CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AT A NORTHWEST
FARMERS' MARKET: UNDERSTANDING THE PERFORMANCE
OF SUSTAINABlLlTY
by
RYANNE S. PILGERAM
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Sociology
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
September 2010
11
University of Oregon Graduate School
Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by:
Ryanne Pilgeram
Title:
"Constructing Sustainable Agriculture at a Northwest Farmers' Market: Understanding the
Performance of Sustainability"
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree in the Department of Sociology by:
Ellen Scott, Co-Chairperson, Sociology
Jocelyn Hollander, Co-Chairperson, Sociology
Yvonne Braun, Member, Sociology
Mary Wood, Outside Member, English
and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the Graduate
School for the University of Oregon.
September 4, 2010
Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon
Libraries.
? 2010 Ryanne S. Pilgeram
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iv
An Abstract of the Dissertation of
Ryanne S. Pilgeram for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Sociology to be taken September 20 I0
Title: CONSTRUCTING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AT A NORTHWEST
FARMERS' MARKET: UNDERSTANDING THE PERFORMANCE OF
SUSTAINABILITY
Approved: _
Ellen Scott, Ph.D., Co-Chair
Approved:
Jocelyn Hollander, Ph.D., Co-Chair
In this project I explore the commitment to "social sustainability" within
sustainable agriculture. Using participant observations at a Northwest farmers' market,
interviews with market consumers, and interviews as well as farm tours with sustainable
farmers, I examine the construction and practice of sustainability in a particular setting.
The environmental issues tied to conventional agriculture are numerous and well
documented; however, "social sustainability"-the extent to which sustainable
agriculture provides a food system that is accessible, inclusive, uses fair labor practices,
and is economically sustainable-is often less emphasized and more ambiguously
vdefined (despite the emphasis by scholars and practitioners of sustainable agriculture that
the movement is good for social justice). My project, therefore, uses critical feminist
theory to explore how the ideals of social sustainability are put into practice by
consumers and farmers of sustainable food in a society where social injustices are often
embedded on both a structural and individual level.
Emphasizing farmers' markets as the most important social space in which the
values of sustainable agriculture are constructed, I use a local case study of a Pacific
Northwest farmers' market, the consumers who shop there, and the farmers who sell
goods there to understand how the values of social sustainability are put into practice.
After reviewing the relevant literature and outlining the methods I use, I first discuss
farmers' participation in the market and sustainable agriculture more broadly, using
interviews and observations at different local farms to analyze how farmers see their
commitment to sustainable agriculture as tied to forms of privilege and oppressions.
Next, I use participation observation at the market itself to analyze how the space
mediates the demands of "social sustainability" in a farmers' market system that is
ultimately entrenched within a capitalist economy. Finally, I examine consumers'
perceptions of the market, why they shop there, why they think more people do not shop
at the market, and their definitions of sustainability; their responses reveal the complex
ways that consumers define and understand sustainable agriculture.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Ryanne S. Pilgeram
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Universi ty of Oregon, Eugene.
Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor of Philosophy, Sociology, 2010, University of Oregon
Master of Arts, Sociology, 2007, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Sociology, 2003, Pacific University
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Social Inequalities
Race, Class, and Gender
Sociology of Food
Rural Sociology
Sociology of Families
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon,
2004-2006; 2009-2010
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Women's and Gender Studies,
University of Oregon, 2007-2009
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GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Research Support Grant, "Constructing Sustainable Agriculture at a Northwest
Farmers' Market: Understanding the Perfonnance of Sustainability," Center for
the Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon, 2009.
Miller Family Scholarship, Department of Women's and Gender Studies,
University of Oregon, 2009.
Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon,
2009.
Data Collection Award, "Constlllcting Sustainable Agriculture at a Northwest
Fanners' Market: Understanding the Perfonnance of Sustainability,"
Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, 2009.
Outstanding Graduate Publication Award, '''Ass-Kicking' Women: Doing and
Undoing Gender in a U.S. Livestock Auction." Department of Sociology,
University of Oregon, 2007.
PUBLICAT10NS:
Pilgeram, Ryanne. 2007. '''Ass-Kicking' Women: Doing and Undoing Gender in
a U.S. Livestock Auction." Gender, Work and Organization 14: 572-595.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost this is a project that simply would not have been possible
without both the farmers and consumers at the Northwest Farmers' Market. In particular
I am grateful to the consumers who shared their time with me, and to the farmers who
opened up their farms and homes to me and let me ask them question after question.
This project was supported through a number of grants. Specifically, the Center
for the Study of Women in Society's Research Support Grant and small grants through
the Department of Sociology. Also, I am forever indebted to the Women's and Gender
Studies Department for the two year GTF appointment. This GTF position ~as essential
to being able to continue my graduate studies.
I am also incredibly grateful for the support of my chairs on this project:
Professors Ellen Scott and Jocelyn Hollander who provided both academic and emotional
guidance as I navigated this process. Thank you to Professors Yvonne Braun and Mary
Wood for serving on this very functional dissertation committee.
This project also would not have been possible without the support of amazing
childcare workers who cared my young son while 1 worked on this project. Specifically,
I am grateful to the Finch Room at the Moss Street Center, Amber in particular.
Additionally, the writing of this project simply would not have been possible without the
Monroe Avenue YMCA in Rochester, New York. I am grateful to the staff in the child
watch room and especially to Kaitlin and Christine in the Two-Plus program. The
Monroe Street YMCA became a second home for Alden and me as I wrote this
IX
dissertation. I am particularly grateful to the staff there and to the SilverSneakers Senior
Workout group who kept the coffee hot, fed me a variety of delicious treats, and
encouraged me as I wrote in the community room.
To my dear mom who struggled through this process with me, you rejoiced with
every page written and were more upset by critical feedback than I was and for that I am
so grateful. To my sister, Casey, thank you for calling farmers to set up interviews when
the rejections were getting me down and of course for all your support and good humor.
To Yvette, you always treated my finishing as a foregone conclusion and were quick to
remind me about how far we have come in the last twenty-some years.
To my little Zip-Zip, you've been through the final stages of this dissertation with
me and I can't wait to see what kind of adventures await us. To Alden, you started this
process with me when we took the comprehensive exam together and my life has not
been the same. You have brought a joyfulness and balance to my life that I had not
experienced before your arriva1. You helped me understand that this project was only
one part of my life and gave me a perspective on the world that has made me a much
happier person. Thank you for taking long afternoon naps so that I could finish this!
Finally, to my Russ, I simply do not have the words to express how much your
support and Jove means to me. There were so many points in this process where it felt
impossible, but in your calm, kind way you pushed me to keep at it and refused to let me
give up. You are an amazing dad and partner who gave up infinite amounts of time from
both your professional and personal life to support me in this process and I am so grateful
to have you as my partner.
To Russ
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION .
II. LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................ 11
Defining Sustainable Agriculture 14
A Feminist Intersectional Approach 19
Consuming Sustainable Agriculture 22
Farmers and Sustainable Agriculture..................................................................... 31
Sustainable Agriculture and Farmers' Markets 39
Conclusion ,. 43
III. METHODS 45
Interviewing at and Observing the Market... 46
Farm Visits and Interviews with Farmers.............................................................. 51
"Pick-A-Farmer".................................................................................................... 55
Grounded Theory. 56
Conclusion: A Feminist Approach 61
IV. THE FARMERS...... 66
The Construction of Food at the Market Versus the Fam1s................................... 71
The Farmers as Reflexive Producers 75
The Role of Class and Education in Sustainable Farming..................................... 83
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Chapter Page
Farm Labor and Subsidies 88
Gender, Race, and the Fanns 95
The Feminization of Sustainable Farm Labor 100
Conclusion .. 102
V. THE NORTHWEST FARMERS' MARKET 104
A Classed Space....... 106
But Don't They Accept Food Stamps? 113
The Construction of the White, Heterosexual Family........................................... 120
Gender Equity: Buying and Cooking Sustainable Food 131
Race, Whiteness, and Sustainability 134
Conclusion 146
VI. THE CONSlJJVIERS 148
Who Shops Here? 150
Why Doesn't Everyone Shop Here? 163
What Is Sustainability? 173
Conclusion 178
VII. CONCLUSION 181
BIBLIOGRAPHY 198
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Gendered division oflabor at the market stands 122
2. "'Pick-A-Farmer" photomontage 125
3a. Cover of the Oregon Fanner's Market directory 126
3b. Photograph of children in cabbage used to advertise market farms 126
3c. Photograph of children enjoying a water trough used to advertise market
farms 126
4. Racial distribution of stands at the Northwest Farmers' MarkeL......................... 136
CHAPTER]
INTRODUCTION
From E. coli contaminated cantaloupe and spinach, to apples and pears tainted
with pesticides, to the knowledge that strawbeITies are voyaging from Chile and
accumulating] 600 miles of carbon pollution along the way, many Americans are
thinking more about the foods we consume. Decisions about how to nourish our families
and ourselves are becoming more complex. Is it better to buy organic or local? In a
global world where it is always summer somewhere, what does it mean to eat with the
seasons? We make these decisions with every dollar we spend on food, and these
decisions are undeniably important given the potential impact our consumption has on
our bodies, our society, and our planet. It is not surprising, then, that issues of
sustainable food are often framed as questions and discussions about health: the health of
the environment, the health of the body of the consumer, and to a lesser extent the health
of the people who are growing the food.
Yet many proponents of sustainable agriculture argue that at its core sustainability
is about more than health and about more than the environment. It is a rejection of many
conventional beliefs about the social and natural world, beliefs such as that "man"
controls nature. It is based in a belief about rebuilding local community ties. It is a
2movement challenging the idea that science and technology alone are able to build a
better world. According to Sumner (2005), the promise of sustainable agriculture means
"promot[ing] the civil commons, not the profit margins of an elite group, as the key to
individual and community well-being." It means, "protecting and enabling universal
access to the life goods" and "include[sJthe dedicated support of small farms that provide
meaningful employment, contribute to the local food supply, and steward the
environment." Ultimately, sustainable agriculture should develop "the active
participation of those involved in all aspects of the food and agricultural system, so they
could work together to build the co-operative human constructions that make up the civil
commons" (309).
Sustainable agriculture, therefore, is in many ways an explicit rejection of the
status quo, specifically a rejection of the practices and epistemologies of conventional
agriculture. The environmental issues tied to conventional agriculture are numerous and
well documented, from pollution caused by runoff to a loss of biodiversity. And while
the social issues related to conventional agriculture are less often discussed, they are
equally problematic and tied to the same failure to account for the hidden and communal
costs of agricultural production. As industrial agriculture grows, the number of farmers
able to support themselves without gigantic plots of land and multimillion dollar
equipment also shrinks. Thus, according to those who promote ideologies of
sustainability, by rejecting conventional agriculture for sustainable agriculture-either as
a farmer or consumer-one is supporting more than a choice of fertilizer; one is taking
part in constructing a more socially just world. In many ways a shift to sustainable
3practices is a soclal movement where people are consciously rejecting what seems a
fundamentally flawed and broken agrlcultural system, and the values therein (Allen 2006;
Buck, Getz, and Guthman 1997; Goodman and DuPuis 2002; Hall and Mogyorody
2007).
In this dissertation, then, I am interested in the ways that sustainable agriculture is
seen as progressive, even transgressive, by providing an alternative to not only the
environmental injustices but also the social injustices of corporate agribusiness. This
emphasis on social justice in sustainable agriculture is embedded in nearly all definitlons
of sustainable agriculture. For example, it is used by the National Sustainable
Agriculture Coalition (201 O)-"the leading voice for sustainable agriculture in the
federal pollcy arena"-who note, "The basic goals of sustainable agriculture are
environmental health, economic profitabllity, and social and economic equity." It is also
reflected in the mission statement of the Northwest Farmers' Market-the market at the
heart of this project-which declares that the market is for the "the entire community"
and is run through "democratic association[s]." Furthermore, as was stated in the title of
a pamphlet put out by the Farmers Market Coalition, sustainable agriculture is
proclaimed as not just good for the environment but "good for everyone" (Coalition
2007).
Yet despite this emphasis on social sustainability and social relations in
sustainable agriculture, most of the research on sustainable agriculture has used an
environmental and natural science perspective, where the challenges and promises of
sustainable practices in promoting a more environmentally sustainable and just planet are
4the central focus (Goodland 1995; Kates RW 2001; Wackernagel, Schulz, Deumling,
Linares, Jenkins, Kapos, Monfreda, Loh, Myers, Norgaard, and Randers 2002). The
social aspects of sustainabibty are far less researched. In fact, the discourses about
sustainable agriculture have been framed in such a way that certain topics or critiques are
simply not addressed and do not seem to be a part of the dialogue. As Allen (1993) notes
in her book on sustainabibty, "social issues, when raised, are often safely vague and
framed in tenns of 'socially acceptable' as it refers to environmentally and economically
sustainable institutions and practices." For Allen, "this begs the question, socially
acceptable for }vhom?" (145).
Sustainable agriculhlre may be frequently touted as "an opportunity to improve
the economic, environmental and social sustainability of agriCUlture," (Barbercheck,
Hinrichs, Karsten, Mortensen, Ostiguy, Richard, and Sachs 2006); however, while there
are strict environmental regulations that one must meet to stamp "organic" on a box, the
tmth is that this stamp tells us nothing about the social relations that were part of
producing that product. In part, this is because of a lack of definition. While the idea of
"social sustainability" is embedded throughout discussions, clear definitions about what it
means to be "socially sustainable" are nearly absent. The UC Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education Program at the University of California Davis is one of the few
groups to develop what this definition might look like when they argue the "stewardship
of human resources includes consideration of social responsibilities such as working and
living conditions of laborers, the needs of rural communities, and consumer health and
safety both in the present and the future" (Feenstra, Ingels, and Campbell 1997). While
5this definition of social sustainability is important and useful, more discussion and
definition of what social sustainability actually means in practical terms is nearly
nonexistent, despite the rhetorical importance of social sustainability within the
movement.
In this project, therefore, I am interested in understanding how social
sustainability is and is not produced within sustainable agriculture. This project uses a
feminist intersectional perspective that is concemed with issues of race, class, and gender
equity. Using this perspective, I see social sustainability in sustainable agriculture as
creating a system that produces food using socially just labor practices, practices that are
concerned with safe working conditions, fair pay, and gender and race equity.
Furthermore, 1see social sustainability as creating a distribution system that maximizes
the availability of food to the entire community, Examining this availability, I pay
particular attention to the ways that the spaces of a farmers' market may privilege certain
consumers rather than minimizing race, class, and gender privilege.
Using a Northwest Farmers' Market as a case study, my project explores how the
consumers and the fmmers involved in sustainable agriculture put the goals of social
sustainability into practice. This project uses the Northwest Farmers' Market as a space
where the consumers (who want to buy and support locally produced food) and the
farmers (who want to sell their food) interact to meet their mutual needs and in the
process create a particular construction of "sustainable agriculture." Specifically I ask:
How are the ideals of social sustainability put into practice by consumers and farmers of
sustainable food in a society where social injustices are often embedded on both a
6structural and individual level? For example, how do consumers conceptualize their
participation in the market? How do consumers understand people who do not shop at
the market? What social location did one have before becoming a sustainable farmer?
Do class and educational privileges shape a fanDer's commitment to the project of
sustainability? Does the presentation of sustainability at the market create a space that
privileges particular consumers or farmers? Who is constructed as the "ideal" consumer
at the market and what consumer seems most "welcome" in that space?
Thus rather than assuming that sustainable agriculture really is "good for
everyone," this project examines who is privileged in the space and practice of
sustainable agriculhlre. As this suggests (and as I discuss in more detail in my literature
review), this interrogation of privilege within sustainable agriculture is based on an
intersectional understanding of social justice. Recognizing that race, class, and gender
are not distinct and separate social categories but rather continually overlap with and
reinforce each other, my project examines the issues of social justice from this broad and
intersectional perspective, analyzing the complex ways that various privileges and
assumptions across these categories manifest themselves in the practice of sustainable
agriculture.
To that end, this project specifically examines the complex spaces and social
relations at the Northwest Farmers' Market, a farmers' market that sells sustainably
grown foods and other products in a medium sized town in the Pacific Northwest that
frequently wins national awards for being one of the "greenest" in the US. It is a
community that prides itself on being an alternative to the status quo. These values are
7clearly reflected in the Northwest Farmers' Market. The market is a place where people
often actively defy social conventions; for instance, there is man who attended the market
each week in head-to-toe tie dye with a large, live parrot on his shoulder, and a woman
who attended the market topless to make it easier to breastfeed her baby during the wann
summer months. This is the kind of place where your baby can wear their Che Guevara
onesie with pride. The consumers and fallllers at the market struck me as having an
abiding belief not only in the environmental goals of in sustainable agriculture but also
the social goals of social equity and inclusion.
Looking at this farmers' market as well as my interviews with fanners and
consumers helps to illuminate my questions for two reasons. The first reason is the
growing importance of fanners' markets to sustainable agriculture as a movement;
fanners' markets are the public face of sustainable agriculture. A USDA (2009) report
notes that between 1994 and 2009 the number of markets increased from 1,755 to 5,274,
a 300% increase in only fifteen years. Furthennore, Gillespie et al. (2008) called
fanner's markets the "keystone institutions in rebuilding local food systems" (70). More
and more, then, fanners' markets are the face of sustainable agriculhlre and a space
where the transfer of food and infonnation passes directly from the fanner, who is likely
deeply invested in sustainable agriculture, to the consumers, who have varying degrees of
knowledge and commitment to sustainable agriculture.
In this way, fanners' markets provide a unique space where famlers and
consumers of sustainable agriculture are able to interact. 1 believe that it is in these
interactions that a vision of sustainability is constructed. If we see sustainability as a kind
8of socially constmcted performance, then the farmers' market is the most public stage in
which this perfonnance takes place. Moreover, the space of the farmers' market becomes
a key site to examine how the intersections of gender, race, and class help to inform the
relations at the core of the market. And yet, markets have not been analyzed in this way.
Typically, the work on fanners' markets focuses on either sustainable fanners or the
consumers. In fact, there is a great deal of market research done on farmers' markets that
often tends to focus on the buying habits of the consumer as well as educating fanners on
how to make themselves more profitable. Noone is looking at the market as a space of
interaction that constructs a vision of sustainability.
As I discuss in more detail in my methods chapter, this project uses a qualitative
approach with three different components to analyze this interaction and ultimately
answer my research question. The first component is short, structured interviews with
consumers at the Northwest Fmmers' Market. I conducted 48 interviews with consumer
and asked them questions about the market as well as about sustainable farming in
general. The second component is fann visits and interviews at eight sustainable farms.
These took the form of fann tours where we typically walked around the fann and I
learned about the operation followed by in-depth semi-stmctured interviews. These fann
visits typically took about half a day. The final component was participant observation at
the Northwest Farmers' Market. I observed at the market for a full season, which is
approximately six months. At the height of the season I was at the market 3 times per
week for approximately two hours at a time.
9I want to be clear that the intention of this project is not to condemn sustainable
agriculture nor this farmer's market in particular. I believe that without question the
industrial agricultural system in this country is broken and the environmental havoc
caused by this system is only a part of what is broken with this system. I believe that
sustainable agriculture and farmers' markets offer real solutions to these issues. But I
also believe that part of building a more socially just food system involves asking the
kinds of questions about social sustainability that my project asks.
On a personal level, the more I've become invested in this project the more I have
sought out food at farmers' markets. So while part of what I am doing in this project is
problematizing issues around gender, race, and class in sustainable agriculture, ultimately
it is with the belief that this is an absolutely essential system, that industrial agriculture is
a disaster for rural communities, for the environment, and for social inclusion. I see this
research as offering an important reminder that this is a system that is still being
constructed, a system that includes many participants who seem invested in making it
socially just. But despite the growing importance of fanners' markets and the
possibilities that they offer for creating a viable alternative to conventional food systems,
research on them is still quite limited. Morevoer, research that examines issues of social
inclusion and research that uses an intersectional perspective simply does not exist. My
work not only fills a gap in academic research in sustainable agriculture, it asks questions
that I think are essential to the success of sustainable agriculture as a system.
This disseltation is broken into seven chapters. Chapter II, the literahlre review,
explores both the research on sustainable agriculture and intersectional work
10
understanding the relationships between gender, race, and class. Chapter III, the methods
chapter, outlines the methodology that provides the data for this dissertation. In Chapter
IV, "The Farmers," I use my interviews and farm visits with farmers to examine how
they negotiate the material realities of farming with the ideologies of sustainable
agriculture. Chapter V, "The Northwest Farmers' Market," primarily examines the
interactions at the market and how these interactions create a particular vision of
sustainability. Chapter VI, "The Consumers," analyzes my interviews with consumers
and explores issues of inclusion based the views of these consumers. Finally, my
conclusion, Chapter VII, offers theoretical and practical solutions to creating a more
inclusive alternative foods system.
