for our upcoming benefit events!

Queer Farmer Film Project screening and queer farmer panel/q&a/discussion

Wednesday, January 6th 7PM

Bluestockings Bookstore (for more info: http://bluestockings.com/)

172 Allen Street (between Stanton and Rivington)

Join director/producer Jonah Mossberg at Bluestockings Bookstore for a screening of a 10-minute short version of the film and post-discussion about it’s and subject matter (gender, sexuality, queerness and agriculture) with a panel of a few of New York City’s own queer farmers including Owen Taylor from Just Food, Bilen Berhanu of Greenthumb, and more.

NYC Benefit Party for the Queer Farmer Film Project

Saturday, January 9th 7PM

1399 Pacific Street, Brooklyn (Take the A, 3, or LIRR to Nostrand Ave)

T W O * F L O O R S

Food! Gay farmers! Cocktails! Gay Bands! Dancing!

T H E * L I N E U P
7pm
Cocktail and Hors D'oevres hour
Appetizers provide by local chef Ash Fulk of Top Chef

8pm
Movie showing:
Queer Farmer Film Project (10 minute teaser)

8:30pm
Queer bands:
My Gay Banjo
Sikelianos and Sikelianos
Bell's Roar

10pm
DJs and dancing until 2am

Band Websites:
My Gay Banjo
http://www.myspace.com/mygaybanjo
http://www.facebook.com/MyGayBanjo

dancealisadance (of Sikelianos and Sikelianos)
http://www.myspace.com/dancealisadance

Bell's Roar
http://www.myspace.com/bellsroar

A Brunch Benefit for the Queer Farmer Film Project!

2009-12-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

Save the date..
Sunday December 20th

Fancy House, Philadelphia, PA (e-mail queerfamerfilmproject@gmail.com for address)

2-6pm

Big gay acoustic lineup including:
Gender Mountain (Dave End's new drag cover band)
My Gay Banjo
dancealisadance
Fancy House queer farmer one-person band on harmonica/banjo

also likely to perform: Laura Rabbit and Bell's Roar

We will watch a 10 minute version of the film, including two Philadelphia queer farmers!

Food! Gay farmers! Friends! Gay Bands!

Brunch will be light and warm: soups and hot beverages!

Looking for benefit collaborators in NYC and Philly

2009-11-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Queer Farmer Film Project will be passing through the Northeast mid-December to early January and we are looking for folks who want to collaborate on benefit events in New York City and Philadelphia. We are hoping to hold screenings of "Out Here:A Queer Farmer Film Project," and have other queer filmmakers/artists/musicians show their work or play some music to raise some funds for the QFFP and ideally, a local organization or cause as well. We are open to the possibilities and are trying to nail down the dates soon, so if you have any suggestions or contacts in these areas, please get in touch.

Queer Farmer Film Project short in SF Trans Film Festival

2009-10-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the editing support of Zibby Jahns and MEV Luna, I recently completed a short film called, "Out Here: A Queer Farmer Film Project," which will make it's debut in Fresh Meat's San Francisco Transgender Film Festival on November 6th. This is very exciting news- if you are in the Bay Area, please come see it if you can. The film is a taste of what the larger project hopes to evoke; the relationships that queer people have to agriculture as told through their stories.

Here are the details:

Friday, November 6th

Mama Calizo's Voice Factory

1519 Mission Street at 11th

San Francisco

Tickets $12 at the door only

Updates on Tennessee and the future.

2009-08-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well folks, Gay Farm Tour Summer 2009 has come to an end. It closed with an amazing week in middle Tennessee where I visited several queer land projects and farms run by queer folks. About an hour east of Nashville, there is a collection of around 100 queer folks living rurally, most all of whom are involved in food growing of some sort. This community of queer folks is centered around two larger notable queer communities- one of which is called Ida and the other I am not legally allowed to reveal the name of. Ida, which was my most wonderful host for the week, is home to 8 queer folks and on a beautiful piece of land that has several houses and barns which people occupy. I spent time getting to know MaxZine the main gardener there and one of the oldest residents. Ida is host to the notorious Idapolooza queer music festival to which 100s of queers flock to every year. Its known for being a highly sex positive space and just a safe space for being queer. One of my favorite things about Ida is one of their composting toilets that looks like a striped palace, has a very long dramatic staircase leading up to its platform which is home to not just one, but two lovely places to shit so you and a friend can do your business and have a chat at the same time.