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
On the surface sustainable agriculture appears to be about producing food that is
free from pesticides and is produced locally, but at its core, sustainable agriculture is
about much more than producing a better tomato. As I note in the introduction, it
represents not just a shift in a mode of agricultural production, but also a shift in thinking
about natural and social worlds. As Beus and Dunlap (1990) note in their foundational
work on rural sociology, sustainable agriculture is based in a belief about rebuilding local
community ties and working in harmony with nature. They note that it is a movement
that is based in challenging the idea that science and technology are able to build a better
world. According to Sumner (2005), the promise of sustainable agriculture means
"protecting and enabling universal access to the life goods" and it also means "the active
participation of those involved in all aspects of the food and agricultural system, so they
could work together to build the co-operative human constructions that make up the civil
commons" (309). Sustainable agriculture is a conscious rejection of conventional
agriculture and its basis in corporate, global capitalism and is fr-equently touted as "an
opportunity to improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of
agriculture" (Barbercheck et al. 2006, emphasis mine).
12
Sustainable agriculture is constructed not only in opposition to conventional,
industrial agriculture, therefore, but as a conscious rejection and transgressive
reorganization of this system's environmental and social epistemologies. In my project I
emphasize how issues of social sustainability are dealt with in this seemingly
transgressive space. Using a Northwest Farmers' Market as a case study I ask: how are
the ideals of social sustainability put into practice by consumers and farmers of
sustainable food in a society where social injustices are often embedded on both a
structural and individual level?
While my dissertation is a local case study, the theoretical lens I use extends the
scope of my research to a broader understanding ofrace, class, and gender politics in
sustainable agriculture. I examine the space of the market as one in which hegemonic
constructions of race relations, class distinctions, and patriarchy are at times reproduced,
despite the fact that consumers and farmers both espouse strong beliefs about making
sustainable agriculture something that is available to all people. This project, therefore,
examines how the space of the market mediates these contradictions by creating an
altemative to industrial agriculture but an altemative that sometimes affirms conventional
ideas about race, class and gender.
This literature review examines the literature on farmers' markets, the consumers
that usc them, and the farmers that grow for them. My discussion involves research in
the fields of rural sociology, environmental sociology, and the sociology of food, as well
as work that deals more explicitly with intersectional feminist concems of race, class, and
gender. The first three fields in particular tend to have a great deal of overlapping focus
13
and interests yet rarely make reference of these other fields. Thus this literature review
sees the fields of rural sociology, environmental sociology, and the sociology offood as
intricately connected. Furthermore, while the sociology of food literature often includes
a feminist leaning, the other fields frequently ignore the role of gender and race in their
analysis. This literature review uses a feminist lens to examine this research and is
particularly attuned to scholars' theorizing about gender, race, and class in their analysis.
I work to incorporate these often separate fields by organizing this literature
review into the five topics that are central to the project rather than a specific area of
research. Thus rather than having a section that discusses literature from "rural
sociology" I discuss "the fanners" and use research from all these fields. Furthermore, I
have worked to include an intersectional analysis of race, class, and gender in each of the
topics rather than separating the research into racialized, classed, and gendered
categories.
Specifically, in this literature review I begin by defining sustainable agriculture
and discussing the politics of this definition. The second section details and defines an
intersectional perspective and ties this project's goals to this literature. I then discuss the
literature that is specific to consumption and sustainable agriculture, followed by a
section on farming and sustainability and a section specifically addressing fanners'
markets. The literature on sustainable agriculture is vast and is rapidly growing; yet,
despite this, my project is the first comprehensive study of the dynamics between the
consumers, the farmers, and a farmers' market. Furthermore, the use of a feminist
intersectional approach to explore these issues is under-utilized in the study of
14
sustainability. While there are a limited number of studies that examine class or race, the
research on farmers' markets, consumers, and fanners fails to use an intersectional
perspective. Furthelmore, this project is particularly timely. As 1 discuss in more detail
later in the chapter, the number of farmers' markets has exploded in the last decade, yet
what we know about them, while growing, is still relatively limited. Thus this project
brings a new perspective to the research on sustainable agriculture and farmers' markets
in two important ways: it is the first project that looks comprehensively at the relationship
between consumers, fanners, and a fanners' market and second, it is the first project to
bring an intersectional approach to these fields.
Defining Sustainable Agriculture
This project at its core focuses on how the goals of social sustainability in
sustainable agriculture are enacted in the space of the Northwest Farmers' Market. Thus
an understanding of the telm "sustainable" and "sustainable agriculture" is important.
"Sustainable" is a term that has been used to describe everything from housing materials
to hotdogs in recent years. "Sustainable" as we currently understand it first entered the
environmental lexicon relatively recently. In 1987 the United Nations World
Commission on Environment and Development, often known simply as the Bnmtland
Commission, published the report, "Our Common Future" in which they defined
"sustainable development" as development "that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (1987:8).
15
Three years later Beus and Dunlap (1990) wrote what has become a pivotal work
detailing the difference between conventional and sustainable agriculture; they refened to
it as the "Key Elements of the Competing Agricultural Paradigms" and synthesize the
works of twelve scholars from both paradigms into a concise table that illustrates what
tend to be the primary differences between conventional and sustainable agriculture (598?
599). As noted in the introduction to this chapter, they argue that (among other
attributes) whereas conventional agriculture is focused on competition in the market and
domination over nature, sustainable agriculture focuses on community building and
working in harmony with nature. As both an economic pursuit and ideological project,
sustainable agriculture is actively structured in opposition to conventional agriculture.
While Beus and Dunlap's discussion of sustainable agriculture is the most
frequently referenced by scholars when one wants to understand sustainable agriculture,
others do offer clear, if broad, definitions of sustainable agriculture. For example,
Guthman (2004) defines it as "a system of agricultural production and distribution that
integrates environmental health with economic profitability" (220). Outside of academic
journals, the most frequently used definitions comes from Feenstra, Ingels, and Campbell
(1997) who argue that, "Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals-?
environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity." They go
on to expand upon the definition put forth by the Bruntland Commission when they argue
that:
Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
16
needs. Therefore, stewardship ofboth natural and human resources is of
prime importance. Stewardship of human resources includes consideration of
social responsibilities such as working and living conditions of laborers, the
needs ofrural communities, and consumer health and safety both in the
present and the future. Stewardship of land and natural resources involves
maintaining or enhancing this vital resource base for the long term.
Among fam1ers and activists, pieces of this definitions circulate; for example, the
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (2010), which refers to itself as the "the
leading voice for sustainable agriculture in the federal policy arena," uses the Feenstra,
Ingels and Cambells definition as part of their own, arguing that, "The basic goals of
sustainable agriculture are environmental health, economic profitability, and social and
economic equity." They conclude that, "NSAC's vision of agriculture is one where a
safe, nutritious, ample, and affordable food supply is produced by a legion of family
fanners who make a decent living pursuing their trade, while protecting the environment,
and contributing to the strength and stability of their communities" (1).
Yet in some ways a clear, singular definition of sustainability and sustainable
agriculture is difficult to find and articulate. Some farmers, scholars, and activists
(Guthman included) are hesitant to define sustainability because of the ways that the
definition of "organic" has been co-opted by conventional agriculture. While fertilizers
and pesticides are not being applied in USDA certified "organic" agriculture, organic
agriculture is becoming "conventional" in scale and technique in some places. In fact, a
number of scholars argue that it was the USDA's defining of "organic" that allowed this
17
form of alternative agriculture to be co-opted by corporate agriculture and corporate food
systems, noting that now even Walmart has an organic section (Buck, Getz, and Guthman
1997; DeLind 2000; Guthman 2004; Johnston 2008; Kloppenburg, Lezberg, De Master,
Stevenson, and Hendrickson 2000). Thus there is a hesitancy in defining sustainable
agriculture because, as DeLind notes, a definition allows the USDA (or other agencies) to
"insert themselves between individuals and direct experience and responsibility" (200).
She notes that a USDA label, for example, "becomes a surrogate for personal awareness
and judgment," arguing that "we place our trust in standards and certification processes at
the expense of our trust in interpersonal relationships and daily interactions informed by
wisdom locally generated and grounded in place" (200).
Furthermore, these scholars argue that the act of defining "organic" agriculture
allows the focus to be pulled away from the process of growing the food and instead is
turned toward a focus on inputs into that food. In other words, conventional growers
were sometimes able to simply replace their previous fertilizer with one that met the
USDA definition of organic without changing their fanning methods in any real way.
Because of this, many fanners, scholars and activists seem reluctant to develop a single
definition of sustainable agriculture.
A definition of "sustainable agriculture" is important for the purposes of this
project. Yet I am also hesitant to create a simple definition because in the process of
doing this research it was clear that each fanner had his or her own definition and that
sustainability was a means not end. Ikerd (2007) perhaps summed up those feelings best
when he poetically noted, "Sustainability is a direction rather than a destination, like a
18
star that guides the ships at sea but remains forever beyond the horizon" (l). For
example, I would characterize all the fanns I visited as participating in a system of
"sustainable agriculture." Most of the fanners 1 interviewed, despite the immense time,
energy, and commitment involved, said there was always more that they wanted to do to
make their hlffi1S sustainable. This speaks to the ways that sustainability is constantly in
flux rather than a discrete end that one can meet. In fact, as 1 discuss in The Fanners
Chapter, many of them noted the plastic hoop houses that they used to start vegetables as
an instance where they were failing their own definition of sustainability. Moreover,
some felt that no matter what they did their farms could never be sustainable because
they were flying on airplanes and using up fossil fuels to learn better techniques for
growing sustainably. In this way the fa1111erS themselves see sustainable agriculture as a
process.
Nevertheless, for the pUlposes of clarity in this project, when 1use the tenn
"sustainable agriculture," 1 have Feenstra, Ingels, and Campbell's (1997) definition in
mind, particularly their emphasis on the "three legs of sustainability": environmental
health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. Furthennore, 1 find the
Bruntland Commission's definition, particularly its emphasis on not compromising the
needs of future generations as we go about meeting our current needs, an important
measuring stick of sorts to judge how the goals of sustainability are being met. In this
project, therefore, 1 examine how a particular market constructs sustainable agriculture
with these definitions and goals in mind. But in the project 1 emphasize not only what is
in that space, but what is also outside of it: are we missing other fonns of "sustainable
19
food" practices in communities that lack the power to define what they are doing as
"sustainable?"
A Feminist Intersectional Approach
Ultimately this project is concerned with understanding how the values of social
and economic equity manifest themselves within sustainable agriculture using the
Northwest Fanners' Market as a case study. In my theorizing and understanding of
social and economic equity in this project I take an intersectional feminist approach. This
approach is most often concerned with oppression and privilege as it relates to race, class,
and gender (often alongside other forms of oppression). In this project 1 am particularly
concerned with these issues and also include a limited discussion of ability and sexual
orientation in my analysis of the constl1.lction of the market. From a conceptual
standpoint the fact that these fonns of oppression and privilege impact a person's
experience is perhaps not difficult to imagine. Yet an intersectional perspective asks that
we understand oppression as existing beyond personal experience and understand how
institutions and stl1.lctures are constructed in ways that are tied to race, class, and gender
oppression and privilege. Theorists have pointed out that, despite being critically
important, intersectional theorizing is fraught with challenges, something that is clear
from my research.
Spelman (1988) points out that many theorists have attempted to determine which
inequality, be it race or class, is more "fundamental" (116). There is obvious political
gain from being able to generalize about "middle-class" experiences at the market or the
20
exploitation of "women" as farm laborers; however, in this attempt to detennine which
inequality is more fundamental, it means that we are once again seeing racism, sexism,
and classism as somehow separate. Many theorists have pointed out that even the ways
in which intersectionality is described shows an underlying belief that an individual's
experience of race, class, and gender are discrete and divisible. Given this understanding
of race, class, and gender, it is little wonder that some theorists and researchers have
simply treated these categories as factors that can be added or multiplied together to get
some total amount of oppression. Spelman (1988) notes that this is particularly
problematic since, "an additive analysis treats the oppression of a Black woman in a
society that is racist as well as sexist as if it were a further burden when, in fact, it is a
different burden" (123).
Fenstennaker and West (2002a) also discuss these multiple math metaphors,
pointing out the underlying problems with each at length in their discussion of "doing
difference," while Glenn (1999) notes that one of the primary challenges of research on
race, gender, and class is in creating a system of understanding that does not result in
"double jeopardy" or "additive oppressions" for those who occupy more than one place
of marginalization (4). Taking up this challenge, Collins (2004) suggests that perhaps the
best way of conceptualizing multiple inequalities is by paying attention to "the
interlocking nature of oppression" by developing "new theoretical interpretations of the
interaction [between race, class and gender] itself' that do not see gender, race, and class
as variables but rather see them as linked within a system of domination (l10).
2]
While the warnings these theorists offer to other theorists and researchers is
certainly important and well founded, I have found very little in the way of concrete
examples or advice for how one should actually go about practicing intersectional
research. However, one example of an attempt to outline a methodological approach to
intersectionality is based on the analysis of interactions. Fenstermaker and West (2002),
for example, propose an "ethnomethodological perspective" that entails "a conceptual
mechanism for perceiving the relations between individual and institutional practices and
among forms of domination" and that does "not separate gender, race, and class as social
categories" but "build[s] a coherent argument for understanding how they work
simultaneously" (63-64). My project is built around this idea that intersectional work
often works best when it is focused in part on interactions. In this project I see theorizing
about interaction as one impOliant way of doing intersectional work.
This focus on interaction as one way of dealing with intersectionality; however,
has been critiqued by a number of scholars including Collins (2002), who argues that the
constructionist paradigm Fenstermaker and West use obscures the structural relationship
among patriarchy, capitalism, and racism. Moreover, Weber (2002) argues that, "West
and Zimmerman obscure rather than illuminate the mechanisms of power in the
production and maintenance of racism, classism, and sexism. For race, class, and gender
scholarship, social relations of dominance/control and subordination/resistance are the
cornerstones of theory" (89).
While the critiques of Fenstermaker and West are important, 1 tend to agree with
Fenstennaker' s and West's reply to such critiques (2002b), which asserts that a focus on
22
interaction does not necessarily mean that mechanisms of power and oppression are
ignored. Certainly, power and inequality are established at multiple levels through
interaction with both individual and social structures. My project offers an important
understanding of sustainable agriculture and need not obscure larger structural forces; in
fact, I see these micro-level understandings as ultimately illuminating large structural
Issues.
Throughout this literature review I have worked to include those works that deal
with issues of race, class, and gender in their analysis of elements of sustainable
agriculhlre. Certainly not all these scholars would claim to be doing intersectional
research, but it is a little surprising how few seem concerned about intersectional issues.
Rather, someone may write an interesting article about whiteness or an article that is
attuned to class issues at farmers' markets, yet they makes little or no mention of gender.
As this literature will demonstrate, my dissertation, with its focus on the relationships
between farmers, consumers and markets, is unique; furthermore, an intersectional
feminist perspective in the study of sustainable agriculture in the US brings a lens to this
analysis that is currently under-utilized.
Consuming Sustainable Agriculture
The research on who consumes sustainable food is spread widely in the literature
and includes scholars studying the sociology of food, rural sociology, environmental
sociology, the sociology of consumption, and work on marketing more generally. Work
on consumption, however, extends beyond these disciplinary boundaries. Perhaps the
23
most well known and mostly widely cited research on consumption comes from
Bourdieu's (1984) foundation work, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of
Taste. Bourdieu uses a rich set of data to explore the relationship between consumption
habits in everything from food to furniture. In his book he argues that "taste" and
"distinction" are modes of consumption that become central ways to stratify social
relations. He argues that there is a relationship between a group's power and prestige in
society and their ability to use that power to define what consumers see as an example of
their "good taste." Furthermore, he argues that these modes of distinction are directly
related to seeing the tastes of those with less power and privilege as deficient. Ritzer's
work is another example of a scholar held in high esteem whose work focuses on
consumption. He is perhaps most well known for his groundbreaking book on consumer
and corporate culture, The McDonaldization ofSociety, and has been an outspoken critic
of American sociology's tendency to ignore the role of consumption (Ritzer 1996; 2000).
Other scholars have noted this trend within sociological studies. Within work in
rural sociology Goodman and DuPuis note that, "the treatment of production and
consumption in agro- food studies is still highly asymmetric" with far more research
focused on fanning and production than on consumers (2002:5). Of course, this trend is
not simply found in the study of farnlers' markets. The fact that the study of production
systems seems to be the primary focus of researchers is related to a Marxist
understanding of the role of consumers as a group that ultimately has no power in a
capitalist system. As Goodman and DuPuis (2002) note, "bourgeois ideology gives
24
consumption the appearance of emancipation when, in fact, it is implicated with
capitalism" (13).
Yet I see the study of consumption to be important in the understanding of
sustainable agriculture as a system. While there is no doubt that sustainable agriculture is
rooted in commodity relations, it was Marx himself that put the power for revolutionary
change in the hands of the people (although clearly this act was not tied to consumption).
In fact, there is an active discussion of whether sustainable agriculture can overcome free
market capitalism (Allen 2006). Yet a number of scholars note that the dynamics of
sustainable agliculture have elements of a social movement. My analysis, while not
focusing on sustainable agriculture as a social movement, offers important insights into
understanding farmers' markets, insights that are overlooked by simply focusing on
production.
For one, while it may contradict a Marxist analysis, I believe that it is important to
understand consumers as agents. This is not to say that I believe that every purchase of
an organic apple is a revolutionary act, but it is to say that many of the consumers I
interviewed seemed to be actively engaging in how their choices impacted both the
environmental and social worlds. It is too simplistic to see consumers as "dupes" who
have no impact over the way their worlds are structured; it would seem that growth of
sustainable agriculture and famlers' markets reflect this power. Even Buttel (2000), who
tends to see consumers as having little power to resist multi-national corporations, notes
in his often cited article about the controversy over recombinant bovine growth hormone
(rBGH) in cows' milk that while consumers played a "tangible, but relatively minor
25
role ... parallel trends in food politics could make the consumption/consumer dimension
of food politics more imp0l1ant in the future" (5).
While sustainable agriculture has not led to an end to capitalism, these markets
offer a clear critique of what industrial agriculture under capitalism has produced. As
Johnston (2008) notes, "it is impossible to create simple categories of 'revolutionary' and
'co-opted.' The challenge for food activists and scholars is to try to identify subtle
degrees of emancipation and domination in food politics" (94). A study of consumers
offers us a more complex and complete picture of farmers' markets and sustainable
agriculture and is an important piece of the analysis.
However, what we do know about consumers is somewhat limited. As previously
noted, there are a number of studies examining the demographics of farmers' market
consumers. In general these scholars report similar findings; they note the average
consumer is a woman in her late thirties to early forties with an above average income
and education (Onianwa, Mojica, and Wheelock 2006; Walton, Kirby, Henneberry, and
Agustini 2002). Of course, markets are highly localized, so while these demographics
may vary from place to place, in general these findings are widely accepted. Class in
particular is an area that is often mentioned by scholars who note a classed dynamic to
sustainable agriculture, arguing that the consumption of sustainable agriculture seems to
be related to a high education and income level (DeLind 2000; Goodman and DuPuis
2002; Hinrichs and Kremer 2002; Slocum 2007).
For example Slocum (2007) notes that, "those involved in alternative food tend to
be economically and/or socially middle class. They have the wealth to buy organic, the
26
inherited or schooled knowledge about nutrition or the environment and they are
politically liberal to left" (522). Goodman and DuPuis (2002) reiterate this point, arguing
that "organic food consumption is presently a middle-class privilege-a 'class diet,' if
you will." Yet, importantly, they go on to note that this "should not deny the politics of
this activity" (29). Making a similar point, in her evocatively titled article,
"Counterhegemony or bourgeois piggely," Johnston (2008) argues that despite the fact
that the sustainable food movement tends to be a middle class phenomenon, it is too
simplistic to deride sustainable food consumers as snobbish bourgeoisie. Instead, she
argues that we must examine hegemony within food systems, dwell in the complexities of
the system, and see "genuine compromise by dominant classes" (lOS). She argues that
food systems can be emancipatOly if they reclaim the commons and create a
postconsumer ideology that meets basic "needs, desires, and pleasures [in ways] that are
ecologically sustainable" (l02). One of her primary arguments is that it is always the
easiest to point out the villains, but it can be harder to explore and see progressive
potential.
Another interesting perspective on the relationship between class and sustainable
agriculture is Stephenson and Lev's (2007) research, which examines how class impacts
people's support of sustainable agriculture. In their survey of 500 Oregon consumers, the
researchers found that income and education were not associated with the support of local
agricultural products. This study complicates other research which finds that income and
education are tied to the consumption of sustainable foods. Stephenson and Lev's
research suggests that there is a difference between supporting versus buying local
27
products; it also raises the question about what gets defined as "sustainable agriculture."
This suggests that a community's relationship with "local food" is in part tied to what
they construct as local or sustainable.