The other community I visited is home to author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, Sandor Katz. Sandy and another resident Spiky gave me a great tour of the gardens where they grow lots of food. This community is home to lots of folks and known as a sanctuary for faerie identified folks and gay men. I don't want to say too much about it, because its the kind of place where the beauty and uniqueness of it are beyond the capacity to be described and captured in words.

I also spent a day hanging out at Little Short Mountain Farm, a new farm in the area running a CSA for its first year. I spent time with the CSA manager, Jimmy Rose, who talked a lot about what it means to be a queer farmer in a rural area. My visit to Tennessee brought me to a greater understanding of the difference in experience between queer farmers in the city and those in the country. I know that in the future, I want to focus on interviewing those queers who are living rurally, I know they are out there and their voices and experiences are a much needed contrast to that of urban queer farmers.

Unfortunately, I was SO BUSY filming that I didn't have time to snap any photos in TN, so you'll just have to stay tuned to see these places and farmers. This tour has been amazing and rejuvenating, I met amazing farmers and saw unbelievably gorgeous land. It was such an honor to be taken into peoples lives for a day or two and to be able to ask folks any question and have them answer with such gusto and heart. So many thanks to all the farmers who participated and have interest in this project so far. Now that the tour is over, posting on this blog will subside for a while as I focus on making a trailer for the movie, applying for grants so that we can do more traveling and start on post-production, and having benefit events to raise some cash. I'll also be submitting a short film from footage shot this summer to the transgender film festival in San Francisco. Stay tuned...

Beltane Farm

2009-08-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

On this trip, I was lucky enough to be able to make a stop through my home state of Connecticut for a few days. Although once a highly agricultural state, Connecticut today isn't really well known for it's agricultural production, so I was really surprised and excited to be in touch with gay farmer Paul Trubey of Beltane Farm in Lebanon, Connecticut- just one town over from where I grew up.

Beltane Farm is a goat farm producing delicious artisanal goat cheeses like Chevre, French style ripened cheeses and Feta. They sell at farmer's markets all over the state, wholesale, and have cheese tastings every weekend at the farm.

Paul told me that the name Beltane Farm comes from the old Mayday celebrations of Northern Europe- cheese and other dairy products were central to these celebrations as a way to welcome a renewed milk supply and honor the successful kidding and lambing of the early spring. Coincidentally, Paul and his husband Mark purchased the 8-acre farm on May, 1- about 14 years ago.

This is Beltane farmer Paul, who I was able to spend the afternoon with. Here he is with 16-year old (thats really old for a goat!) goat Maddie. I loved the way that Paul related to the goats- he knew each individual goat and many of them responded to him by name, especially one baby goat named Milagro (or Miracle in English) that Paul had nursed back to health from an infection inside his house, literally propped up with pillows on the couch.

There is also an old house on the property, which Paul estimated had been around since 1840. When I asked about the history of the land, Paul told me that there was a pretty large population of Jewish folks who began settling in rural portions of the state, such as Lebanon. Paul said he had uncovered some old bottles with hebrew writing on them in his attic. This was a part of my home state's history that I never knew about. I did a bit of further investigation and found out that Jewish farming in Connecticut is actually a really important part of the state's agricultural history. Jews began fleeing crowded New York City to return to the land and began farming initially for subsistence, and later for profit as demand grew from growing urban cities like Hartford and Willimantic. Many Jews also used their farms as tourist destinations for fellow Jews to escape the extreme heat of New York in the summer time. Jews even started the first farmers' credit union in the United States in Fairfield, Connecticut. Who knew?

Here is the beautiful old barn at the farm where milking and cheese making happens.

This is where the milking magic happens goes down twice a day.

Paul cares for two kinds of goats La Mancha and Oberhasli. Here are some photos of the Betlane Farm goat superstars:

Oberhasli Boy goats.

The La Mancha's look like they don't have ears.

These kids melted my heart!

This goat was scratching her booty like this in the barn the entire time I was visiting.

Sweet beard.

And some shots from around the farm...

Overlooking one of the goat pens, a lovely place to relax.

Beltane Farm was a terrific example of successful small scale food production. The farmer was happy, the animals were happy, and the people who buy his products- many straight from the farm are happy too. It was really refreshing to meet a gay farmer in my old neck of the woods- and especially interesting to talk to someone living rurally. Compared to most queer city farmers, Paul's experience was dramatically more isolated and lacked a sense of greater queer community. The intricacies and distinctions in experience amongst queers in agriculture are surfacing with each farmer that I meet.

On to Tennesse!

Queer Farmer Film Project Promo Video

2009-08-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

Please check out this new promo video for the project made recently by my pal Sammy Lyon of Videos for Justice. Many thanks to Sammy for all your support and hard work shooting and editing this video.

For All Who Wish A Simple Burial

2009-08-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

A burial ground, what?

The Friends Southwestern Burial Ground is located in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania- just over the border from Philadelphia. It is a 16-acre burial ground, intended for laying Quakers to rest simply and naturally- with things like biodegradable coffins instead of concrete grave liners. While there are around 4,000 graves on the property- there are also beautiful trees and places to find moments of quiet in the midst of busy city life. The Friends Southwestern Burial Ground is open to the public, and from my visit I observed that it was as much a burial ground as a lovely green space. A dear Philadelphia friend of mine clued me into this place, and the queer folks who grow food there.

Hello Nancy (left) and Margo (right). Nancy had heard about the Friends Southwestern Burial Ground Garden years ago and jumped at the opportunity to grow food there. Now she trades taking care of the land and growing a beautiful garden for use of the space. Can anyone say sweet deal? I would call these folks subsistence farmers- they grow a lot of food that they eat, and give the rest away locally to places that will use it. This mini-farm was pumping out a lot of food.

Lettuce and onions being staked for seed saving.

Swank cabbage patch, me doing some shooting.

I spent some time talking to Nancy, one of the farmers who had been growing food for a long time, she had even run a small CSA operation off of this land a few years back.. When we first met, she told that she wasn't sure she qualified to be a part of the project as she has been living a heterosexual lifestyle with a husband and child for many years. However, after talking with her for a while it was clear that she did. She told me about some of her experiences being confused in public for a different gender because of her queerfabulous gender presentation and gave me a great run down of her very radical thoughts on gender.

It was a serious pleasure to interview Margo, a queer and mixed cultured identified farmer while they were doing some mulching. One of the things we talked about was WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) and what its like for queer people trying to navigate that particular program which connects willing volunteers to organic farm work around the world. If you are queer and you want to be in a safe place, its sometimes hard to gauge from the often vague descriptions of the farms what the environment will be like.

My brief visit to this place left me feeling as happy as Margo looks here, and was a nice metaphor for queers in agriculture- that there are unanticipated things in places you might not expect.

I also want to give a shout out to Chris, an amazing African-American gay farmer who I spent a long time interviewing in his West Philadelphia home while I was in town. I wasn't able to visit his site, a public high-school where he runs the garden and works with inner city youth, but look out for him soon on video!

Mill Creek Farm

2009-08-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

I spent the past weekend visiting with different farmers around Philadelphia. It was so amazing to learn about the rich history of community gardening in the city, and to see it in action first hand. It seemed like on every block at least one house if not more had a front lawn busting out with tomatoes, okra, and greens creating a luscious urban landscape.

My first stop was at Mill Creek Farm in the Mill Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia. The farm is located on a previously vacant lot that was once home to row houses that were built on top of an underground creek (hence the name, Mill Creek). Unfortunately, those homes collapsed over 30 years ago due to poor structure and wet conditions and the land sat vacant. The Philadelphia Water Department leased the land from the Redevelopment Authority for a storm water management project in 2003- the farms founders got wind of this and made a proposal to start growing food there. The 1/2 acre farm has been around for 4 years and is doing lots of truly amazing things in the neighborhood. The farm's mission is to "improve local access to nutritious foods and to promote sustainable resources by growing and distributing produce and by demonstrating ecological methods of living."