For example, the working class population they studied in Albany, Oregon, was
more familiar with roadside stands and meatlockers as an example of sustainable foods,
whereas for Corvallis, Oregon, residents, the highly educated middle class population in
the study was more familiar with CSAs and food cooperatives. This study suggests that
despite important demographic differences in income and education levels, the support
for local food was similar across income and education lines. This raises interesting
questions about the availability of "sustainable" foods in all communities and it begs the
question: what is sustainable, who gets to decide? Ultimately it raises the question: is
sustainable agriculture (defined in my project and most other projects as tied to
participation in farmer's markets, CSAs, and food cooperatives) being defined too
narrowly? For example, does hunting count as "sustainable" food? DuPuis and Goodman
(2005) note that, "consumers of a particular class and ethnicity have had control over
constructing what is 'good' food, what food systems need to be 'saved'" (365).
This concern with the power to define what is "good" food is, in part, tied to how
food systems are racialized. This concern with race and the consumption of sustainable
agriculture has been dealt with by only a handful of scholars. In Guthman's (2008)
survey of farmers' market managers she notes that, "people of color, and African
Americans especially, do not participate in these markets proportionate to the population"
(388). Guthman (2008) critiques the "if we only knew where our food came from"
28
rallying cry of sustainable agriculture, arguing that it is tempered with elements of color?
blind racism as well as an inclination towards universalizing that is "often associated with
whiteness" (388). Using data from surveys of market managers, she argues that rhetoric
like "if they only knew" suggests that the reasons for nonparticipation are related to a
lack of education or knowledge and ultimately works to minimize structural and cultural
barriers to participation in alternative food networks (for example, a lack of markets in
neighborhoods of color or consumers' familiarity with food typically sold at markets).
This rhetoric allows the managers to avoid addressing why people of color are much less
likely to buy food from this system.
Slocum (2007) shares this interest in whiteness at farmers' markets but takes a
slightly different approach. She argues that, while "it should be said that there is
something white about alternative food practice, that 'something white' is not equivalent
to 'something negative'" (521). She sees whiteness in sustainable agriculture as
something to be understood but not condemned outright because she argues, "whiteness
coheres in altemative food practice in the act of 'doing good'" (526). Furthermore she
notes that, "the desire for good and sufficient food and jobs and thriving economies is not
white," nor I would add is it only a middle-class prerogative (521).
This idea is supported by two studies. In Webber and Dollahite's (2008) qualitative
study of food choices among low income heads of households, they find that low income
people are concerned about their food but that lack of access to local markets,
compounded by not having a car, cost, and education about nutrition, were all barriers to
participating in sustainable agriculture. This desire for good and sufficient food is also
29
noted by Suarez-Balcazar et al. (2006). In their study of fanners' market participation
among African-Americans in a working class neighborhood in Chicago, researchers
found that residents were more satisfied with the access, quality, variety, and prices of
products available at their neighborhood fanners' market than they were of products
available at their local grocery store. Yet, despite high levels of participation by
consumers, the researchers noted that this market attracted fewer farmers: five fanners
compared to 20-50 fanners at upper and middle class dominated markets. They also
noted that this market had a much shorter selling season in comparison to other markets.
While the research on race and farmers' markets is limited, these articles all add
important details to work on consumption in these spaces, giving interesting insights
about how markets are racialized and how race operates in these spheres.
In fact, while work on race is limited, it is actually work on gender and
consumption that is the most scarce. This is particularly surprisingly given the amount of
research on gender and consumption within the sociology of food. For example, in
DeVault's (1992) groundbreaking book, Feeding the Family, she examines the kinds of
reproductive labor involved in "feeding the family." She explores how everything from
making the grocery list to remembering what foods members of the family like and do
not like is tied to a system of gendered power and control. Other scholars like Counihan
(1999) are similarly invested in understanding the relationship between the gendered
body, eating, and cooking food. In fact, in the overall study of the consumption of food,
gender often plays a central role in the overall analysis. That makes Allen and Sachs'
(2007) conclusion that "studies of consumption in the sociology of agriculture typically
30
view consumers as ungendered subjects" all the more surprising (4). While all the
demographic analyses point to women as disproportionately involved as consumers of
sustainable foods, very few researchers do any theoretical work to understand how
gender is related to consumption.
Even scholars such as Lockie et a1. (2002)~who find that women are much more
likely to consume organic food in Australia and suggest "that the higher level of
responsibility taken by women for feeding children and other family members may go
some way to explaining this gender difference"~donot include evidence to suggest that
their very plausible explanation is actually the case (31). In a similar vein, Stem, Dietz,
and Kalof (1993) find that women show more concern for environmental issues than
men, and they suggest that this may be because "women in the United States are more
engaged than men in life maintenance activities such as child rearing and engagement in
the neighborhood and community" (36]). Yet, despite theories that seem plausible, these
studies are both large phone surveys that do not actually examine the mechanisms that led
to these gender differences.
The best work on gender and consumption in sustainable agriculture is done by
Allen and Sachs (2007), but even this important theoretical work is more a call to action
than actual analysis. ]n their article, "Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics
Of Food," they examine women's relationship to food and discuss everything from body
image to who cooks and serves meals. Among their observations, they note that the
burden for preparing the food often falls to women and that the work of preparing
homemade, local and sustainable food is often quite labor intensive. Furthermore, as I
31
note above, they note that food preparation requires a great deal of invisible labor as it
requires skills such as knowing what foods certain family members like and do not like.
Allen and Sachs argue that a "scholarly tum towards consumption presents an excellent
opportunity for increasing our understanding of women's connection to food" (5).
While 1 believe this article has the potential to become a foundational document for
work on women and food, particularly for those doing work in the sociology of food and
rural sociology, this work is specificaJJy focused on gender and does not engage an
intersectional approach. Furthermore, while many of the articles in this section offer
particularly important and detailed analyses of farmers' market consumers, none of them
use an intersectional approach. 1 find this surprising because it seems clear that race,
class, and gender come together at the market in particular ways that construct the space,
for example the ways that selling food at the market is dominated by white, middle-class,
heterosexual couples. My work, which takes an explicitly intersectional approach to
conduct a case study of a farmers' market, will fill an important gap in this research.
Farmers and Sustainable Agriculture
As noted earlier, the consumption/production debate in sustainable agriculture has
tended to favor production, at least in terms of the amount of literature available about
sustainable farms and faIming. In fact, the body of sociological literature examining
farming and farmers in sustainable agriculture is extensive and explores every part of a
farm's production process. FUl1hemlore, the research on farming and farmers often takes
a larger theoretical approach, asking questions about sustainable agriculture in general.
32
Much of the research about "sustainable agriculture," therefore, is work that specifically
examines the farmers or perhaps more specifically farming practices rather than
consumption and the consumers of it.
Part of the work of this section then, is to look closely at specific issues within this
wide body of literature. My project sees the farm and the farmers as part of a larger
relational system, and I am particularly interested in the roles that farmers and the
consumers have in constructing the space of the market using an intersectional approach.
The research that examines the relationship between farmers and consumers is limited
and tends to only include a brief mention. For example, Andreatta and Wickliffe's (2002)
study of a North Carolina market suggests that consumers are overall more pleased with
the market than the farmers and that the farmers believe "the real boss is the consumer"
(172). Hinrichs (2000) argues that even in CSA relationships where consumers have
seemingly little say in what they get in their boxes the consumers end up with most ofthe
power because farmers need to continually work to make certain that the consumers are
satisfied. Furthermore, the farmers must constantly work to convince the consumers to
return for another season given the growing selection available to them. She notes that
these inequities are particularly pronounced when class differences arise, for example,
between well-to-do consumers and their less well-to-do farmers.
The findings of researchers examining the demographics of sustainable farmers add
a layer of complexity to Hinrichs' conclusions. Comer et al. (1999) examined the
difference between conventional and sustainable farmers and found sustainable farmers
tend to be better educated, younger, and have more off-faIlTI income as compared to
33
conventional farmers. While more research needs to be done into the demographics of
sustainable farmers, these finding suggest that while a power difference may exist
between consumers and farmers, it may be a power difference between two relatively
empowered groups. Furthem10re, the fact that consumers are seen in a position of power
complicates a traditional Marxist understanding of power as situated in the hands of the
producer.
This relationship between consumers and producers is one the primary focuses of
my project. However, I am specifically interested in understanding the relationships
between consumers and producers from an intersectional perspective. Thus, in the next
sections I review the studies that relate to gender and then touch more briefly on the less
researched areas of class and race. Interestingly, while issues of gender have been largely
ignored in the study of markets and consumers, this research is much more developed in
the study of farming and sustainable agriculture. For example, there is a great deal of
important work on sustainability and gender happening internationally. Liepins' (1995;
1998; 2000; 2009) work on the "women in agriculture" movement is concemed with the
relationship between gender and sustainable agriculture, focusing specifically on
Australians and New Zealanders. Similarly, Brandth's (1994) research on "changing
femininity" and the "social construction of women farmers" is based on her research in
Norway. While important contributions to an understanding of gender and sustainability,
which add to a conceptual understanding of gender and US agriculture, their analyses
deal with the specifics of their local or national culture and structure.
34
There are a number of US scholars doing important work on the relationship
between masculinity and sustainable agriculture. Barlett and Conger (2004), for
example, find that the shift to sustainable agriculture has created a new type of
masculinity for the Midwestern men involved in the movement. Research in this vein has
also been done by Coldwell (2007) and by Peter, Bell, Jarnagin, and Bauer (2000). These
scholars all argue that part of a male farmer's successful shift to sustainable agriculhlre
requires him to shift his understanding of the relationship between masculinity and
farming. After all, the very things that help to reinforce a conventional male farmer's
masculinity-the use of big machinery, control of the environment through fertilizers and
pesticides, and competition-are the very things that sustainable farmers are supposed to
reject. In rejecting these elements of farming, the men have had to reconstruct what it
means to be a successful male farmer. Unspoken in this research are the ways that this
reconceptualization of masculinity may be restructuring sustainable farm masculinity in a
way that still privileges a male model (albeit a new one) of farming; in other words this
research looks at how this new form of masculinity is emerging but does not question the
masculinization of farming in general. While this research is important and enlightening
in its analysis of masculinity, it also reinforces the association between agriculture and
masculinity, obscuring the role that women play in sustainable agriculture. This work on
sustainable farm masculinity, then, often masks the many roles women play.
There does exist, however, a growing body of research on women and sustainable
agriculture in the US. For example, Chiappe and Flora's (1998) pivotal article discusses
the elements of sustainable agriculture that women involved with the movement felt were
35
important that were not included in Beus and Dunlap's (1990) original, and often cited,
table outlining the differences between conventional and alternative agriculture. Chaippe
and Flora (1998) note that the women they interviewed identified both quality of life and
spirituality as elements that are important of their vision of alternative agriculture,
elements that were not included in Beus and Dunlap's framework. Thus, it is important
to acknowledge that Beus and Dunlap's elements are not gender neutral but in fact are a
summary written up by men based on the research of other men. This is not to say that
this table is not an important tool to understand sustainable agriculture but that the
gendered implications of such a framework must be interrogated and included in an
analysis of sustainable agriculture.
There is also research done based on interviews and participant observation with
women involved with the sustainable farm movement, focusing on the ways women are
situated within the movement. Meares (2010), for example, discusses the ways that men
and women involved in sustainable agriculture feel that it affects their overall quality of
life. She finds that men involved in sustainable agriculture often tied their quality of life
to elements of the sustainable farming movement whereas the women involved are often
doing farm labor that is less institutionally valued (such as reproductive labor) and thus
are more likely to see their quality of life as coming from elements outside the fann.
Trauger (2004), on the other hand, analyzes the ways that sustainable fanning provides
the community spaces that affilm the ability of female sustainable fann operators to
succeed as faIm operators. Finally, Hall and Mogyorody (2007) discuss the ways that the
type of fanning-livestock versus vegetable fanning-affects one's beliefs in gender
36
equity. Using both survey and case study data, they find "female farmers on vegetable
farms and mixed livestock/cash crop fanns are more likely to be involved in fann
production and management than women on field crop fanns, where mechanization and
capital intensive production is much higher" (289). Hall and Mogyorody conclude that
"alternative fanning will not produce transfonned gender relations without specific
political and ideological attention to promoting gender neutral practices and ideas within
organic fann organizations and farms" (312), a conclusion reached by other scholars of
gender and sustainable agriculture (Guthman 2004; Meares 1997).
Despite this rather ominous conclusion, it at least speaks to the fact that research
on gender and sustainable agriculture is growing and continues to grow. The same
cannot be said for research on race and ethnicity and sustainable farn1ers. There is a
small body of literature that focuses on labor practices on these fanns, a literature that,
based on the demographics of farm laborers, tends to focus on Hispanic laborers. In
Shreck, Getz, and Feenstra's (2006) article, "Social sustainability, fann labor, and
organic agriculture: findings from an exploratory analysis," they find that support for
adding the goals of social sustainability to sustainable agriculture (including a concern for
racial/ethnic inequality) were at "at best lukewarm" although uneven, depending on the
fanners interviewed. This lukewann support is tied to the economic concerns of the
fanners. For example Getz, Brown, and Shreck (2008) note that in 2003 it was actually
last minute lobbying from organic growers in California that kept a loophole in the 1975
law banning the short handled hoe. The new law would have banned other kinds of stoop
labor, labor that often leads to devastating back injuries. Thus, while organic and
37
sustainable agriculture offers fann workers protection from pesticides and herbicides that
are used in industrial agriculture, the fact remains that sustainable and organic agriculture
is highly labor intensive, and often the laborers involved in both sustainable and
industrial agriculture are one and the same. While the labor process is a growing concern
among scholars, research on the racial demographics of the growers continues to be
almost completely ignored.
Yet there is important research done on issues related to food security and racial
inequality. Examples of food deserts that lead to unequal access to food are numerous.
For example, African American neighborhoods are eight times more likely to have liquor
stores which feature high priced prepackaged food as compared to white and integrated
neighborhoods (LaVeist and Wallace 2000). Furthennore, another study found fast food
restaurant location was negatively correlated with income and positively correlated with
the percentage of black residents (Block, Scribner, and DeSalvo 2004). Understanding
the dire situation for obtaining healthy food in their own community (for example, only
one grocery store (and 36 liquor stores) to feed 20,000 residents), The West Oakland
Food Collaborative started in 2001 in Oakland, California. According to the group (or
"Mo Food Better" as they were previously known) the cooperative emphasizes
community self-sufficiency and links black fanns with the black community.
As noted earlier, when given the opportunity, African-Americans in a low income
Chicago neighborhood preferred produce from their fanners' market; importantly,
Suarez-Balcazar et ai. (2006) notes that at this market the fanners selling were African?
American themselves. Yet she worries that "working class neighborhoods are more
38
likely to attract low-income fanners who might lack the government support necessary to
maintain a more sophisticated fanning enterprise."
Both the West Oakland Food Collaborative and the Chicago study suggest that, not
surprisingly, land ownership matters, and I believe whiteness in farmers' markets can be
tied back to inequality in land ownership. Of course, understanding the distribution of
sustainable food is complex. For example Webber and Dollahite (2008) note that,
"fanners practicing sustainable agriculture are at a distinct disadvantage in reaching these
[low-income] households given the subsidies and 'economies of scale' that conventional,
petro-chemical-based and subsidized agribusiness enjoy" (187). I think, however, these
two studies strongly suggest that when a person of color owns land and is able to grow
food on that land, it may mean that this food is more likely to end up on the plate of a
person of color. Yet, despite the necessity of labor from people of color and women to
the success of both conventional and sustainable agriculture, "women and ethnic
minorities have not had equal access to land, capital, or decision making in the food and
agriculture system" (Allen 1993: 148). Land ownership among women and people of
color (and African Americans in particular) is grossly unequal; African-Americans own
less than one percent of the land while Hispanics own less than two percent, in part due to
partitioning sales (the forced-sale of a faIm by a partial owner, typically after the death of
a fann owner without a will), non-participation in farm programs, and systemic
discrimination by the USDA, as was noted in a 1997 class action lawsuit against the
agency that is still being fought (Gilbert, Sharp, and Felin 2002).
Despite the fact that my research involves white farmers (mostly heterosexual
39
couples) and consumers who are also largely white, I find an understanding of this
literature furthers my discussion and theorizing about land ownership and acquisition
among the farmers I interviewed. Furthermore it helps develop my understanding of the
relationship between consumers and producers.
Sustainable Agriculture and Farmers' Markets
Throughout much of this literature review I examine literature that deals with
issues related to sustainable agriculture; in this literature the role of the farmer's market
often playa central role. Yet, despite this work that often deals with farmers' markets,
the markets as a space often plays a very minor role (if it is included at all) in the overall
analyses. While the work that is being done is important, the lack of research examining
farmers' markets directly is an area ripe for exploration in part because farmers' markets
have become an essential part of the process of shifting from conventional to sustainable
agriculture. In fact, as I noted in the introduction, Gillespie et al. (2008) refer to them as
"keystone institutions in rebuilding local food systems" (70). They argue that because of
the public nature of the markets they make sustainable agriculture highly visible and
facilitate social exchanges of shared ideas and energy about sustainable food. They also
note that they are places that allow sustainable fanns to grow, and that they act to
"incubate" these faIms. Brown and Miller (2008) note that farmers' markets educate
consumers about seasonal food as well as encourage farmers to grow a wide variety of
foods.
-------------_ ..._-----
40
Farmers' markets, therefore, are important because, as Hinrichs and Allen (2008)
note, "simply implementing more sustainable production practices was not enough.
Alternative production needed alternative markets in order to create an effective chain
(and extend the gains) ofa more sustainable agriculture" (229-30). It is not surprising,
then, that as sustainable agriculture has grown, so have the number of farmers' markets
during this period. A USDA (US Department of Agriculture 2009) report notes that
between 1994 and 2008 the number of markets increased from 1,755 markets to 5,274
markets, a 300% increase in only fifteen years.
Yet, despite this large growth in farmers' markets, the research on them that
directly analyzes the spaces of markets is somewhat limited. There are two pervasive
types of articles on farn1ers' markets by non-sociologists: those written from a marketing
perspective that are researched and designed for vendors and market managers
(Govindasamy, Italia, and Adelaja 2002; Trobe 200 I) and those that are written by the
popular press and food magazines that are filled with photos of colorful tables piled with
ripe fruit and vegetables (Hamilton 2002).
Articles that take a sociological perspective on farmers' markets, on the other hand,
fit into two primary categories. The first are articles that tend to focus on examining the
demographics of the markets; these studies are often similar in terms of their results as
the research done for marketing purposes. For example Onianwa, Mojica, and Wheelock
(2006) conducted interviews and handed out surveys at an Alabama market and found the
average consumer was a 41 year-old female who had above a high school education,
while Walton et a1. (2002) found that the average consumer at an Oklahoma market was a
41
36 year-old highly educated woman with income over $40,000. While these
demographic details are important to creating a comprehensive understanding of farmers'
markets, they also tend to not include theorizing about the markets themselves. Rather,
they are designed to answer rather simple but important questions about the
demographics of market consumers.
The second kind of sociological research on markets fits better with the scope of
my project. These studies focus on the larger theoretical questions about markets. For
example Hinrichs (2000) focuses on commodity relations at fam1ers' markets and
concludes that, "Despite the 'closer' social ties, this is still an economic arrangement?
consumers are looking to meet their needs-farmers are looking to meet theirs-their
relationships are still commodified" (297-8). Holloway and Kneafsey's (2000)
examination of a market in the UK is an excellent example of an ethnographic analysis
that is guided by an inductive analysis. In the case study they conclude that the
sustainable market they examine is a new kind of "consumption space" which is
constructed using both "conservative" and "alternative" discourses. They see the market
as at times offering conservative ideas and "reactionary valorization" that link the rural
with ideas about health and quality, but at the same time they see the market as
representing a new and "diversifying" set of economic relations for rural communities.
Like my work, they use participant observation as a method and the space itself becomes
a focus of study. Slocum's (2007) examination of whiteness in a Minneapolis market
uses a similar critical and ethnographic approach, arguing that while sustainable food
42
markets tends to be "white," we have to start somewhere to change our food system and
this is an important, if imperfect, project.
The two aforementioned articles are a few examples of the very limited research on
fanners' market that employs participant observation or ethnography. While there is an
important and growing body ofliterature on farmers' markets, most of this work is
actually focused on shldying farmers' market consumers, managers, or vendors and
involve little to no discussion about the space of the market, despite titles that suggests
the work is theorizing about the market itself (Andreatta and Wickliffe 2002; Kremen,
Green, and Hanson 2007). This is not to say this research is not valuable; it clearly adds
important elements to the body ofliterature about farmers' markets, but even scholars
who are not using ethnographic methods to study markets note that "the market is more
than just a physical space for commercial transactions; rather, the market. .. is an active
contributor to the culhlral dynamic within which those transactions take place"
(Andreatta and Wickliffe 2002: 167).
My research project treats the market as an "active contributor" and assumes that
studying the market itself offers a unique understanding about the ways that sustainable
agriculture is constructed. My work treats the market as a space where both the
consumers' and farmers' beliefs about sustainable agriculture are negotiated and uses
participant observation to gather data about this space. This kind of ethnographic
analysis, which understands the market as a place that not only reflects the consumers'
and farmers' beliefs about farmers markets but also affim1s them, fills an important niche
in the relatively small body of literature about farmers' markets. Considering the
43
dramatic increase in the number of fanners' markets, this project is particularly timely
and this type of analysis important to creating a more comprehensive understanding
fanners' markets.