On the right is Johanna Rosen or Jo, one of the founders of Mill Creek Farm who I was so honored to interview for the project. I was able to spend some time with her out on the farm too- here she is with a farm volunteer giving some cabbages a much appreciated hand weed.

This is Jade, another Mill Creek farmer and founder who I wasn't able to interview on this trip, but who was fabulous nonetheless. Here they are scaring off white flies from the curly Kale with some neem oil. When sprayed all the white flies would furiously flee from the kale plants creating what Jade called the "dandruff effect."

One of my favorite things about Mill Creek farm was their tool shed/packing/washing station. Here it is from a distance.

This cob structure has solar panels which provide power to the farm when they need it, collects greywater, is decorated in a beautiful mosaic of recycled and found materials, has a living roof and a composting toilet!

A lovely place to poop.

Some contrasting signs explaining the benefit of the composting toilet hung on the wall behind it.

Some photos from the beautiful mosaic.

On the top of this structure it says, "This is a living roof, come look." I, of course had to look. Here is what I saw.

Sedums!

Sedums!
And more sedums! Sedums are succlent plants that don't need much water to live.

The living roof was really beautiful, I did some shooting from up there, and was able to snag some beautiful birds eye photos of the farm.

From the living roof, I also had a great view of the large community garden located right next to Mill Creek Farm. I was told that this community garden has been there for over 30 years and met some of the gardeners, one of whom was concentrating on growing medicinal herbs.

Mill Creek has a farm stand twice a week, holds community workshops of all kinds, trains youth to work on the farm (there was a queer youth intern who I interviewed!), and donates a lot of produce to local food banks. Mill Creek Farm is definitely a safe place for queer people- its run by queer folks, and Jo told me that often their volunteers are queer as well. Here are some photos from around the farm of their beautiful Saturday farm stand.

Wall of tomatoes!
Onions drying.
A beautiful hedgerow of fruit trees.

Jo and Jade told me that this banana tree behind their compost does something magical to speed up the decomposition process.
Okra, Jade told me is the farm's biggest seller by far. Here is a lovely okra flower.

Many thanks to everyone at Mill Creek Farm for showing me around and for all of the important and hard work you do!

And remember...

Ariel at the Farm School

2009-07-29T10:17:00.001-07:00

On Monday I made a trip up to the Farm School in Athol, Massachusetts- about an hour drive northeast of Northampton. The Farm School runs several different programs including a year long apprenticeship, a middle-school called Chicken Coop School, and a program where middle-schoolers can come and work on the farm for a few days.

This is Ariel, an out queer and trans farm apprentice at the Farm School. The apprenticeship, formerly known as the Practical Training Program at Maggie's Farm is a year long apprenticeship geared toward giving student farmers direct farming experience and practical skills that will empower and prepare them for establishing their own farming endeavors. Ariel is no stranger to the farming life- he grew up spending his summers working on a horse farm in rural Maryland. Here he is, picking beans.

The Farm School has 160 beautiful acres of diverse veggies, fruit, pasture, and forest. Here is some baby lettuce.

I filled my belly with these perfectly ripe raspberries.

Cows giving me the stare down.

I think this lone sheep was having an identity crisis.

Beautiful draft horses.

Apprentices get to grow the food that they eat in this garden, located right beside the farmhouse. As part of the program, apprentices are encouraged experiment and to take on independent study projects. Ariel is focusing on learning about and working on building accessible gardens and pick-your own sites. I thought this was seriously cool, and much needed. Keep up the good work Ariel! You can also follow his blog here.

And some shots from the road:

Farmland Forever!

Montview Neighborhood Farm

2009-07-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Montview Neighborhood Farm in Northampton, Massachusetts. This 3-acre hand cultivated organic farm is located on city conservation land which is about a 5 minute walk from downtown and is situated within city limits hilariously next to a flood dike. Northampton is notorious for being a friendly place for lesbians and queers of all kinds so it wasn't a huge surprise to find a farm run by queers here. The farm is run by Lisa, Molly, and Paige.

This is Paige, one of the farmers. She showed me around and gave an excellent scything demonstration.