Conclusion
As I noted in the introduction, the shift from conventional to sustainable
agriculture has been well analyzed from a natural science perspective; even social
scientists have taken up the project of exploring the practices ofproducing sustainable
food (Goodland 1995; Kates RW 2001; Wackernagel et a1. 2002). However, the issues
relating to the social aspects of sustainability are also important. Only fifteen years ago
Allen (1993), the leading scholar in the field, noted that discourses about sustainable
agriculture have been framed in such a way that certain topics or critiques are simply not
addressed and does not seem to be a part of the dialogue. She sets up a challenge of sorts
for scholars of sustainable agriculture, asking them to consider who specifically benefits
from sustainability on a social level.
This literature review shows many scholars have taken up the challenge of
investigating this question, from focusing on issues of racial inclusion at fanners'
markets (Guthman 2008; Slocum 2007) to exploring class inequality and CSA consumers
(Hinrichs and Kremer 2002). Yet, while this field is growing and a number of scholars
are doing important work with the dramatic rise in the number of fanners , markets as
well as rising concerns about the food, there is much work to be done. My dissertation
plays an important role in expanding the work on sustainable agriculture in general and
44
farmers' markets in particular. For one, my work uses an ethnographic approach to study
a Northwest fanners' markets. This approach allows me to examine the interactions
between the actors in a market: the consumers as well as the fanners. This is the first
project to systematically examine a market in this way. Furthermore, this approach is
particularly well sui ted for intersecti onal research. In much of my work examining the
literature 1 found that consumers and farmers were more often than not constructed as
either ungendered or unraced, and that the markets were often also constructed in similar
ways. This project sees intersectional analysis as critical to a more complete
understanding of sustainable agriculture and to a more complete understanding of
farmers' markets. This dissertation brings a feminist lens to a body of literature that is
ripe for this analysis.
45
CHAPTER III
METHODS
This dissertation examines the relationships between consumers, fam1ers, and the
farmers' market using both participant observation and interview methods. In this
project, I interviewed both farmers and consumers and observed at both the market itself
and sustainable farm operations. These multiple perspectives are critical to the project
because I emphasize how the market actually brings farmers, consumers, and their ideas
about sustainability into contact, making my observations at the market central to
understanding the data from both consumers and farmers.
As I noted previously, this project examines how the ideals of social sustainability
are put into practice by consumers and farmers of sustainable food in a society where
social injustices are often embedded on both a structural and individual level. For
example how do consumers conceptualize their participation in the market? How do
consumers understand people who do not shop at the market? What social location did
farmers have before becoming a sustainable farmer? Do class and educational privileges
shape a fanner's commitment to project of sustainability? Does the presentation of
sustainability at the market create a space that privileges particular consumers or farmers?
46
Who is constructed as the "ideal" consumer at the market and what consumer seems most
"welcome" in that space?
To answer these questions, this project uses a number of methods that are outlined
in this chapter. I begin by discussing my observations at the market and interviews with
consumers there. I then discuss the interview and observation methods I used with the
farmers in this study. I follow this with a discussion of my use of grounded theory, an
important methodological perspective that emphasizes interaction and the meanings
created by those interactions. Given the importance of space and interaction at the
market to my analysis of sustainable agriculture, grounded theory provides a key
framework for my research. Finally, I conclude the chapter with a discussion of what it
means to be a feminist researcher using a qualitative, ethnographic research method to
answer my research questions.
Interviewing at and Observing the Market
Participant observation is a research method where the researcher immerses
oneself in particular social environment to understand the how that space operates.
Participant observation at a Northwest Farmers' Market was my primary method. I
observed 7-10 times per month for 2-3 hours at a time beginning in April and running
through September of2008; my observations were sometimes limited from mid-June
through mid-July due to teaching responsibilities. I observed on different days and
during different time periods to get a better sense of the ebb and flow of consumers and
farmers. Thus, one day I observed during the set up period, one day during the middle of
47
the day, another time when the market was being packed up. During my observations I
took notes in a field notebook. The notes included everything from unusual events I
observed to the mundane tasks that seemed rather unspectacular. I also made maps of the
market during different days and noted the apparent race and gender of the vendors.
Some days my notes were relatively sparse and other days I filled pages, although it was
always difficult trying to decide when to write and when to observe.
Often I felt quite awkward standing around the market day after day watching
people go about what is a fairly routine activity-buying groceries. As Wax (I 986)
notes, one must be willing to feel out of place, embarrassed, and even "treated like a fool
not only for a day or week but for months on end" to fully engage in participant
observation (370).
I attempted to be an overt observer. I did not hide my field notebook or my voice
recorder. I also participated in the market as much as I could-buying produce and
trying to get into the mindset of a consumer. At the time of my research I was on food
stamps, and I found the experience of using food stamps at the market to be a source of
valuable material. J was surprised by how cumbersome the process was; some vendors
had no idea how to use them, and I had to teach them how to accept them, but I also
found that all the vendors I bought from seemed genuinely accepting of their use at the
market.
I also found myself spending a fair amount of time in the elevated parking lot
behind the market where there was more shade and a different vantage point to watch the
comings and goings of the market. Often J went to this elevated lot hoping to be filled
48
with a moment of inspiration that would help pull all my observations together into a
single, unifying idea. Occasionally, a vendor would turn around and see me standing
there with my notebook and I would feel like a voyeur, but through the process of
interviewing consumers and doing farm visits I became more familiar with many of the
farmers. Word seem to have spread that the woman wandering around with a notebook
and audio recorder was just one of the many strange things at the market that become
"normal."]
In addition to my observations at the market, I conducted 44 short, structured
interviews with 48 consumers at the market (four interviews were with couples that either
wanted to be interviewed together or ended up both answering the questions during the
interviews). The interviews lasted about 10 minutes and all but two ofthe consumers
agreed to be audio recorded (to see the interview schedule for consumers see Appendix
A). The interviews included demographic questions, questions about the consumers'
history at the market, and general impressions of the space and the food for sale. These
consumers were selected using purposeful, convenience sampling. As noted, in four
cases I ended up interviewing two people rather than one-for example, someone's
husband would wander up during an interview and they would both answer my questions.
While transcribing and coding these interviews I was careful to note who was speaking.
I attempted to select a diverse demographic sample of market goers and was
particularly attuned to race, gender, class, parental status, and age, although clearly not all
1 Of course, the man dressed in head-to-toe tie-dye sporting a large pan?ot on his shoulder routinely
wandered the market and no one ever seemed to notice his presence either, which did help me put my
situation in some perspective.
49
of these factors can be discovered before an interview. I attempted, however, to get a
wide variety of people. The 48 people interviewed included eight University of Oregon
students, eight people in their 20s, eight people in their 30s, six people in their 40s, eight
people in their 50s, six people in their 60s, one woman in her seventies, and one woman
in her eighties. I interviewed 32 women and 16 men. Finding an equal number of men
and women to interview was challenging for two primary reasons: the first was that men
were much more likely to either say no to an interview or to call over a wife or female
partner and say, "she really knows a lot more about this stuff, she'll talk to you"; the
second was that there were more women at the market, particularly during the Tuesday
and Thursday markets. I take both the gender imbalance in the number of consumers as
well as less willingness on the part of male consumers to be interviewed as data in my
analysis. Interestingly both consumers who agreed to be interviewed but refused to be
audio recorded were older males.
] was continually surprised by how difficult it was to find men, particularly older
men, who were willing to be interviewed. It was not just men, however, who refused my
request for an interview; most people cited either a lack of time or said that they didn't
know enough about the subject to agree to an interview. In total, I would estimate that at
least half of the people I approached for an interview refused to be interviewed.
Generally, I would approach consumers who seemed to be taking a break from their
shopping, either sitting on a bench or standing on the sidewalk, and would tell them I was
a graduate student writing my dissertation on farmers' markets. ] would ask to interview
them and tell them the interviews were very short. Some days were particularly easy and
50
I would have no rejections and quickly finish two interviews; other days I would
approach three or four people before I secured a single interview. Furthermore, despite
my attempts to get a racially diverse group of respondents, I ended up with only six
interviews with people who described themselves as something other than white. This is
due to a lack of people of color at the market to interview as well as some language
difficulties. On a number of occasions I approached consumers of color who stated that
they did not speak English. In all cases, I believe these were people of Asian or Hispanic
descent.
Interviews as a research method proved to be a useful addition to my observations
for a number of reasons. First, one simply cannot observe all the important details of a
person or an occupation. Observation allows a researcher to examine the present and
perhaps make inferences about the past and future. But by asking people directly about
their lives, their experiences, their beliefs, one's research develops an additional layer of
context for what is observed. Furthermore, the interviews allowed me access to
information that is not readily available through observation. Demographic information
as well as people's own understandings and the meaning they create are accessible
through interviews but not necessarily through participant observation. Thus, in building
a more complete picture about the market I was able to ask questions regarding race,
gender, education, age, income, and belief systems in order to examine how they all come
together.
51
Farm Visits and Interviews with Farmers
In addition to my observations and interviews at the market I also completed eight
interviews with farmers. Seven of these interviews also included fann tours and
observations. The interviews usually lasted one and a half hours with an additional hour
for the tour. I had an interview schedule (see appendix B) that Jused during the fann
interviews, but during the tours I simply asked to see the farms and asked questions about
the operations. The interviews with the farmers were all audio recorded; my observations
from tours were recorded in my field notebook.
Most of my farm observations took place during the fall of 2008 and winter of
2009 with a few happening in summer of2008. My first interview was with a woman
who ran a sustainable goat dairy whom J met at the market during my early weeks of
observations. From there, the fam1ers J interviewed were mostly selected using snowball
sampling. After my farrn visits J would ask for the names of other people J could
interview and would then follow up with a thank you card that again mentioned wanting
to speak with other farmers. This nonnally elicited a name and phone number of a new
contact.
While I did not have many fanners who explicitly refused to be interviewed, I did
find it difficult to find farmers to interview. In part this was because J was able to
conduct these interviews during the summer when I was not teaching, but this is when the
fanners were the busiest with their farms. Just the same, J received almost no o,utright
refusals; instead most fanners initially either never responded to my calls or found other
ways of saying no to an interview. For example, I might get a number of a fanner at the
52
market and then call them, set up an interview, and then when I called to confirm the
interview the night before I would find out that they actually were not willing to be
interviewed that day. For example, one woman I wanted to interview wanted to change
the interview date because it was snowing-even though I was driving to her and assured
her that I am quite willing and able to drive in two inches of snow. I rescheduled the
interview, called the night before to double check about the interview only to be told she
had decided to go to Hawaii. At this point I gave her my number and asked her to call
when she returned because I felt that perhaps she was feeling pressured and this was her
not-so-subtle way of saying to leave her alone. Apparently it was-she never called me
back. This process of finding farnlers was riddled with these kinds of examples-one
farmer called to cancel an interview less than an hour before because he said, "his wife
didn't want him to do it." Overall, about half of the farmers I approached for an
interview ended up not being interviewed for one reason or another. I could not tind a
particular pattern in the refusal-some who refused ran large, well-known farms and
other ran small start-ups. In general, the farmers who refused often seemed similar to the
ones who I interviewed.
Furthermore, while I had initially hoped to interview some of the vendors at the
market who were not white, mostly immigrants from Laos, language difficulties proved
difficult to overcome. When I approached one family about participating in an interview
I was told I could interview their daughter the following week because her English was
the strongest. I was a bit unsure about this as the daughter looked to be about 8-10 years
old, but came back the following week to find that they had not brought their daughter
53
with them. Once again I took this as a sign that they would prefer not to be interviewed
and, based on a general sense of nervousness on the part of the farmers, I decided to not
pursue this further. It was always a difficult call when to decide to leave a farmer alone.
In general I tried to reach out to them three times before I crossed them off my list.
Despite these difficulties, I interviewed a good sample of the most prominent
fanners in the area-when I mentioned whom I had previously interviewed to one well?
connected fanner he shook his head and seemed genuinely impressed with the list.
Specifically, I conducted interviews at eight farms. Some of the fanners ran well-known,
prominent fall11S and others had small operations and were still working on finding their
specific niche. Of these farms, heterosexual couples ran six of them, a woman who was
somewhat recently single ran one, and one farm was operated as a nonprofit and was
managed by a married man. Thus, at many of the fanns I actually ended up interviewing
a couple rather than the "farmer." Throughout my transcription I was careful to note who
was talking during my transcriptions. Of the fanners I interviewed three of the couples
had moved the area in the last five years to start the farms; three of the couples had been
famling in the area for over fifteen years. Interestingly, only one of the farmers had
grown up in what might be considered an agriculture setting. They tended to be well
educated; all had at least some college education. All the farmers I interviewed described
themselves as white, except for the partner of one farmer who described herself as having
a "mother from Okinawa."
The fanners I chose were all small-scale farms that I would describe as
"sustainable," however, not all the farmers that I interviewed sold their products at the
54
farmers' market. This was a conscious decision on my part because I was interested in
discovering differences between the farms that grew for the market and other farms. Of
the farmers I interviewed who did not sell at the market, one ran a CSA and had a farm
stand, the other ran a non-profit farm for the local food bank, sold a small number of
CSA shares, and ran a farm stand.
Each of my interviews with the fanTIers was digitally recorded and all potentially
relevant material transcribed word for word. Any material that did not seem remotely
relevant to the project was summarized with the beginning and end times noted so that I
could easily refer back to the material if necessary. (I like to build a bit ofrapport with
my respondents, so sometimes we end up talking about the f10wers in the garden, the
dog's unusual spot pattern or other material that does not usually end up in the analysis.)
The interviews mostly took place on the fanTIs with the exception of one interview that I
conducted at the market and one interview that I did over the phone. Both these
interviews lacked farm visits because the farmers said they did not have time to conduct a
tour. After all the interviews and farm visits I also made notes either in my field
notebook or on my audio recorder. These notes included details about things like the
setting of the interviews and the demeanor and appearance of the respondents as well as
information and details about the farm, such as what they had growing, who I noticed
working there, and anything else that seemed relevant.
I found that the interviews and the farm visits worked particularly well because I
found that farmers were often much more comfortable walking around and talking about
their crops than they were just sitting at a table talking. While some were clearly more
55
comfortable being interviewed than others, the tours often put me at ease and helped me
ask more specific questions. I was very familiar with my interview schedule so that it
was unnecessary to constantly refer to it. I knew which questions I wanted to include but
tried not to stay too wedded to the questions printed on the page. I worked particularly
hard at listening and asking fol1ow-up questions. I found I developed decent rapport and
the farmers seemed willing to talk with me. While my observations at the market were
often tinged with a feeling of awkwardness, I always found the fann visits and farmer
interviews to be a wonderful experience. The farmers I interviewed were without fail
generous with their time and the kind of people whose presence feels life affinning. It
was often the feeling I had after my fanner interviews that allowed me to return to the
task of collecting data at the market.
"Pick-A-Farmer"
Along with observations at the market and on fanns, I also attended the 2008 and
2009 "Pick-a-Fanner" events. The event is organized by churches in the area and brings
together potential consumers with faImers who are selling shares of their CSA. The
farmers set up booths to introduce their farms to consumers, and the farmers are generally
celebrated and thanked for their work in the community. This event was useful because it
allowed me to see the ways that the farnls are marketed to consumers and the way
sustainable agriculture is framed. During the two events I attended, I took field notes and
chatted with the farmers and consumers. While this event is not central to my project, I
did find it useful because the farmers are not sel1ing their produce or products at the event
56
but instead are selling shares of their CSA. It really is about being able to market the
farm and the idea of sustainable agriculture rather than a specific food item. Thus it was
interesting and useful to see how the farmers were presented to the consumers and how
the consumers responded to the event. It provided an event outside the market itself to do
observations; however, as this is a yearly event my observations here were clearly limited
as are my discussions of the events.
Grounded Theory
The basis for this dissertation is original data collected primarily beginning in the
spring of2008 through the spring of2009. Specifically, the approach used in my
dissertation is grounded theory, an inductive research method where the analytical
categories are grounded in the data itself (as opposed to constructing categories prior to
researching and then analyzing the data in terms of the preconstructed categories). I
found Charmaz's (2006) book, Constructing Grounded Theory, to be a particularly useful
methodological tool and referred to it throughout the research process.
As Charmaz (2006) notes, "grounded theory serves as a way to learn about the
worlds we study and a method for developing theories to understand them" (I 0). This
makes her discussion of grounded theory a valuable tool in answering my research
question because it acknowledges a constructionist perspective and, importantly, focuses
on understanding the meanings that are created through interactions. Through this
emphasis on interactions, grounded theory allows me to examine how different values in
sustainable food are manifested and how these values are based in ideologies and
57
structures that are gendered, racialized and classed. Furthermore, I believe it also allows
me to examine the complexities and paradoxes of the farmers' market as a space of
sustainable agriculture, a space that is both a reaction to the exploitive systems of
industrial agriculture and a system that is forced to operate nonetheless within a capitalist,
market system. The space of the market is based on an ideology of competition yet it is
also a space where the tenets of this alterative system often stress cooperation. Grounded
theory and qualitative methods allow me as a researcher to explore the ways that the
minutia of the everyday world is deconstructed or reproduced, sustained or delegitimated
within this complex space of sustainable agriculture.
In part, I think that I have always intuitively used a grounded theory approach to
my research, but Charmaz's discussion of grounded theory validated my approach as a
researcher and also gave me a grammar with which to describe my process. Furthermore,
her step-by-step discussion of grounded theory gave me a road map for collecting and
analyzing my data. Using grounded theory I began the process of analyzing the data at
the same time as I gathered it. My research and this process was not a linear one; instead
my research question became more focused as my research progressed and in the process
my interviews and observations also became more focused. The ideas and theories that
are formed while gathering data then focus and direct further data collection. Thus, it was
during my observations and interviews that I began thinking critically about my data,
constructing rudimentary codes, and allowing my project to take shape. This project
began primarily as a study in gender and sustainable agriculture, but in the field I noticed
58
issues that were also racialized and classed, and so I opened the project up to include
these issues.
Through the use of grounded theory and the process of coding, a number of
themes repeated in my interviews and I was able to build from those themes. My
interviews and the observations were intimately connected and thus not separate phases
of the project. The interviews changed the focus of my observation and what I observed
shaped the questions I asked. I see the interviews and observations as two methods that
are mutually reinforcing, and thus my interviews sent me back to the field and my
observations required further interviews.
The analysis of my observations and interviews began with memo writing and
coding. During the research process I wrote memos based on my observations and
interviews in an attempt to develop my theoretical codes. The purpose of the memo
writing was to record and process ideas while I was still in the field. It is also a way to
develop the theoretical connections. The memo writing became an intermediate step
between data collecting and drafting the chapter, because it became a means to
understanding the data.
I coded my field notes and transcribed consumer farmer and consumer interviews
using a question-by-question analysis in order to begin to explore the themes that
developed. First, I read through all my transcripts and developed an initial list of codes
based on my first reading. Then, using that initial list, I applied these codes to the
interviews by reading them again and applying the codes I had originally developed or
adding new codes if necessary. I then put this coded data into databases where I
59
organized data from the respondent and included their verbatim quotes that I had coded
into each category. This initial coding and organizing led to a more focused coding; this
focused coding often used more of the theoretical categories that emerged during the
question-by-question analysis as well as the memo writing.
My observations and analysis are also guided by West and Zimmennan's (1987)
conceptualization of "doing gender." They are argue that "gender is not a set of traits,
nor a variable, nor a role, but the product of social doings of some sort" (6). They claim
that gender is an accomplishment that happens in interaction with others and in
interaction with institutions, not simply an individualized performance or behavior. Their
theory of "doing gender" has guided this project. While West and Zimmerman's theory
specifically applies to gender, I have used the tenets of their theory throughout my
research process. This is in part because my field site, like the larger world, is a place
where gender intersects with other social locations. It became clear almost immediately
that I simply could not talk about gender without also talking about race, class, and
sexual orientation. Yet throughout my research I kept retuming to West and
Zimmerman's ideas and a guiding force. It was West and Zimmerman's ideas about
"social doings" that happen in interaction that pushed me to use an ethnographic
approach in my research.
This focus on interaction, however, has been critiqued by a number of scholars
including Collins (2002), who argues that the constructionist paradigm Fenstermaker and
West use obscures the relationship between patriarchy, capitalism, and racism.
Moreover, Weber (2002) argues that, "West and Zimmennan obscure rather than
60
illuminate the mechanisms of power in the production and maintenance of racism,
classism, and sexism. For race, class, and gender scholarship, social relations of
dominance/control and subordination/resistance are the cornerstones of theory" (89).
While the critiques of Fenstermaker and West are important, I tend to agree with
Fenstermaker's and West's reply to such critiques (2002b), which asserts that a focus on
interaction does not necessary mean that mechanisms of power and oppression are
ignored. Certainly, power and inequality are established at multiple levels through
interaction. Their focus on a more micro-level understanding of oppression is important
and does not need to obscure larger structural forces. Furthermore, Glenn (1999) makes a
similar suggestion, noting that race and gender share three key features: they are
relational (they gain meaning in relation to each other), they have a social structure, and
they are tied with power, connecting the interaction of race, class, and gender on an
individual level with social structures (9).
An ethnographic approach is important because it is a way to explore the
mechanisms of inequality; rather than simply saying that inequality exists, ethnography is
a way of untangling inequality and understanding where it comes from and what
ideologies are used to justify it. Thus West and Zimmerman (1987) note that gender
inequality is maintained through everyday interactions. Through gendered interactions
that are considered natural and normal, "we simultaneously sustain, reproduce, and
render legitimate the institutional arrangements that are based on sex categories" (22).
These social arrangements are based on rewards and punishments that by their very
nature are supposed to be unnoticed on any distinguishable level. If a woman does
61
gender appropriately, she may receive more eye contact from those around her, more
consolatory gestures. If she is unable or unwilling to do gender appropriately, those
gestures and glances will change in a way that will make it clear that she has personally
failed to maintain the requirements of the social system, at which time she must decide
whether or not to adjust her behavior. The further one deviates from these "natural" and
"normal" arrangements, the larger the consequences for that individual-rarely is the
gender system questioned.
Through my research 1 would argue that that race, class, and sexual inequality are
also produced, and sometime delegitimized, through systems of interaction. Given this
emphasis on interaction, therefore, ethnography is a valuable method because it allows
me to observe the ways gender, race, and class are constructed and interpreted by the
participants. Furthennore, using grounded theory to guide my qualitative study of
markets provided rich data with which to work.
Conclusion: A Feminist Approach
It is worth noting that my reasons for choosing qualitative methods as well as my
focus on intersectional issues are motivated by my feminist politics. It is my belief that at
least in some superficial way interviews will allow those who are being researched to
have some "voice" in the project as I pursue a kind of feminist ethnography that
challenges hierarchal power structures. A number of scholars have questioned whether
there can be a feminist ethnography given the hierarchy between the researcher and the
researched (Stacey 1988); Abu-Lughod 1990), and a common solution offered regarding
62
this issue is the practice of collaborative research. In this model of ethnography, the
researcher and the subjects work together to create a project that attempts to explore a
certain aspect of the lived world and gives the people in that world a voice in the
interpretations or knowledge produced. While a number of problems with this type of
open and collaborative research have been offered that complicate collaboration as a
solution, many argue that collaborative work is a viable and obvious solution available to
ethnographers concemed about issues of power and positionality.
However, given the academy's structure for dissertations that emphasizes
individual authorship, it was not possible to produce a piece of collaborative work for this
project. Just the same, a number of fanners that I interviewed asked to see a copy of my
finished work, and I plan to distribute a copy to them post defense. Of course, this is
quite different than allowing them to participate in the process of creating this
dissertation; just the same, throughout this process knowing that they will at least have
the opportunity to read the final project pushed me to approach this project with a level of
concem and faimess that I believe becomes more pronounced if those who are researched
have access to the project. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that I have control and
responsibility for what is presented and not presented here. I have attempted in my work
to be open and reflexive about my power as a researcher.
Furthennore, it is important to acknowledge that I-like all researchers regardless
ofmethod-come at this project with a particular standpoint that affects the ways I see
the world. This standpoint shapes the questions I ask and even the data that is the most
salient to my work. This is not to say that other scholars would likely find results
63
different from mine, or that my results are not grounded in the data. However, while I am
a researcher who strives to create an accurate picture of the world I observe, I am
nonetheless a researcher with a particular history and perspective, one that filters my
view of the world I research.
Throughout the process I felt a pronounced tension because my relationship to
sustainable agriculture and to the fall11erS and consumers often felt very contradictory.
First, the power imbalance between my respondents and me was much more muted than
in previous projects. The vast majority of the people I interviewed were highly educated
and extremely well versed in the subjects we discussed, and I rarely felt like I was in a
position of power. These feelings were often exacerbated by imbalances in gender and
age. I was often much younger than the people I was interviewing and as a youngish
woman interviewing older often male fanners, the power imbalance seemed particularly
complex. My own feelings ranged from being very comfortable and having a seemingly
equitable rapport with my subjects to feeling that I was an idiot who could not manage to
secure an interview. In fact, I sometimes felt a real tension between my own feelings of
vulnerability in the field and Wolf's (1996) argument that, "the most central dilemma for
contemporary feminists in fieldwork .. .is the power and the unequal hierarchies or levels
of control that are often maintained, perpetuated, created and re-created during and after
field research" (2). Frankly, sometimes I felt a little like I must be doing something
wrong because I could not ever quite manage to feel that I had much control during this
process.
64
Furthennore, I felt a constant sense of unease at the market that I could not shake.
In fact, I was partially motivated to undertake this project because of the contradictory
feelings I have about sustainable agriculture. As the daughter of a "conventional"
rancher I sometimes felt that both the consumers and fanners were unfairly villainizing
and often mischaracterizing what was an important part of my family's history. This is
not to say that there aren't many parts of it that I might also critique, but it can be
somewhat difficult to hear. Additionally, I often looked around the market and felt like
there were many people in my family who would love to eat a delicious tomato or peach
but would never venture to a farmers' market because, justified or not, they just would
not feel comfortable or welcome in that space. In John Deere hats and with a penchant
for "regular" food, I could really never envision my brother buying, or trying to
pronounce, arugula. Despite this I often found myself at the market feeling as though
participation in sustainable agriculture was important for environmental and social
reasons. So I suppose I felt a tension between my particular past and heritage and my
particular future-a future which will likely include the trappings of the educated middle?
class which tends to include things like farmers' market produce.
Perhaps because of these contradictory outlooks, I feel a real sense of
responsibility for what is produced from my research. I understand that I have a
responsibility to produce work that is reflective of the data I collected, work that treats
the consumers and fanners that I interviewed fairly. As an ethnographic researcher I
recognize that I am part of those data, that my history and philosophy will shape this
particular dissertation. This dissertation is the product of a particular time, place and
65
paradigm; this paper is a product of my struggle with my own positionality-one of
power and of powerlessness. Ultimately as I became more immersed in my research I
reminded myself that ultimately what is perhaps most important is that this is a text that
"knows its politics" (Mascia-Lees 1989:8).
66
CHAPTER IV
THE FARMERS
The fann visits and interviews with fanners were the highlight of my research. It
was quite difficult to find farmers who were willing to give me a part of their hectic day
for my research; however, the ones that did were passionate, thoughtful and engaged
people. I admired them for their commitment. This chapter examines sustainable
fanning and the patterns 1 found across my interviews and observations with sustainable
fanners. I was struck throughout my research by the differences among the fanns that
fell within a broad definition of "sustainable." The common denominator in the tenn
"sustainability" seemed to be an underlying beliefthat industrial agriculture is polluting
our environment and our bodies. "Sustainable agriculture" is a way of building solidarity
between these farms, yet beyond that the faTIns are quite different. Though many of the
fanns used bio-dynamic principles-a fanning method developed by Rudolph Steiner
which sees the fann as a holistic system-some found the bio-dynamic process of
making compost tinctures (by burying specific herbs in specific animal parts, an intestine
or horn, for example) bizarre. Some biked their produce around town to avoid using
fossil fuels, while others used bio-diesel, and others believed that the use of fossil fuels
was a necessary evil that allowed them to distribute tons of food that had been produced
67
sustainably. The farmers took different philosophical approaches to farming and brought
different experiences and different resources. The idea of "sustainability," however, was
a tem1 that tied the farms together and gave them a critical mass. This concept gave
consumers a sense of choice at the market and the farmers a sense of community_
This chapter is primarily based on research I conducted at eight farms. One of
these eight farms, Mountain Glen Dairy, was primarily a dairy goat operation run by
Wendy, a young single mother who built her dairy from a herd her mother-in-law had
originally bred. For a woman who shared that she worked 120 hours a week and was
raising her two children by herself, she struck me as amazingly calm. She met me by my
car and we walked through the farm on the kind of day that was so hot your clothes stick
to your skin. The farm was dry and a bit tired looking, but as Wendy spoke about her
dreams for the place my vision of it also shifted. We toured the dairy with its milking
room and cheese making room as well as the gardens and pastures and I could see the
farm that she saw as it matured in the years to come.
Two farms were livestock and dairy operations. Winding Road Meat and Dairy
was run by a middle-aged couple, Claire and Peter, who had moved from the East Coast a
few years earlier with their children to stmi the farm. It was located on the top of a gently
sloping hill, and when Claire met me at my car she noted my car seat in the back seat and
immediately asked to see a picture of my son. The rest of the interview proceeded like a
friendly conversation as we walked around the farm. Claire was the mother of five and
had grown up in a farming family. When we met it was early fall and the weather was
beautiful. I was able to pet the cows and meet the children as they went about their
68
chores on the farm. The setting was nothing less than idyllic. The other livestock and
dairy operation, a small homestead farm called Dogwood Poultry that sells primarily
chickens and turkeys at market, is run by Yvette and her husband lanett, a young couple.
When I met Yvette for the interview she already had been out for a long run and was
filled with a nahlral high energy. We sat in her living room where she was brewing large
tubs of apple cider. Her excitement and seeming joy with her life energized the room.
She shared her love of the smell of butchering chickens (which her husband found
disgusting) and her self-taught hobby: taxidermy. I had silently noted the number of furs
around the room, but the it was not until she noted that the smell in the room was that of
the baby screech owl she had found on the road defrosting by the fire (she froze it until
she was ready to begin) that lleamed the full extent of her hobby. She showed me the
fox in her bedroom and the rest of the interview progressed in a similar high energy and
slightly disjointed fashion.
Three of the farmers I interviewed raised a large range of foods, producing
evelything from fruits and vegetable to eggs to meat. Opal and lack are a middle-aged
couple that had originally moved to the area 18 years earlier and had farmed throughout
the valley in different locations. Their farm was unique in that the two of them delivered
all their food, 20-tons a year, by bike. Their life emphasized the happiness that could be
found in living simply. Besides not owning a car, their home looked to be less than 400
square feet. Their young son rode his bike and Jack worked in the backfield as Opal and
I toured the falms. Their commitment to being part of a sustainable community was clear
and their conviction could be seen in every facet of life they had created for themselves.
69
At Horse Sense Farm, Jeff and Penny did the majority of the farming using draft horses
and Jeff also worked as a successful professional in town. Jeff showed me around the
farm with a reserved, serious demeanor. The f31m that he and Penny had built was
meticulously kept-even during the winter it was beautiful. Their home was large and
beautifully constructed, and as the three ofns sat down for a cup of tea Penny said to
ignore the clutter; perhaps it is more a testament to my own sense of clutter, but the home
simply felt warm and lived in to me. Sam and Janine at To Your Health Farm had been
farming for 30 years, the longest of anyone I interviewed. Their farm did seem genuinely
cluttered to me, but as Sam pointed out items that he saved to build a piece of machinery
and piece of wood that would make a fine refuge for the birds, it was clear that it was a
functional farm. As we sat down for a cup of tea I sat and watched what seemed like
hundreds of beautiful little birds descend on the feeders and flowers around the house,
and it struck me how this farm worked in tandem with the natural environment; it was a
place where native birds still thrived.
The final two producers I interviewed grew primarily produce. Zeb and Denise at
Bountiful Farms grew primarily produce and nursery plants and had been in the area 17
years. Zeb had earned an advanced degree in the social sciences; he described himself as
a cynic and then lived up to his own label. Our conversations often went far afield. We
would discuss pre-agricultural societies and the carbon footprints of air travel, but I found
these conversations particularly helpful in my thinking about this project as it was hard
for me to ask a question that Zeb had not already given a great deal of thought to. And as
1 watched Zeb at the market debating another producer about bio-dynamic practices it
70
helped make it clear that there is no party line for sustainability-that this is a system that
is in flux and that is being actively constructed. Finally, I interviewed Phil who worked
for a salary at an urban fann owned by the Food Bank that produced food that was mostly
given to the food bank. We sat outside in the cold of winter at a picnic table and as I
interviewed him a number of people stopped by the farm to ask questions about buying
shares from their CSA or to ask where the shovels should go. Phil mentioned a number
of times how little farming he often gets to do and how much his position entailed people
managing. During our time together this point was made over and over by frequent
interruptions. Despite this, he was friendly and engaged. Furthermore, that he farmed for
a nonprofit farm often stood in contrast to the other farmers who were for profit; this
interview offered an important point of comparison for my research.
Using my interviews and farm visits, this chapter explores a number of points that
I found during the course of my research. I begin by exploring the ways that farmers
negotiate the demands of the market system, examining how the aesthetically-pleasing
presentation of the famls at the market is often in stark contrasts to the material realities
of fanning. Next I explore the ways that fanns deal with the tensions between their
idealized visions of sustainable fanning and their lived experience of implementing these
visions within a capitalist agricultural system. Additionally, I explore how education and
class are related to a farmer's ability to farm. Using this idea, I examine how class and
education privileges may allow these farmers to fann by subsidizing the food they sell
with their off farm income. FinallY,l examine how women's success in farming is often
71
tied to heterosexual marriage and how the feminization of fmm labor seems to defy
common logic about farming and gender.
The Construction of Food at the Market Versus the Farms
During my interviews and tours with the farmers, the tensions between
sustainable agriculture as an ideal and sustainable agriculture as it is practiced became an
immediate source of discussion. These tensions and contradictions were often invisible
to the consumers at the market, in part because of the ways that the market was
structured. My observations and interviews with the farmers suggested that these farmers
were deeply attuned to these tensions and reflexi ve about their practices as they
negotiated their ideal vision of sustainable faIming and their actfual practice of it.
One of the first tensions I observed was between the aesthetically beautiful tables
and images of the market and the practical realities of farming, which is often a dirty
business. For example, when 1 visited Mountain Glen Dairy at the end of a dry Oregon
summer the ground in the goat pens were bare and parched. The owner, Wendy, was
feeding the goats hay and garden greens and waiting for Oregon's rain to green the dairy.
Outside the milking parlor does bucked and waited for their tum at the milking stanchion.
Walking into the dairy barn, 1 was overwhelmed with the buzzing of flies and the
humming of milking machines that filled the room along with the musky odor of goats.
observed one woman wrangling the goats in place and another cleaning their teats and
attaching the cups of the milking machine. The parlor was a small room where up to
eight goats could be milked at a time. The stanchions were elevated making the udders
72
about waist high. Not surprisingly given the room full of goats, it was not particularly
clean in this section of the dairy.
The milking parlor where I entered was separated from the cheese making
operation by a series of rooms: one held a large stainless steel vat for storing and
separating the milk. Next was a room filled with the mechanical equipment, vitamins and
tinctures for goat ailments. Finally, we came to a small room filled with large coolers
where goat cheese was aged, and attached to that was the room where the milk was
turned into the cheese that was sold at the famler's market. A woman stood carefully
wrapping pyramids of cheese in brown paper, a signature of Mountain Glen Diary. As
we walked from room to room Wendy explained how everything operated, how she had
worked to design and build the dairy. It was a well thought out, impressive operation.
Yet, despite my best efforts, I could not get over the flies; each room had fewer than the
next but they were still everywhere. In the mechanical room dark ribbons of flypaper
plastered with flies did very little to control the buzzing, although by the time we reached
the cheese-making room only a very few remained.
At another farm, Dogwood Poultry, which is focused on selling chickens and
turkeys, Yvette described the chickens as "Franken-chickens" when I commented on their
rather unfortunate appearance. She explained that because these fast growing meat
chickens are bred to put all their energy into meat production, a side effect is that their
hind-ends are nearly featherless. Confronted with these semi-feathered, rather unsightly
looking creatures, who I was told had to have their food taken away at night to keep them
from eating themselves to death, it occurred to me that this is not exactly how I would
73
imagine a $5.00 a pound chicken looking. It certainly was a far cry from the images of
"free-range" chickens that often show up on a farm website.
At Good Taste Fann the mushroom growing room was nothing short of creepy
(and fascinating). It was a long dark building filled with hanging black garbage bags as
well as hardwood logs that had been inoculated with mushroom spores, and it had the
dank, earthy smell of compost. Yet, these parts of the production process are often
excluded from the images used to sell the food. Yvette at Dogwood Poultry commented
as I was leaving her farm that "it's funny because I think they [the consumers] think
farmers are ... living like pictures from Hobby Fanner magazine and whenever there are
publications written about sustainable farming they are totally glammed up, you know?
They're like 'Oh, let's take a picture of the lavender plants and the smiling farmer' and
the fanner puts on a nice shirt for the picture, instead of one with holes in the shoulders
and stuff, you know? I don't think it's glamorous." This point suggests the ways that the
realities of producing sustainable food are often hidden behind images that romanticize
the experiences of producing that food. Furthennore, these kinds of images hide the real
labor that goes into producing the food. Similar to the ways that the shiny presentations
of food at the grocery store erases any reminders of who picked that food, these kinds of
images only show a particular visions of sustainability.
I want to be very clear that while the flies, "Franken-chickens," and mushroom
room were not the images that the fanns used to sell their foods, I did not observe
anything at any of the farms that stmck me as even remotely questionable in terms of the
health of the food. These are the material realities of fanning and at any of the fanns I
74
would have happily eaten anyone of these foods. Yet there were clear differences
between what it takes to produce food and sell it. For example the thick waves of flies in
the air and the little pebbles of goat manure littering the floor of the milking parlor at
Mountain Glen Dairy were a rather stark contrast from the Mountain Glen table at the
farmer's market. Their stand is quite small, but it is set up to evoke an idyllic pastoral
scene. A single table is spread with a yellow printed tabled cloth on which wrapped
pyramids of cheese are displayed on ice. Each cheese pyramid is adorned with a
watercolor label of goats standing in a lush meadow and the even the sign displaying the
name of the fann is artfully painted with a sprig of flowers tucked in the corner. The
images used to sell the food and presented at the market suggest the tension between
theses realties of producing food versus selling it. Consumers have come to expect a
particular presentation of food and farmers often spend a great deal of time and energy
marketing their foods. Clearly, it would be easier for the farmers to simply show up to
the market, open up the back of a truck and sell their foods out of the cardboard boxes or
the plastic tubs that they arrive to the market in. Yet, with the exception of one older
woman who has been growing since the 1970s, everyone goes through the motions of
constructing their stands to help construct this image of sustainability. The fanners know
which images to use at the market and which part of the process is best left un-advertized.
The stands at the market-stands that farmers often set up themselves-contribute
to this vision of sustainable fanning and fanners as "naturally" and often effortlessly
beautiful. But fmming is often a dirty business; eggs occasionally end up with poop on
them and tomatoes split in late summer thundershowers. The stands are often sanitized so
75
that much of the demanding labor of the fanners as well as the necessary processes
involved with producing the food is erased. Of course, this is no different than a
traditional grocery store, but sustainable agriculture, a farmers' market, is supposed to be
different than a grocery store. It is supposed to bring us back "in touch" with our food
and the people that grow it. Yet from what 1 observed the market is truly a constructed
vision of sustainability, a vision that is sanitized and beautified.
Perhaps this suggests that despite the ways sustainable agriculture is constructed
in opposition to conventional agriculture it is also enmeshed in the food system
constructed by conventional agriculture, a system that has long worked to fetishize food
and distort the relationship between labor and food. While farmers' markets and
sustainable agriculture seems to reject this fetishization by working to bring back the
farmer as a key figure in food production, the food is still presented in such a way that
often erases the processes of producing it. Furthermore, through this process the farmer
is also fetishized. As Yvette noted, the images of fanners are often sanitized and
"glammed-up." While the fanners clearly have no delusions of the work involved in
fanning-work that they often described as physically exhausting and monotonous?
these images of the fanner may further erase the labor and demands of sustainable
fanning.
The Farmers as Reflexive Producers
While there were clear differences between the ways food looked as it was
produced on the farms and how it was presented at the market, there were other areas
76
where farmers were negotiating the sometimes-nebulous idea of "sustainability." In my
interviews, I found that farmers were reflexive about this idea of sustainability and how
to put it into practice. These decisions about how to practice were everywhere. The
choices fanners grappled with included everything from how the food was delivered to
consumers-some used bio-diesel in their market trucks and one farm delivered all their
cSA boxes by bike-to the decisions about buying local versus organic scratch for one's
chickens. Of course, to even call these "choices" or "decisions" overlooks the obvious
ways that sustainable farmers operate within a set of financial, environmental, resource
limitations. Thus, it is important to note that while I use this language of "choice," these
are choices are made with context that limits real choice. Thus, there are limitations to
farmers' practices, limitations that are often related to finances (this idea is discussed in
more detail later in the chapter).