This is Lisa D., another Montview farmer taking care of chickens.

The farm has been around for 4 years and produces a diverse array of veggies which they sell through their sliding scale CSA program. They have CSA pickups at their farm stand twice a week, as you can see here. This farm is an outstanding model of a truly local food system- most of their CSA members live in the surrounding neighborhood and literally walk to the farm to pick up their shares. I was at the farm stand interviewing Lisa, one of the farmers, and was delighted to see that as folks came by to get their veggies they had real conversations about the food and other things. It's clear that the Montview CSA members know their farmers. One of the members was using Montview produce for baby food and had used it as dog food in the past too!

Montview looking good.

Here is a shot of some of their perennial beds. While they focus on

growing vegetables and herbs for their CSA, they have a spectacular

array of perennials planted on their land. They use

permaculture, or the practice of designing agricultural systems to

mimic relationships found in nature. Or, as Paige quoted Bill Mollison

one of Permaculture's founders, "It's a rational mans

approach to not shitting in his bed." Well said, Bill. Dave Jacke, who

wrote the book Edible Forest Gardens (a permaculture bible to some)

also manages a few of the perennial beds at Montview.

A lovely asian pear tree that will be incorporated into the CSA.

The farmers and I talked about how the farm reflected the queerness of the people who were creating the space-many of the beds are not perfectly shaped nor in straight lines, they work collectively and at a pace that feels human to them, they aren't out on the farm every day. In short, they don't represent what one might think of as a typical farm or what farming has meant historically. Montview is also located on land contiguous with another small organic farm that from my bird's eye view appeared physically very traditional. It was an interesting juxtaposition to see the two farms next to each other.

Kale with Boc Choi understory.

Chickens in the old strawberry patch, offering fertilization.

Onions ready to pop.

Justin and Jackie redefining farming in Northampton

2009-07-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Meet Justin (left) and Jackie (right), two lovely queers and friends of mine that are serious about growing their own food. While they don't have what you might think of as a stereotypical farm, they grow an amazing garden at their home as well as 4 plots at the Northampton Community Garden in Northampton, Massachusetts. This project has really made me question what it means to be a farmer- if you are growing most of your food but you don't have land are you still a farmer? If your are maintaining your food sovereignty by growing the majority of what you consume in a community garden or in your own back yard, does this mean you aren't a farmer? Jackie and Justin are two self-identified queer farmers that are clearly challenging the stereotypes around what farmers look and act like, as well as where and how they grow food.

They showed me around the Northampton Community Garden, which was one of the most beautiful that I have ever been to. There were people growing all kinds of fun things, like grapes, and brussel sprouts, and these amazing dark red and orange Zinnia's I had never seen before.

Here's Jackie at one of their plots with a giant hops plant in the background.

Egyptian Walking onions.

Justin and Jackie harvesting some herbs.

Justin and Jackie are partners and co-conspirators that have always been inspirations to me- living in Western Massachusetts where the growing season is short, they take full advantage of the few months they have and pump out a seriously large amount of food. They do a lot of food preservation- and have a whole pantry stock full (still in July!) of food that they grew and canned. Justin said that they have at least one thing that they grew with every meal, year round.

Some photos from the garden.

Oh, and check out these wild looking cabbages I spotted at the Northampton Farmers' Market!

Queer Bike Farmin' in Vermont

2009-07-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is Rebecca Lay of 10 Speed Farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. We met up on Friday morning as she was harvesting turnips and salad greens for restaurant deliveries. Here she is cutting greens.

Baby kale for the salad.

More seedlings just coming up....

Rebecca rents the land for 10 Speed Farm at a former dairy farm up in the hills of Brattleboro. Rebecca has been farming on this land for one year, and this is her first season farming full time organic diverse veggies and herbs. She relies mostly on hand cultivation and has a rototiller, but because of the heavy rain in the Northeast this year she hasn't used it.

Rebecca runs a modified CSA- every Monday she sends out a list to her members of what she has available on the farm that week and they let her know by Wednesday morning which is pick up day what they want.

Washing veggies.

She also sells to local restaurants in town and delivers by bicycle. Here she is about to head down the hill to town to make a delivery.

These white egg turnips were spicy!