Regardless, these "choices" seemed to weigh on the farmers . .leffnoted that
creating a sustainable faml is "not something you can just start out and do ]00% and
that's I really think a big message and learning point for me anyway is that you kind of
approximate, you kind of get a little closer each time, so that's what it's all about, move
that direction and you know, make a small amount of change over time that adds up to a
lot, whereas if you try to do aJ] of that at once, it would be so overwhelming."
One of the choices that weighed on famlers was '"hoop houses." At the farms I
visited that produced vegetables for market, it was common to see large plastic structures
called "hoop houses." These structures are the shape of short Quonset huts and usuaJ]y
made of PVC pipe and sheets of thick clear plastic. They are used to prolong the growing
77
season by keeping excess rain off plants, raising the temperature, and well as protecting
plants from frosts. One fatmer described the amount of plastics being used in
"sustainable" agriculture as its "dark, dirty secret" because the petroleum used to produce
the plastic is clearly not sustainable. Yet in nearly all the operations I visited the plastic
hoop houses were an integral part of their operations, housing everything from tomatoes
and other vegetables to the "Franken-chickens" within them.
Similarly, while visiting Winding Road FaIm, Claire shared a debate that she and
her husband had about their chickens. He wanted to put them in some kind of structure
so he could have a better idea of the inputs that went into producing an egg; she felt that
chickens should run around and that they are not free-range if they are not completely
free, even if that meant hunting for eggs and not being able to calculate inputs. When I
visited, the chickens were still scattered around the farm and one had a new set of chicks
following behind her from a clutch of eggs that had clearly been overlooked.
I should be clear that I am not "discovering" these contradictions. The truth is, it
probably would not have occurred to me that the hoop houses were not necessarily
"sustainable" because they were used with such frequency. They are simply one of the
many sometimes small and sometimes not so small concessions that these farmers make.
In my visits with fanners these concessions often seem to weigh heavily on their minds.
The fanners that I interviewed often pointed them out to me. They were deeply invested
in producing food that was environmentally sustainable. And they spoke of the ways
they worked to make their farms more and more sustainable, yet in these discussions
there was always a note of what they could be doing to make it better, to make their
78
famler more closed-looped. Zeb was particularly focused on these contradictions, and
finally said with some sense of resignation, "I gotta tell you, organic farming, I believe in
it, and it's better for the land, but any farming is hard on the land and certainly there's
nothing remotely natural about it. Let's face it, from an ecological standpoint, fanning is
a disaster. Organic farmers, if you're in business, you make a lot of expedient choices in
life, and you can't do everything you might think is right."
Finally, while farmers are reflexive about the practice of sustainability on their
farms, they are also reflexive about the role of class and inequality in the work they do. It
was interesting that while consumers often argued that the reasons people didn't shop at
the market were related to education or convenience, the farmers often were much more
likely to discuss issues that were rooted in class inequality_ It is certainly possible that
the consumers' discussions of "convenience" or "education" were related to their
understanding ofthe market as a classed space, yet they were much less likely to use the
language of class. So while a number of the fanners mentioned issues of pricing during
our interviews, only a handful of consumers mentioned price as a balTier. These farmers
had to decide how to price and sell their food. The fanners were often invested in
making their food affordable to a diverse set of clients, but were confronted with the
realities of making enough money to support their farmers. In fact, as I discuss in more
detail later in the chapter, fanners were often subsidizing their food either through well?
paying off farm jobs or by essentially giving away their labor. Thus, while there was
concem about the affordability of the food, farmers also had to charge enough to support
themselves.
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Despite this a number of farmers were negotiating these tensions between
affordability and supporting themselves. Sam and Janine, for example, noted that they
allowed people to pay for their CSA boxes by the month rather than all once because they
realized not everyone has enough money saved up to pay for months worth of food at a
time. They said that in particular this payment plan was attractive to students who
belonged to the CSA. Wendy noted that she could make "hugely expensive artisan
cheeses" but that she was committed to making her food available to the local
community. (Yet, as a graduate student on food stamps even $7.00/lb for her cheese
seemed quite pricey to me, which speaks to the ways these issues are always relative to
one's specific economic situation.) Yvette, on the one hand, related that she originally
was unsure how much to charge for her chickens, but was convinced by other farmers
that they were worth $5.00/lb. She said, "I find that people don't even blink an eye-
people don't even think about it, I'm like, 'What, that's like $200.00 bucks!' That's
crazy." 2
This concern about the availability of the food was often overshadowed by the
material realities of farming and selling within a capitalist system. For example, at a
number of farms that I visited during the fall, I saw row after row of tomatoes being
pulled up and composted though still laden with fruit that seemed quite edible. I realized
how much of a negotiation it was between pricing food so it was affordable and being
careful to not saturate the market with too much of one crop and lower the value. This is
something that Phil at the Food Bank Farm mentioned as a difference between his farm
2 Yvette's total of$200.00 was perhaps not from selling chickens, but perhaps the very large turkeys shc
also raised which could have easily reachcd 20lbs.
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and others. At the Food Bank Farm almost no food is wasted; nothing is ever turned
under because it does not look good enough. Instead even holey kale leaves from plants
that have bolted are harvested, cut up and turned into soup. I understand the economic
reasons that farmers end up turning under or composting food: for example, the tomato
plants were being pulled up because it was late in the season when fewer people are
buying and the market is flooded with tomatoes, making it more expensive to harvest
them than they are worth. Yet seeing food essentially being thrown away is upsetting and
seems contrary to my vision of sustainability; it also suggests the ways that the market
system is not necessarily set up to provide the maximum amount of food to people but
instead is carefully regulated to make sure that the best food makes it to market and that
the market is not flooded with too many of any particular kind of food?
The market manager I spoke to one day at the market first suggested this idea to
me. He said one important part of his job was to make sure that they do not let too many
of the same kind of vendors at the market and flood it with a particular kind of food.
Berries and fruit are always a concern for this because they are high revenue producing
food and very seasonal. There are lots of producers that sell only berries who want to sell
at the market for a month and then disappear; this could be potentially devastating for the
producers who are at the market for the full season and rely on their berry revenue to
subsidize the sale of foods like zucchinis. Furthermore, without farmers at the market
with zucchinis and other foods for the full season, the consumers would stop coming.
3 This is certainly no different from conventional agriculture where food is carefully regulated to keep
priccs steady, except in the case of sustainable agriculture, the government is not paying these farmers not
to grov,' food.
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Thus there is a complicated balance that is used to ensure that there is enough food to
attract consumers and enough consumers to attract farmers to sell their goods.
In addition to the ways this balance is constructed at the market, many of the
farmers also noted that there were other class issues involved in sustainable fanning.
Claire noted that most of her consumers were "educated, upper middle class, nutritionally
educated; they have some money," and she noted that she was glad she had gone back to
finish her college degree because that education has allowed her to relate to her
customers. The fanners mostly seemed grateful that there were people who were
investing in and supporting sustainable agriculture, but there was also a sense that
perhaps the clientele was not as diverse as one might hope. It is such a difficult position
because the fanners are already often stretched very thin; it is difficult to imagine them
making any less for their food. Often they are not selling it for what it is worth (based on
what the farmers are paying themselves or others for their labor), yet at the same time
they seem aware of the class politics of sustainable food leaving a tension between the
ideals of sustainable agriculture and the realities of supporting oneself doing it. A friend
related to me that a fonner farmer said to her that he quit farming because, "he got tired
of turning chicken-shit into rich people."
Other farmers noted the ways that class plays into the consumption of sustainable
foods. Opal noted how frustrating it is for her to pedal past what she estimated were
]2,000 homes that are nestled around her fann when she hauls her food by bike to the
South Hills, a place of middle and upper class consumers. Zeb, a self proclaimed "socio?
cultural cynic," said he thinks his consumers are more likely to be middle or upper class.
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He went on to add that he thinks that this group of consumers is attracted to the farmers'
market because:
they have more fat to him and so they can feel better about
themselves and think they're really doing something even though
trimming 5% from their obese lifestyle is a drop in the bucket
compared to their impact overall. I mean it's just like, if you take
one airplane flight in your life, you've probably blown your carbon
budget and we do it constantly. It's so hypocritical, I'm going to
use the reusable shopping bag in between my flight to Italy for a
slow food conference, it's just not real, we're just fooling
ourselves, trying to think that we can somehow maintain this
lifestyle, it's way too materialistic for this Earth.
Perhaps, some of this frustration came from what seemed like contradictions at
the market itself. Clearly, depending on one's values some farmers would be a better a fit
than others to support. Yet during my interviews with consumers many of them noted
that they liked buying food at the market because they wanted to supp011 small farmers.
The idea of a "small" farm, however, was completely relative, and during my
observations at the market I was continually struck by how much more business the
larger stands that sold food from the larger farms did compared to some of the very small
farms with very small booths (but loads of produce). These small stands often did very
little business; they had no lines, and much of their produce seemed to sit. Thus, though
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consumers like the idea of small farmers, the larger ones also have more produce to
choose from and often have more experience marketing their farms.
The Role of Class and Education in Sustainable Farming
Something that became apparent immediately during my interviews and farm
visits was the fact the farmers tended to be well educated and had access to either well?
paying jobs or jobs with flexible work schedules (or both), something that is often related
to the kinds ofjobs that are available to the middle and upper classes as opposed to the
working class. For example, Jeff and Penny from Horse Sense Farmers and Claire and
Peter at Winding Road Meat and Dairy both had a member of their family who worked at
a lucrative off fmm job that helped to support the farm. Having family members who
take off farm jobs is common in conventional farming, but well-paying jobs that also
allow the flexibility to engage in farm work are much less common in my experience.
Even fanners whose off farm jobs were less lucrative, such as Yvette from Dogwood
Poultry, who worked part-time as a elementary art teacher, had the kinds ofjobs that
provide them with the flexibility to also work at the farm.
Interestingly, although not all farmers had high paying jobs (like Yvette and Opal)
they mentioned coming from well-to-do-families, something 1 often learned as they
described how uncomfol1able their families were that their well-educated children bad
chosen to farm. Growing up in middle and upper-middle class households is often
related to the choice to fann in complex ways. For example, Opal was drawn to farming
after spending many of her summers on her grandfather's farm, a farm he bought as
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mostly a hobby from his job as a doctor. What struck me was that the farmers seemed to
see farming as a privilege. They clearly had a firm understanding of the amount of work
involved in the farming yet, they all conveyed a real love of the work they were doing.
They also pointed out that the work could be exhausting and difficult, but as Opal said
after a long description of what she appreciated about her life as a farmer: "that's a long
way to say, I can't possibly work in an office, it would drive me crazy."
Those that did not have the same educational or financial resources because they
did not have college degrees had come to sustainable farming in various ways. For
example, Wendy who ran Mountain Glen Dairy took over the dairy she had been
managing when she manied the son of the family she had been working for. Though the
son/husband was no longer in the picture, her access to the land was through this
relationship of marriage. Sam at To Your Health Farm, who also did not have a college
education, had been farming on his land for nearly 30 years, over a decade longer than
anyone else I interviewed, when land was much cheaper.
In my interviews with the sustainable fanners I found them to be down-to-earth,
forthcoming, and in general quite friendly. Yet, I found their responses tended to be
measured, which is not say that I that they did not open up during the interviews to share
their views, experiences, and authentic ideas, but that a few of the farmers seemed
somewhat fonnal. For example, Jeff who ran Horse Sense Farms avoided telling me
about his prestigious professional job until the very end of the interview and even kidded
me about getting a PhD during the interview. Nonetheless, I was not particularly
surprised to find that out that in my small sample there was a practicing medical doctor, a
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fanner with a PhD in Anthropology and a fanner with an Ivy League undergraduate
education as well as a Master's degree in Art. In fact, only two of the fanners I
interviewed did not have at least a college degree; however, both of them had taken
college credits and one joked that he had accumulated enough credits over the years to
earn a PhD-something I didn't doubt after talking to him as our conversations moved
between discussing the role of physics in plant growth to theoretical discussions of
economic inequality.
Fanners linked their educational attainment to their ability to farm in a number of
ways during our interviews. Opal, who has a Master's Degree in Art and comes from a
well-to-do family said quite plainly, "a lot of it is privilege, it takes a lot of money to get
on a piece ofland if you don't own it and people with that kind of privilege are not poor,
they're not people who can't afford to go to college." The ability to buy land,
particularly at a time when land prices are quite high, is clearly a classed privilege in the
same way college is often also a classed privilege. In general the farmers were very
aware-even without me actually asking a question about class and fanning-that a
desire to farm was usually not enough, that one had to have some ability to procure land
in order to fann.
Phil from the Food Bank Faml helped make this point quite clearly when he
began discussing the program for at-risk youth that he helps runs during the summer at
The Food Bank Fann. The program plimarily targets children of the poor, which he says
sometimes brings together an eclectic mix of the kids of who grew up in Oregon "hippie
families" who have a "completely different world view" than low income kids who grow
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up in working-class logging towns. These young people spend the summer interning for
a small stipend while learning farm and life skills. During the summer at the farm, Phil
noted, the young people who work for him often grow to love farming, yet he does not
know anyone who has gone into farming themselves because as he explained, "low
income kids, they're not going to be starting farms, most of them, you got to have a lot of
money to start a farm, there's a few [farmers] that have worked their butts off to get
where they are but a lot of them have had the land covered or have somebody in the
family, there's definitely some backing that's allowed them to become viable operations,
starting fi?om scratch is not a business that any person can start." This is perhaps
something that Phil understands particularly well as he is one of only two farmers that 1
interviewed who did not own the land they were farming.
Interestingly, the farmers also pointed out that it was not just access to land that
was related to class and income. As a number of farmers pointed out, the more income
and wealth a farmer has, the more sustainable they are able to make their farms. For
example, Claire noted that the farmers she knew that were the most sustainable, "are
independently wealthy or they just live extremely simply, which is interesting to me, that
you basically have to be rich to farnl, really. Some of these farmers have well paying off
fanD jobs that allowed them to purchase the land to farm." Claire went on to note that
her husband's well paying consulting job was essential in supporting the farm.
During my faml visits I found these comments to be particularly salient. All
the farmers I interviewed were working to make their fam1s more and more sustainable,
even those who felt the term itself had lost its meaning. It was clear that the farmers see
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the farms as growing, changing organisms. During the tours of the farms, farmers would
show me what was growing but always included what they were going to do-next year
they would produce more animal fodder, they would tum this field into blueberries. Yet
the farms of those who had some kind of measurable off farm income seemed to be a
more appreciably closed system; for example, they were more likely to have more land
and be able to produce their own hay for the winter months. These farms even
sometimes seemed more beautiful. Zeb argued that it is only "a select few, the most
holiest, and generally the most richest amongst us are really taking care of land in a truly
sustainable way and almost none of us have closed loop systems."
An experience at one farm made this comment particularly prominent to me.
During my visit to Horse Sense Farm I watched a feral dog that had recently whelped a
litter of puppies in a horse trailer on the farm kill a chicken. As I watched the dog dart
around the farm with a hmp chicken hanging from her jaws 1was nervous about what
would happen next; growing up in an agricultural setting, I had seen dogs shot for far less
than a daily chicken theft. (In fact, it seemed growing up that everyone I knew was
constantly threatening to shoot a neighbor's dog, and these were not empty threats). So I
felt that I was about to witness one of those private family moments that make you want
to disappear. But to my surprise Penny said the dog had been killing a chicken daDy for
over a week, and Penny and Jeff seemed only slightly upset about the loss of their
chickens and then offered me one of the puppies. Penny said she planned on trapping the
dog and maybe trying to tame her after her puppies were old enough to be given away. I
was truly shocked by the peaceful response. This couple was so empathetic to the dog's
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situation, saying that she was just trying to feed her puppies, that someone had probably
dropped her pregnant on the side ofthe road. I found myselfthinking about their
response for some time, truly in awe of their kindness to a dog that was running around
with a dead chicken in its mouth. I certainly do not want to take away from their real act
of charity; however, it is also clear that Penny and Jeffwere one of the most well-to-do
faml couples I interviewed. In some way their response speaks to the ways that they
could (apparently) afford to lose a few chickens, something that not everyone 1
interviewed would have been able to absorb.
Not all the farmers I interviewed had chickens, but it was interesting to me that
Claire, whose husband also has a very well paying job, had their chickens running around
the faml while Yvette, one of the farmers I interviewed who seemed to have the fewest
resources, noted that she kept her chickens in a pen behind an electric fence to protect
them from predators. I am not sure any of the farmers I interviewed would have killed
the dog; however, it is clear that some of them, like Yvette, simply could not afford to
take the same level of risk. This is a risk that would seemingly make the farm fit better
with the tenets of sustainable farming because it means letting the chickens forage over
large areas thus reducing the amount of scratch they must be fed and distributing their
manure over larger areas.
Farm Labor and Subsidies
During my interviews it became clear that it was not just the farmers who
benefitted from their off fann resources. Essentially the farmers were subsidizing the
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food at the market with their off famI income, their unpaid or very poorly paid labor, or
both. In truth all these fanners have made tangible sacrifices to produce food. They may
have an abiding love for fanning and have things they were giving up to fann, yet their
love of fann does not diminish the sacrifices they were making.
The fanners who had the fewest opportunities or desires for off farm income did
the most fann labor. For example, Wendy at Mountain Glen Dairy confided that she
worked at the faIm about 120 hours a week working from 3am to 9-11pm, something I
didn't doubt when she showed me the office she had built in her new dairy: it included a
bed. On top of that Wendy was a single mom of two young children. Her schedule was
simply grueling. Similarly, Opal and Jack and their son live extremely simply. They do
not have a car and live in a home that appeared to be less than four hundred square feet.
Their farm is mostly self-sustaining and produces the food the family eats; they are also
able to keep the food affordable by, as Opal put it, "giving our own labor freely." If
Wendy hired two fulltime people to assist her-so that all three (including Wendy)
worked 40 hour weeks-her cheese and milk would be much more expensive. If Opal
and Jack stopped giving their labor away, fewer people could eat their food. Though it is
slightly different, if Jeff and Penny's as well as Claire and Peter's farms were not
partially supported by the men's well paying jobs, they likely would not have engaged in
fanning. Throughout my interviews and fann visits it was clear that to survive as a
sustainable fanner one either had to have an off fann income, some form of wealth, or be
willing to live extremely, extremely simply.
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When I was at the market it occurred to me that the farmers were hard working
because simply unloading at the market is onerous, but when one sees the piles of food
that is scrubbed, sorted, and displayed there is no doubt that simply making it to the
market is labor intensive. What did not occur to me is that though this food is often more
expensive than food that is produced on an industrial scale, the true cost of this
sustainable food is really not being presented at the market. If the farmers were paying
themselves a fair market wage, even a minimum wage to farm, or if they had to incur the
full cost of their farms, including the land values, the food prices would be considerably
more expensive. This of course is not to say that the price of industrial agriculture is not
also subsidized by exploitive labor practices and government subsidizes to particular
industries, but I was left wondering, how sustainable is sustainable agriculture if it
requires farmers to either be well educated and willing to subsidize the farm (at least in
the beginning) with their off farm labor, and it requires them to give away their labor
very cheaply?
As I noted in my Literature Review, there is evidence that large-scale organic
producers and some smaller sustainable producers are relying on cheap labor, often that
of undocumented Hispanic laborers on their farms. I saw relatively little evidence of
widespread use of this kind of labor during my farm visits. Of course, this is not to say
that this type oflabor is not being used, but it is to say that I didn't observe many
instances of it. Jeff told me that he occasionally would use a service to hire a group of
Hispanic day laborers to come to the falm and weed when he and Penny felt particularly
desperate, and he made a point of telling me that he always paid more than the minimum
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wage. And as I was driving away from the Winding Road Farm, I observed a Hispanic
man driving up a hill on a tractor. Yet during my interview with Claire she did not
mention this man as a worker on the farm, so I do not know if he worked there. Thus,
other than Jeffs comment about hiring Hispanic day labors and the mystery man on the
tractor, everyone I observed working on the farms was white.
This group of farmers did seem to avoid the often-exploitive practices of hiring
Hispanic laborers; however, I was struck by the fact that many of the farn1ers routinely
hired laborers that were not working for a typical wage. These workers were typically
interns, volunteers, and "WWOOFers." At Winding Road Meat and Dairy Claire
introduced me to her "WWOOFer," which stood for "Willing Workers on Organic
Farms," or, "Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms." WWOOFers are usually
young people from around the world who live on the farm and have the opportunity to
leam more about farming. The amount they earn is often quite limited. As Claire
introduced me to the WWOOFer on her farm that was busy with one of the milk cows,
she explained that her eldest child was currently in New Zealand working as a
WWOOFer himself. At the food bank farm Phil explained that intems and volunteer
laborers were essential in running the farm. During the summer they worked a crew of
14 to 15 year old students that typically earned $20.00 a day. Phil noted the low wage
was one of the "one of the ways we kept the program going" during a period with fewer
grants coming in.
Opal also spoke of the role that interning played in sustainable farming. She
noted that one of the best ways of leaming to farm was interning on two or three farms.
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She said, "even if you feel like, 'I can't believe I'm working this hard and not making
anything,' you'll be leaming more than you know you'll be leaming and try to go to
places that are vastly different from each, knowing what you don't want to do is as
important as knowing what you do want to do because it will really slim down the
options." In fact, some of the farmers themselves noted the important role that inteming
played in their farming experience; both Phil and Yvette spoke ofthe time they spent
inteming as important to their transition in running their own farms. This apprenticeship
model does make sense as it gives one hands on leaming experience, yet the fact remains
that it is also a means of cheap labor for the farms that use it. It is not surprising that the
larger farms tend to employ interns. The smaller farms may not have room to house
interns and may not have enough labor for them, thus this gives the larger sustainable
farms the advantage of using this cheap source oflabor.
Interestingly, the young farmers were much more likely to have intemed. Perhaps
the interning process is becoming a more important step in running one's own farm. In
part this is likely because there are simply many more farms to intern on than there were
twenty years ago.
Older farmers like Zeb, Sam, and Opal, however, were more likely to have been
involved in farm type collectives where they learned to fann with others who were also
novices. Jeff, and to some extent Peter, came to farming later in life with the financial
resources to buy land and take workshops about farming. The inteming process seems to
have become more important over time. This seems to be another example of the ways
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that sustainable food is subsidized by those who believe deeply in the importance of
growing food, giving away their labor to make it available.
The sheer amount of labor that went into running the farms, even during the
winter, which is considered the "quiet" season, was daunting. When I showed up, no
matter when I came, farmers were involved in some kind of farm labor. At Horse Sense
Jeff was hauling flakes of alfalfa hay to feed the horse and Penny was sorting through
vegetables in a shed. At Winding Road Claire was paying bills and Peter was working on
the marketing. Wendy ran from the milking bam to greet me and then we headed back to
the bam. As 1 interviewed Opal she sorted through piles of canots that had been eaten by
nutria that I assumed would become animal fodder as her husband Jack worked in a
backfield. Zeb asked that we do the interview at 8:30 at night after he was done working,
while at To Your Health Janine showed me around waiting for Sam to come in from
chores that were taking longer than he had thought they would. I was almost always
freezing when I did the interviews in the soggy Oregon winter. Yet, the farmers were
rarely detened. Phil said he was happy for a little break as we sat outside at a picnic table
next to a pile of cabbage for the interview.
Clearly, the labor on farms is significant; it happens outdoors in the elements, and
it is hard on the body (something that was pointed out in detail by the doctor/fanner 1
interviewed). As I argue in Chapter V, farmers use specific marketing strategies to
command the highest price for their food (vs. trying to sell a high volume of food
cheaply). Yet despite the ways the food has been priced, it often does not accurately
reflect the amount oflabor that goes into its production. Jeff quoted a friend of his as
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saying, "the only thing that isn't sustainable about sustainable fanning is the farmer," and
then he added, "it's wearing on your body, that's maybe why you see so many young
people apprenticing and doing farming, that's one of the reasons you don't see them go
on to be farmers because it's too hard on your body." From my research it seems this
comment is quite accurate. Farmers, especially the ones nmning smaller farms with little
hired help, must give freely of their labor and with that their bodies and their health.
There is a sense both at the market and talking with the fanners that this kind of
farming is noble work, that farming, at least sustainable fanning, is a valuable and
important profession that is worthy of respect. In a subtle way the famlers were the stars
of the market; people lined up to talk to them and ask them questions. Perhaps the
gratitude and respect that comes from the consumers of the food one has produced
becomes a sort of intangible payment. Opal, who was by far the most unsure she wanted
to remain a fanner told me that some day she says to herself,
'Oh, this is so pointless. I can't believe I've done this for so long.'
And its not like dominant paradigm, it's still what the dominant
paradigm is, it's pointless, then one of those people will walk up
and say, 'Oh, Opal, I've got tell you about how you've totally
changed our life.' And then they'll tell me about all the different
things in their family life, which are completely different based on
the connection on what we do and who we are, so then I'm like,
'Okay, it's not pointless!'
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Of course, changing someone's life is powerful, but it does not generate much income, at
least in this case.
Gender, Race, and the Farms
My last project examined women and gender in conventional agriculture
(Pilgeram 2007). Finding women fann operators to interview was a challenge during that
project because there simply are not that many women running conventional farms. So I
was surprised how many women were intimately involved in sustainable fanning. At
every farm where I interviewed, women played vital roles and held decision-making
power about how the fann would operate. This is not to say that women involved in
conventional agriculture are not also playing vital roles, but rather these roles often go
unacknowledged by both the men and often the women as well. This did not seem to be
the case on the sustainable farms. Instead, both the men and women described the kinds
ofjobs that women did on the fann in managerial and ownership tenns. Originally, I had
hoped to interview all female farm operators, but as it became clear that finding anyone
to interview would be difficult I changed my strategy and began interviewing men as well
as women. This actually revealed something quite important. It revealed how important
and acknowledged the labor that women do on farms is to the male fanners I interviewed.
Said another way, the men who I interviewed were quick to point out the way the labor
was stratified on the farm and how important their pm1nership with women was to the
success of the fann. Furthermore, it was clear in my interviews with both men and
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women that these fanns are partnerships where labor and decision-making power are
shared.
For example, in my interview with Zeb he explained how the labor was split on
the fann by saying that his wife, "is more responsible for the nursery production, sort of
things, overseeing people, making soil, putting it in the trays, seeding, she does a lot of
the seeding herself, she's pretty expert at it, ... she oversees that part, various people will
be assisting her," while he took care of most of the crops for the farmers' market food
production. And in my interview with Jeff he noted, "my wife basically runs the farm,
she decides what we're going to plant and when, and I do more of the [farmers']
marketing field work, we both do it together, but she's more into selecting the variety and
the day to day operation, I have a part-time job, so I don't work here full-time, since I'm
not here to manage all the time, that kind of falls to her, management is difficult, so
anyway, so we have kind of a give and take relationship."
In all my interviews, with the exception of Mountain Glen Dairy, which was run
by a single woman, the partnership between the couples I interviewed was emphasized.
It did not matter ifI was interviewing a man or a woman; they all emphasized the ways
that labor and decision making was shared. Interestingly, even at the Food Bank fann
that was run by a man, he frequently made mention of Sadie, a woman who helped
manage the student workers during the summer and who worked on securing grants and
donations that kept the fann afloat. Despite it not being a familial relationship, Phil
described the work Sadie did as fundamentally important to maintaining the farm. I
cannot emphasize enough what a radical departure this is from the gender inequity in
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conventional agriculture where women's labor is often constructed as nonessential
compared to men's. I think this suggests a much different level of equity on these
sustainable famls. Women's labor has always been essential to maintaining and running
farms, but this acknowledgement of their labor suggest a level of equity that is much less
common in conventional farming.
Though women's labor did seem valued it is also important to note that, with the
exception of two farms, women's labor was bound to the farms through a married
relationship. The exceptions, Mountain Glen and the Food Bank Farm, are also
interesting cases. At the Food Bank Farm, Phil was working for a nonprofit for a salary
and didn't own the land he fanned. And at Mountain Glen, Wendy was farming land that
belonged to her husband's family after he left under what seemed to be mysterious
circumstances.
Thus these exceptions do not detract from the way that women's access to the
land is tied to her partnership to a man in a way that man's access to land is not tied to his
partnership with a woman. For example, in the cases of Winding Road and Horse Sense
Faml it was the husbands' off farm income that gave women access to land to fann. In
the cases of Bountiful Farms and To Your Health FanTIs, it was the men who had the
farm and then married women who became heavily involved in the farm. In all cases
women's access to the land was related to her partnership with man. Even at Dogwood
and Sunrise Fanm, which did seem to be more equal partnerships in terms of off farm
income and distribution of labor, the relationship between the couple was essential. It is
interesting that at Mountain Glen where her access to the land seemed mostly a given as a
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single woman Wendy was working from 3am to Ilpm. All the fanners subsidized the
fanns with their own low paid labor, but this was extreme. Wendy's success required
that she that make up for the missing labor of a partner, which she did by sleeping very
little. It is difficult to compare her situation to Phil's given the different economic
constraints they are under, but Phil did have the assistance of Sadie and also noted that
the farm had hired someone to help him part time.
Additionally, all of the fam1ers I interviewed were white, with the exception of
Penny from Horse Sense Farms who described her race by saying, "my mom's from
Okinawa." The prominence of whiteness among the farmers did not surprise me; the
demographic makeup ofthe market prepared me for this probability. But it is important
to note that when I say that there are opportunities for women in sustainable agriculture,
what I mean is that there are opportunities for white women. Whiteness is correlated
with both higher education levels and earning levels as compared to most other racial and
ethnic groups in the US (U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics 2009). Whiteness is
also tied to contemporary fann ownership in the US. In fact, according to the 2007
UDSA Farm Census, 97 percent of principle fanner operators are white. Thus, though
Oregon is a state with a largely white population (presently about 80% of the population
is white, not of Hispanic origin), the present association with farm ownership and
whiteness certainly extends beyond the bounds of the Oregon population demographics. 4
This issue of land ownership can also help to explain the racialized inequality in
sustainable agriculture. As researchers have noted, land ownership among people of
4 Of course, while whiteness is associated with farm ownership, the physical laborers on many farms,
particularly in Oregon. are Hispanic men, women, and children.
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color (and African Americans in particular) is grossly unequal; African-Americans own
less than one percent of the land in the US while Hispanics own less than two percent, in
part due to partitioning sales, non-participation in farm programs, and systemic
discrimination by the USDA, as was noted in a 1997 class action lawsuit against the
agency (Gilbert, Sharp, and Felin 2002). Yet despite the necessity oflabor from people
of color to the success of both conventional and sustainable agriculture, according to
Allen "women and ethnic minorities have not had equal access to land, capital, or
decision making in the food and agriculture system" (Allen 1993:148). As I noted in the
literature review, access to land does more than just allow people of color opportunities
to farm. Research suggests that when people of color have access to land they are more
likely to sell their food in underserved communities of color and that people of color are
more likely to shop at farmer's markets where they feel they have a connection to the
farmers.
So it is important to understand the ways that opportunities in sustainable
agriculture are structured and often reproduce similar racial and gender hierarchies that
are part of the larger culture: women's participation in sustainable agriculture often relies
on her relationship to a male partner (usually her husband) and success is also clearly
related to whiteness.
As this suggests, success as farmers often relies on the ideals of the heterosexual
white couple, yet, the relationship between whiteness, heterosexual marriage and success
at the market is not often acknowledged. Rather it is so normalized that it is difficult to
even "see" these constructions of sustainability despite evidence. Importantly, as I argue
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in the next chapter, the hegemony of the white, straight couple in sustainable agriculture
ultimately works to link the wholesomeness of sustainable food to the perceived
wholesomeness of this family form.
The Feminization of Sustainable Farm Labor
It is primarily married heterosexual couples that run the farms; however, the labor
on the farms where I visited tends to be feminized. My findings here do not apply to all
the fanns, but they are interesting and 1 think would perhaps be a good topic for further
research. There were a number of interesting examples of the feminization oflabor on
these sustainable farms. The most visible example was at Mountain Glen Dairy, where
Wendy infom1ed me that everyone working on the farm with her they day 1 visited was
female. There were two women milking goats and another making the cheese. This was
the first farm I visited, and I was struck by the contrast between it and the conventional
fam1s I had visited. Wendy noted that of the 10 people she managed only 2 were male;
one of these was a young teenage neighbor who liked helping out around the farm. 1
theorized that the labor distribution on this farm was related to it being run by a single
woman. And though I found it interesting, I did not expect to find this gender
distribution again (and to a large extent I did not).
However, part of the reason was that Mountain Glen had more outside workers
than any other fam1 1visi ted. In fact, many of the farms like Dogwood and Sunrise
Farms rarely hired outside help, and many of the other faIms also used little outside
labor. Just the same, at Horse Sense Farms and To Your Health farm the farmers
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reported that their most senior workers were women. Both Penny at Horse Sense and
Wendy at Mountain Glen noted that more women asked to work on their fanns than men.
When 1 asked them why they hired women, most said simply that women applied for the
jobs more than men and that they stayed around longer than men. My observations
supported what the fanners reported. At Horse Sense 1was introduced to the only other
person working on the farm that day, a young woman. At To Your Health both Sam and
lanine spoke glowingly ofa woman who had worked on their fann for over 15 years and
was considered a manager of sOlis. At Winding Road 1 was introduced to their female
WOOFer who appeared to be the only person working on the fann who was not a family
member. Furthemlore, as 1noted, 1 observed a number of women working on farms. 1
did not observe any hired men working during my visits. And in general, the famlers
repOlied hiring little additional outside people who were working while 1 visited. This
could be a function of when 1 visited or the size of the farms 1 visited, but 1 think it is an
interesting question to examine further.
Other researchers have noted that sustainable agricultural practices in Califomia
tend to replicate the same race and gendered patterns of conventional agriculture-mostly
employing Hispanic males-but based on the limited findings from my research 1 think it
would be important to examine the question of gender and sustainable farm employment,
paying particular attention to how the size of the sustainable farm affects who works on
them.
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Conclusion
The fanners 1 interviewed bring different levels of experience and different values
to their fanning. Yet there are some clear patterns from my interviews and fann visits.
In general, the farmers tend to be well educated as well as having high levels of cultural
and/or economic capital. These fonns of capital are often essential for the success of
their [anns because, first and foremost, they give the fanners access to farmland. Yet this
capital, both actual and cultural, also means that farmers end up subsidizing the food they
sell either through the their off-fann income or through their highly subsided labor.
Furthermore, in this research 1 find that though there are opportunities for women, these
opportunities seem frequently linked to white, heterosexually married women, most
likely because white men they are married to have more access to the land and capital
necessary to fann. J should be clear that I do not think that the farmers are consciously
constructing these kinds of limited opportunities; rather I see them as related to larger
social structures that mediate sustainable agriculture in ways that often privilege and
reflect dominant paradigms about race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Moreover,
from a simple economic standpoint, it stands to reason based on average earning and
wealth differences between a white heterosexual couple and a black lesbian couple that
access to the land would be difficult for the latter couple. For example, would this
imaginary couple be able to secure a bank loan?
Thus 1want to be clear that 1 do not see the fanners or the consumers as causing
this fonn of inequality in sustainable agriculture. Rather, these are social issues that
reflect the larger inequality in our society-white, middle-class people have more access
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to "things" like education, land, and social capital. This is a sphere that despite good
intentions privileges particular kinds of people.
My findings suggest that the farmers are clearly committed to creating
environmentally sustainable systems and are concemed with who they are able to feed
through the work they do. However, at small farms where I interviewed, I found they
often use exploitive labor practices, but they are practices that are often exploitive of their
own labor. In other words, the fanners do not often seem adequately compensated for the
work they are doing, and it is often a commitment to the tenets of "sustainability," their
love of fanning, or both that keeps them at their job. Though fanners did talk about
issues of access to sustainable food, in general the fanners were more invested in the
environmental issues tied to sustainability rather than the social issues. Throughout my
research, I was struck by the ways the economic system limits the ability of the farmers
to truly nm sustainable farms. Given the price ofland and the availability of highly
subsidized conventional food, the fanners must be extremely committed to continue the
work they do. It seems that despite beliefs in the tenets of social sustainability, the
structural barriers to fully abiding by these tenets in a society that is classed, radicalized,
and gendered can be difficult at best.
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CHAPTER V
THE NORTHWEST FARMERS' MARKET
The Northwest Fanners' Market occupies less than a single city block in the
downtown area of a town with a population of 150,000 people. The seasonal farmers'
market begins in April on Saturdays, then as the summer ripens more fruits and
vegetables it expands to small Tuesday and Thursday markets that last into the fall
harvest. As the growing season slows, only the Saturday market remains through mid?
November. It then becomes part of a "Holiday Market" and temporarily moves indoors
at the local fairgrounds.
Despite the efforts of many local activists and politicians, the downtown where
the market takes place is at best quiet, filled with coffee shops, clothing and bookstores,
and a smattering of empty storefronts. At its worst it is labeled as a dangerous area full
of loitering skateboarders and other "nogoodnik" young people and panhandlers. The
markets change the area, however briefly, as they draw people to the downtown area and
gives one the sense that this is a vibrant, active area. Throughout my observations, 1was
struck by the way the market made an otherwise empty area safe, bustling, and
interesting.
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The farmers' market and the accompanying Saturday craft market is a
quintessential part of this Northwest town, and the market serves as a sort of hallmark for
the town. It is a town that went green before "going green" was cool; in fact, National
Geographic named it the #1 Green City in America. It is a town where the rugged
individualism of the American West combined with the free love and tie-dye of the 1960s
and 70s to create a community full of people interested in "sustainable" living, however
amorphous the concept, people who are interested in building a livable community and
seem to take a certain pride in getting their hands dirty, or least knowing someone who
does. Thus this space is a particularly important site to Shldy the construction of
sustainability because this is a town that is continually labeled "sustainable" and "green,"
and the farmers' market is a central place to see people engaging in what they label as
sustainable and environmentally conscious behavior.
Furthermore, this market is a space that was consciously built on egalitarian
principles. The mission statement of the market, for example, is to "further the health of
the entire community by enhancing the viability of producing and marketing Oregon
grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, plants & animal products through a democratic
association which advances the shared values ofthe Market community." Moreover,
based on my interviews with consumers and farmers, these seem to be shared and
esteemed values.
However, based on my observations, the market seems to be a space where some
people are able to fit more easily than others. If creating an alternative food system is as
important as many have led us to believe (and on a personal level I think it is absolutely
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essential), then we must begin to understand how the spaces of this food system are
constructed in ways that become antithetical to notions of inclusion and ultimately real
change. If everyone's health and the health of our planet is at stake, then we need to
create systems were everyone has a place at the table, or even knows where the table is.
In this chapter 1 argue that the market is constructed as a space that occurs
"naturally," but that this construction ends up privileging people who meet a hegemonic
norm and ends up reinforcing systems of inequality that are paJ1 of the larger culture. In
particular, 1 discuss the ways that the aesthetics of the market creates a space for white,
middle-class consumers and uses imagery of the white, heterosexual family to showcase
sustainability. 1 am not arguing that anyone is consciously building the market to be
exclusionary. On the contrary, it seems antithetical to the values of the people who are
building this space; however, 1would argue that there are tangible, if unnoticed, benefits
to both the consumers and the farmers from making the space relatively homogeneous.
These benefits have made the space exclusionary not through design, but through
practice.
A Classed Space
Ifyou get to the market earlier enough-before 6:30 AM~-you can watch it
transform from a wide slab of concrete that sits U-shaped around a raised parking lot that
occupies the center of the space to a vibrant farmers' market. Even with the few small
shade trees, benches, and bus stop, before the shoppers and farmers arrive the space looks
austere. There is too much concrete and too few people. The wide area that sits on the
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perimeter of the parking lot faces a park block with a fountain and grassy spots. These
two blocks looks like someone read Jane Jacobs' book on city design-but only the part
about giving people places to sit and water fountains-and forgot to read the part about
drawing people to the area to actually use these places. Most of the time the area is
unused and feels too exposed, too open to be comfortable.
Yet as the sun slowly begins to warm the concrete on Saturday mornings, tmcks
arrive. Most of them are small white delivery tmcks with bumper stickers about the
merits of local food. They back up to the sidewalk and boxes full of whatever is in
season are hauled out. Sellers set up canopies between orange cones that mark that
farm's space. Quickly the scaffolding of the market comes together with a few empty
spaces remaining for the late alTivals.
What comes next is nothing short of artistry. Coordinating tablecloths are
produced and piles of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs give way to neatly stacked piles
of calTots with the greens still attached and baskets full of baby lettuce mixes. Most of
the sellers have the set up down to a science. They know where to put an overturned box
on the table so that when the tablecloths are put on it creates a cascading effect on the
table. Most of the stands are designed with every detail attended to-every holey leaf
removed from the kale, every bunch of radishes similarly sized. It gives one the
impression that every piece of food the farmers produce is perfect, that they never get the
caITot that hits a rock and forks or lettuce that the slugs have munched on. By the time
the market starts, the stands are overflowing with whatever foods are in season: tomatoes,
lettuces, potatoes, Swiss chard and zucchini.
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Even the signs displaying the prices of the food coordinate with the aesthetic of
the stands; many are laminated beige cardstock with the fann' s name and logo centered
on the top and price handwritten below, while others use chalkboards with colored chalk
to announce their pricing. Regardless, the overall aesthetic implies a sort of effortless
and natural beauty: purple, yellow and white potatoes tumbling out of an elevated wicker
basket onto a table loaded with stacks of pearly white onions with their long green stalks
still attached surrounded by a sea of butter leaf and red sails lettuce.