Go eggplant go!

The first cherries of the season- cool weather and lots of rain have held back the tomato harvest this year.

There were some beautiful old structures on the land from the old dairy farm days.

The farm across the way.

Billiam van Roestenberg of Liberty View Farm at Union Square

2009-07-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting up with Billiam van Roestenberg at New York's Union Square farmers' market. He is the founder and farmer of Liberty View Farm in New Paltz, New York. He is a city-slicker turned self taught farmer and is an apple expert, growing thousands of apple trees on his farm.

Billiam is quite the innovator- he told me of a sleepless night he had after spending over $50,000 on irrigation and farm repairs that he dreamed up Liberty View's now successful programs Charter a Chicken and Lease a Tree. Through Lease a Tree, community members pay an annual due of $50 and then can pick to their hearts content at 50 cents a pound. His Charter a Chicken project, enables people to sponsor a chicken for a year for a $50 fee which enables them to visitation rights, delicious eggs, and live webcam coverage of the birds! Yes, thats right, chicken webcam.

   Me and Billiam.

Meet Annie Novak, one of the folks working at the farm stand. She helped to start Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot organic farm operation in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on the roof of a large warehouse. They just started planting in April and are already selling veggies to local restaurants. I was pleasantly surprised and seriously impressed to learn about this project! Check it out here: http://rooftopfarms.org/
   Billiam hard at work.

   Rainbow chard, the gayest vegetable of all...?

Gay Farm Tour 2009 has begun!

2009-07-20T14:15:00.001-07:00

Shooting has started! Today I met up with Owen Taylor of Just Food and Bilen Berhanu of Greenthumb NYC at Walt L. Shamel community garden in Crown Heights, Brooklyn where Owen helped build a chicken coop and has a plot. Just Food is an NYC non-profit that is working toward creating sustainable food systems through support to regional, rural family farms, NYC community gardeners and farmers and NYC communities. Greenthumb provides assistance and education to NYC's community gardeners as it oversees over 600 gardens throughout the city.

We relaxed in the garden and talked about urban farming, and what it means to be a queer urban farmer. Are these identities isolated? Where do they intersect, and how?

Beautiful basil!

Delicious onions on their way...

Owen is Just Food's training and livestock coordinator and does a lot of work helping community gardens like Walt L. Shamel build coops and raise chickens. The community gardeners take turns on a rotating basis caring for the birds and get to share in the egg bounty.

Owen helps to coordinate the City Chicken project, which Just Food is working on with other community groups. As part of this project, Owen started a meetup.com group of backyard and community gardeners/farmers that now has almost 200 members. Thats a whole lot of urban farmers!

These ladies looked happy and healthy as can be.

Almost ripe peaches in Brooklyn.

A new 1,000 gallon rainwater catchment tank that is catching rainwater off of the building next to the garden. It will be used for watering food crops.

queer farmer film project east coast tour this summer

2009-06-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

We are hitting the road this summer to start shooting! Here is our rough schedule for summer so far:

July 18-23 NYC

July 24-28 Western Massachusetts and Connecticut

July 30- August 4 Philadelphia

August 4-6 DC area

August 8-15 Tennessee

If you are in any of these locations and would like to participate, please get in touch soon!

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: In a documentary film project about queer farmers.

2009-05-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

The queer farmer film project is seeking participants who want to share their experiences, histories, understanding and knowledge as queer members of the agrarian community. The project will explore the dynamic relationships between gender, sexuality, and agriculture, with a particular focus on the hearts and hard work of America’s queer farmers. The project will pose a central question: is there space for queerness in agricultural communities; and, if so, where and in what form does it manifest?

We seek self identified queer farmers anywhere along the LGBTQI spectrums- and specifically: people of color, older folks, those from many generations of farmers, CSA farmers, urban farmers, queer/feminist/faerie farmers living and working on land projects or in intentional communities, transpeople, genderqueers, and intersex farmers, those living in the Midwest or South, femmes, farmer teachers, and all others with dirt under their nails who are fabulous.

To communicate your interest in participating in this project please contact:

queerfarmerfilmproject@gmail.com or 510-314-9644.

Please post and pass on.