The food at the market is literally "naturalized." It represents what food that is
"local" or "organic" or "sustainable" (or in other words what food that is "good for you")
looks like (or at least what we imagine it should look like). And through this sort of
universal perfection of the food, it suggests that this food always looks like this. This is
not to say that consumers are so naIve as to think that the falmers dug the potatoes from
the ground and threw them onto the table without at least a rinse from a hose, but some
consumers see the food at the market as more "authentic" than food from a conventional
grocery store in part because of the ways it is presented. The assumption is that this is
what "real" food looks like. The food here is being displayed not only for the purpose of
making it more attractive to consumers but to remove it from aesthetics tied to industrial
agriculhlre. For example, when the food arrives at the market, it is usually in either large
plastic containers or waxed produce boxes; however all but one vendor out of almost 50
takes it out of the those containers and displays their food in baskets or on tables.
Displaying the food this way hides the visible reminders that sustainable agriculture is a
system that often relies on at least a few some of the same trappings of mass production
l09
and mass consumption. With delivery trucks parked out of sight and plastic tubs of
potatoes hidden under the table, it becomes easier to believe that sustainable agriculture is
a system that is "natural" rather than seeing it as something constructed based on a
particular belief system about the natural world. This space is constructed to evoke a
specific ideology about the food, a specific idea about what sustainable food is.
Another example of this is the ways many of the root vegetables like carrots and
beets are displayed. Row after colorful row of carrots are displayed with their feathery
greens still attached. Yet, most gardeners know to remove the greens from root
vegetables after they are picked because the tops continue to pull moisture and nutrients
from the vegetable. Furthermore, while edible, almost no one (except for bunnies)
actually eats the tops of carrots, something that is evident by the fact that most vendors
remove the carrot tops once they are purchased, twisting them off and throwing them into
a container that is taken back to the fam1 and composted. The carrots are displayed like
this because it sets them apart from the carrots available at a conventional grocery store
and because it is something that is associated with a farmers' market. The carrot top is a
means of signifying distinction. It is a means of turning a rather ordinary food, one that
is readily available, into a "sustainable" food.
The market is beautiful and somehow the top on a carrot does seem to make it
look more appealing. Yet, it is difficult to operationalize what exactly makes a vegetable
or a space beautiful. For example, a consumer I interviewed at the market mentioned that
she liked to see dirt on her food because it implied that food really came from the earth.
Most people would probably prefer not to find dirt on their food, yet, in this space the dirt
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serves as evidence of the authenticity of the food for this consumer. (Of course, the irony
is that the farmers spend considerable time and energy cleaning the food before it comes
to market. Some products require more cleaning than others-an onion is more labor
intensive to prepare than a zucchini-but both require certain processes to be ready for
the market).
Part of why I enjoy aniving at the market before it opens is because llike
watching it transform from a rather grey lot to a vibrant cornucopia; it reminds me that
this space is indeed constmcted to look a specific way, to make people feel a specific
way. It stands to reason that it would be easier to leave all the food in plastic tubs, so
why do the farmers go to the work of beautifying their stands? I would argue that beauty
is largely constmcted; yet in this space the vendors and the consumers all seem to have
certain agreed upon rules about what makes this space and the food beautiful. Sellers
who want to succeed have no choice but to make their stands as beautiful as the one next
to them because ultimately they are competing for customers. Some consumers are loyal
to a particular farm, but the consumers I interviewed all said they to like to browse and
did not have a paI1icular allegiance to anyone farm.s Thus, these sellers have to work to
construct their food in a particular way that is enticing to the consumer. These farms are
constructed as naturally beautiful, when in reality they are consciously constructed to
look a particular way, to evoke a particular feeling.
5 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members might be an exception. From my observations they
tended to be Joyal to their CSA fann; they would pick up their box, see what they stiIJ needed more of, and
then go buy it from that stand. Perhaps this is out of a sense of loyalty to a faml they obviously like enough
to be come CSA members of or because many farms offer discounts to their CSA members.
III
This makes sense if we think of the market as a classed space. The farmers are
consciously presenting an image of the farms and the food, and the beautification of their
individual booths is a way t6 attract consumers as well as demonstrating to the consumers
that this food is different than food you can get at a conventional grocery store; it says
this food that is worth the higher price. Yet the higher prices in effect help to "select" a
particular kind of consumer. The aura of the space marks it as sphere for the middle and
upper class. Making the market beautiful allows for it to be maintained as a middle and
upper class space, which allows the food to be sold at a higher price point.
I argue that the beautification of the market classes it in two specific ways. The
first is relatively simple-making the stands and food appear "sustainable" through the
use of baskets and displays is a way of commanding the higher prices of the food. It is a
means of confirming that this food is indeed something distinct from food grown by
industrial producers that is available at a conventional grocery store. This higher price
point ends up selecting consumers who believe buying sustainable food is better usually
either for health, environment, or community building reasons and, importantly, people
who can afIord to spend more on their food.
The other way that the beautification of the market ends up creating a classed
environment is tied to Bourdeiu's discussion of distinction. The market reflects a
particular vision of beauty and value. 1 am not arguing that the working class does not
appreciate or seek out beauty, rather 1 am arguing that what is perceived as beautiful is
often tied to social class. Thus, in pal1 the market is constructed based on a classed
vision of beauty. As I argued in the previous chapter, most of the sustainable faImers 1
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interviewed are not only highly educated, many of them also have well paying jobs off
the fan1lS that help to subsidize their farming. Thus, the way the stands are presented
reflects what these vendors see as beautiful-the stands are a reflection of the farmers'
vision of sustainability and a reflection of what the farmers think the consumers' vision
is. It makes sense that faImers would beautify their stands as it allows them to compete
with the other farmers; furthermore, these are places where the people involved tend to
feel a great deal of pride and ownership. This beautification, however, ends up selecting
a particular class of consumer.
Again, this is not to say that working class people do not want healthy, beautiful
food-the research clearly contradicts this. ] think it is more complicated than that.
Instead it is tied to the ways spaces are classed and the subtle cues that mark spaces. At
the market these cues include not just the price of the foods, but elements such as the
varieties of food that are available. The farmer 1 interviewed who was employed by a
local charity to grow food for needy people made this point clearly. He noted that food
he grew for the charity was different than what he would be growing if he were growing
for the farmers' market. Specifically, he noted that he was growing lots more onions and
potatoes than a market farmer and that he does not grow vegetables like Swiss chard
because his clients will not eat it. Thus, the food that is available at the market,
everything from the chevre to the kohlrabi, signifies class.
Furthermore, he noted that he is able to harvest at his farm and uses food at his
farm that would either be "plowed under" or donated to the food bank by the market
farmers. He believed that only prime food is sold at the market; food that is perfectly
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edible but not aesthetically perfect does not show up at the market because the
competition between the vendors makes it so farmers feel that seconds undennine a
fann's image. Yet, surely there are consumers (I think of myself) who would love the
opportunity to purchase local food at a lower cost even if it meant getting a split tomato
or a bruised melon. The reason that farmers do not bring this food to market is likely
complicated, but there may be a fear that bringing seconds to market would Hood the
market and lower the prices rather than seeing these seconds as bringing in a bigger cross
section of shoppers.
But Don't They Accept Food Stamps?
Some might argue that offering consumers a variety of foods is not necessarily a
classed act and that there are a number of elements at the market that suggest that it is a
class inclusive space. One of the most visible of these are the Women, Infant, and
Children (WIC), Food Stamp, and Senior Voucher signs around the market which show
that these food security programs are accepted at the market. The farmer's market is set
up to accept WIC and Senior Vouchers and Food Stamps. Despite this, I observed no one
using food stamps and only one woman using her WIC vouchers during all my
observations; she bought a few ears of corn and turned to her mother and whispered that
she was going to save the rest of her money to let her kids pick out pumpkins at
Halloween. Based on my interviews and observations, the senior voucher program is
much better utilized at the market.
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As a consumer who has used WIC and Food Stamps at the market, it seems
understandable to me why I did not observe a great deal of participation with these
programs in this space. First, the state has designed both programs in a way that requires
the user to "out" herself when using them and also requires the recipient to learn how to
use the benefits in the space of the market. The WIC program in particular is quite
obtrusive. First, to participate in the Farmer's Market WIC program it requires that the
recipient express interest in the program by calling to sign up for the vouchers during the
designated sign-up period (usually after the first week of June). Then she must attend a
program at a specific time on how to buy and use produce with the vouchers. The year I
participated in the program (2007) it was held at the market, which is not uncommon.6
The WIC program sets up a booth for recipients to pick up their vouchers and learn about
buying fresh, local food. This program requires recipients to be quite open with the fact
that they are receiving government assistance by standing in front ofthe booth while the
details of the vouchers are explained. Thus, after outing yourself at the market you
receive twenty dollars worth of vouchers that must be used between June and October.
Ultimately, despite being fairly pOOf, it struck me that this was a relatively time
consuming process with relatively little payoff. Furthermore, as is explained at the WIC
informational meeting, the vouchers come with a variety of restrictions on the kinds of
food that can be purchased: for example, no jam or honey. They also come in two-dollar
(, While the WIC program valies from year to year how clients pick up vouchers, according to one WIC
staff member J talked to this has to do with the numbel' of staff available to run the program at the market
rather than a regard for the privacy of their clients.
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increments with no change given. I saw perhaps only one woman using them during my
observations because they are not particularly easy to use.
The Food Stamps program is somewhat less obtrusive, but still awkward to use at
the market. Using food stamps to buy something at the market is a many step process.
First, the consumer takes the food to the farm stand to be rung up, and then asks the
cashier to fill out a special card with the amount to be charged to the food stamp card.
The consumer then leaves the items selected behind the counter. Next, the consumer
goes to the Farmer's Market Consignment booth to stand in line with the special card that
the farmer filled out with the total price written on it. This card is given to the cashier at
the consignment booth who charges the food stamp card. The cashier runs the food
stamp card and stamps the special card as paid. The consumer then returns to the farm
booth with the card stamped as paid, stands in line, and finally hands over the now
stamped special card to receive the selected food. This system is not terribly different
from the system for people who pay with credit cards, since the consignment booth also
runs the credit cards; however, many people who would use a credit card end up running
to the bank across the street to get cash, something that people on food stamps cannot do.
I felt quite awkward using both programs at the market. Whereas the WIC
process is awkward because it requires you take a class to figure out how to use the
vouchers, the Food Stamp process is equally awkward because it requires that you figure
out this system without any direction. It literally took months at the market before I felt
comfortable enough to use my food stamps card there. In part it was because I simply
was not sure which sellers took food stamps. It can be uncomfortable not knowing if the
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stand you are buying from accepts food stamps or will know how to use them. When the
market began in the spring, very few vendors advertised that they took food stamps and
WIC. Furthermore, some signs said that they took WIC vouchers but said nothing about
food stamps. Given that food stamps are actually run through the Farmer's Market booth
that oversees the entire market, it turns out all the booths can accept food stamps as well
as WIC vouchers, yet their lateness in advertising this fact kept me from buying food
there till July. I did not know who took the cards, and there is a stigma when using food
stamps. If I was using a credit card I would have felt more comfortable asking about
procedures, but the food stamps card made me want the transactions to be as quick and
hidden as possible.
Just the same, when I began using food stamps at the market the sellers were quite
helpful in making the process as smooth as possible. They were uniformly friendly and
helpful. Furthermore a number of the farmers seemed to feel quite awkward about
holding my vegetables for ransom behind the stand while I went to get my coupon
stamped. One seller even insisted that I take the cantaloupe I bought with me and bring
my stamped coupon back at my leisure. Another made a point of showing me where she
was putting my peaches and that I would get the same ones I picked out when I returned.
Yet, while many of the sellers know how the food stamp system works and can give
directions to people who are using their benefits at the market for the first time, there are
other sellers who either do not realize that the market accepts food stamps or have no idea
how the system works. In that case I had to teach to the seller how to accept food stamps
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at the market and in one case even go get the cards that farmer stamps in order to process
my transaction.
Clearly, both the WIC and food stamp systems are designed by the government
and not by the market organizers. And there are real issues in making the system more
user friendly. For instance, processing food stamps requires electricity and some kind of
phone or wireless connection. So, ultimately, many of the criticisms about their use at
the market are actually criticisms of the system itself. Yet, while the market is certainly
not responsible for setting up a WIC office in the center of the market, it stands to reason
that there are some things they could do to make the process easier and more user
friendly. Food stamps in particular are time consuming to use and require the user to
learn a system through trial and enor. If the majority of the consumers at the market used
food stamps 1 think the market organizers and the sellers would come up with more
effective ways to process them, yet based on the way the system operates at the market,
the assumption seems to be that very few people will be using them so it is not necessary
to make the system more user friendly.7 Even as someone with a great deal of social
capital, who feels that both food stamps and farmers markets are important and
worthwhile, I still felt uncomfortable using food stamps in this space in particular.
In fact, one of the primary reasons I would only browse at the market but not buy
anything there before I began this project was that I did not know how to use my food
stamps there. It seems simple to imagine ways to make these systems a little easier to use
7 For example, I tend to shop either at a grocery store where lots of people use food stamps and a number of
the cashiers have also talked to me about having used them, or I shop at grocery stores with self cheek-out
so that no one sees me using them.
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in these places-for instance the consignment booth could sell chips to food stamp and
credit card users that they could then spend around the market. Furthe11110re, they could
require every vendor to post signs about accepting food stamps, WIC and Senior
Vouchers, and they could post directions on their website or have pamphlets at the main
booth of the market explaining how to use them.
Interestingly, I saw Senior Vouchers used more frequently, and two of the people
I interviewed talked about using the vouchers. The Senior Vouchers are similar to WlC
vouchers in that they are coupons good for two dollars worth of vegetables. While the
seniors using them had some complaints-mostly that you cannot get change for your
voucher-they all seemed to have developed strategies for using them to get the most
return. For instance, always trying to spend a little over two dollars at a stand and paying
the difference. Yet, these vouchers were qualitatively different than the WIC vouchers
because the seniors reported that they are sent directly to their homes. Furthermore, the
vouchers are tied to social security benefits and these are benefits that nearly all seniors
receive and are not stigmatized in the ways that food stamps and WIC benefits are. I did
not specifically ask questions of the consumers about their vouchers, but a number ofthe
senior consumers mentioned them during their interviews and were quite unanimous in
their appreciation of them.
This suggests that 'while the implementation of a program is important-the
seniors for example are not required to learn how to use their vouchers at the market-the
stigmatization of certain programs also affects the way they are used. Senior vouchers
are attached to social security benefits and seniors may feel "entitled" to their money
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(because it is based on income and labor); furthelmore, because nearly all seniors receive
some social security it does not mark one group as "needy." Similar to distinctions that
are often made between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, senior vouchers seem to
carry less stigma and be better utilized than WIC and food stamps at the market.
Despite the criticisms of these systems and the way they are implemented at the
market, the fact that they are employed at all does show a level of commitment to making
the market a space where people receiving benefits can access food. The fact that the
food stamp system is a complex system to navigate also reinforces this in a strange way
because it is clear the market organizers recognized the complexity of the system and
went ahead and implemented it anyway. Furthermore, even while I had to teach the
farmers how to use the food stamps, they were all extremely welcoming of their use. The
helpfulness I received from the farmers seemed to extend beyond just selling another
piece of produce, and 1 frequently felt like they were sending signals either through their
body language or actions (for example telling me just to take my food with me before I
had returned with my card) that they were happy to se]J to someone on food stamps.
Perhaps food stamps purchases allowed them to see the market's potential to be more
inclusive. Despite this, it seems that the use of these benefits is quite limited and that
overall based on the complexity of the system does not seem a good way to increase
market pmiicipation.
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The Construction of the White, Heterosexual Family
During a busy a Saturday the market is abuzz with activity and the wide areas
between the stands on the main street of the market are filled with people working their
way from one stand to another. While there certainly seem to be more women than men
at the market, it is not an overwhelmingly feminized space. In fact, an examination of the
consumers and farmers suggests a relative equality in terms of gender at the market. As
I've argued earlier, the market has a white, middle-class feel, and while my observations
reflect similar gendered trends that others have found--that there are more women at the
market than men-the market did not feel overtly gendered, as it often felt white and
middle-class. An examination of the vendors at the market confirms this impression.
After observing the market for two months I began compiling demographic data
about the vendors. Having a great deal of time at the market I finally felt that had a good
idea of what was "normal" for the market and each stand, thus when the Country Fair, a
large festival, took place during the summer, I knew that it affected who was selling at
the market and which vendors were there, that this day was an anomaly of sorts. When
compiling my demographic data I was able to note if there were any stands that were
being staffed in a way that was not standard. Based on my observations I found that the
numbers of men and women working on an average Saturday to be fairly equitable. On
average there were 41 women working on a given Saturday versus 35 men. Examining
how the selling of particular products is gendered is quite complicated in certain cases.
For example, who sells highly seasonal foods-such as berries-often varies greatly
depending on the stand; one stand might have a single man selling and another might
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have two women. The selling of flowers, on the other hand, tended to retain similar
demographics; based on my observations if the flower seller is white she will also be
female; however, if the sellers are Asian-American they will likely be a heterosexual
couple.
There are some products, however, that are clearly stra6fied by gender. I found
that selling nursery plants, baked goods, and honey were completely male dominated.
For example, of the five nursery plant stands, all were run by a single male, as were both
the honey stands. When I asked a beekeeper at the market why only men sold honey, he
told me that he thought it might be because women were not strong enough to care for the
hives. With the exception of flowers, there was no single sphere that was clearly female
dominated. Figure 1 shows the gendered distribution oflabor at market stands when
more than one person was working and shows that the majority of stands are run are by
male/female dyads. Produce in particular tends to be sold in male/female dyads.
Furthermore, ifthere are an uneven number of workers at the stand the extra person is
nearly always female. The selling of produce-the product that is the backbone of the
market-tended to be dominated by male/female dyads.
Beyond who was working at each stand, my observations seem to suggest that, at
the market at least, the labor and tasks were distributed fairly equitably between men and
women working the produce stands. The importance of this cannot be overstated. While
there were some examples of stands that were run by men who had women working for
them-the consignment stand run by the market manager was an example of this-most
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of the stands were run by couples who seemed to be equal partners at the market who
engaged in similar tasks and seem to have equal decision making power. Typically both
Gendered Division of Labor at
the Market Stands
Male/Male/Fen1ale Triads
Male/Felnale/Fen1ale Triads
Male/Fen1ale Dyads
Female Dyads/Triad
Male Dyads/Triads
o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Figure 1: Gendered division of labor at the market (for stands with more than one seller)
men and women would unload the vans and would then work together to set up the
stands. It was not unusual to see a woman hauling a giant tote of potatoes out to restock
the stand or unusual to see a man carefully eyeing the stand to find a blemished beet top.
I found that within the specific sphere of selling produce, there were clearly opportunities
for women's participation in sustainable agriculture.
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However, while this seeming equality is laudable, it is important not to overlook
other salient dimensions. The equality that women seem to experience is an equality that
often seems tied to other kinds of privilege. First, the majority of women (and men)
working at the market are actually the farmers, and thus have the benefit of white and
class privilege at least based on my interviews with the farmers. (Although, the larger
and better capitalized the farm, the more likely they are to hire youthful, white men and
(more often) white women to work the booths.) Thus, the opportunities the farm women
seem to experience cannot be understood apart from these racialized and classed
dimensions. In short, the opportunities for the women farmers working at the market
seem tied to the privileges that are linked with being a white, middle-class women.
Furthermore, based on my observations, a woman's presence at the market often
relies on her relationship to a male partner (usually her husband), something that was
affirmed during my fann visits and interviews. As this suggests, women's opportunities
at the market were further complicated by the fact that women's participation was always
in a context that affirmed the literal or symbolic importance of the white, heterosexual
family. In many cases the dyads at the market were heterosexual couples, but in all cases
they seem to affirm a particular vision of the heterosexual family. I use this idea of
"heterosexuality" in both an actual and abstract sense. Based on fann visits and getting
to know the market community, I know that many of these "couples" are indeed married
couples, and it seems clear that this does convey the actual, material benefits of
heterosexual marriage, for example in terms of off-fmm eamings potential. Yet this
vision of heterosexuality at the market does not always indicate a formal married
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relationship; ultimately the partnering of men and women at the market is also symbolic
and frames heterosexuality as "normal." A friend of mine who used to sell at the market
said that everyone always assumed that her business partner was her mother. However,
she was a lesbian and it bothered her that everyone assumed this sort of family
relationship instead of realizing that there could be any number of reasons that two
women were working together. But 1 believe the market is constructed in a way that
makes it easy to make that mistake.
This heterosexual coupling at the majority of the stands reflected an image of the
white, heterosexual family that was everywhere once 1 observed it. For example, many
of the farms at the market specifically use images of "the family," meaning a white,
heterosexual family, to sell their farms to consumers. This was perhaps most apparent at
the "Pick-A-Farmer" event. Figure 1 is a photomontage that was put together for this
event, an event where the fanners spend an evening selling shares of their CSA. (CSA
stands for Community-Supported Agriculture and means that you buy shares of the food
that will be produced that season. You are investing in the farm early in the season and
share in what it produces). This is an event where the fanns essentially have nothing to
sell yet. The farmers are selling shares of food that might be produced, and to do that
they need to sell a particular image of what their farm has to offer. In this image, while
there are four images of single men, all the women in the photos are accompanied by a
man, and in most cases also children.
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Figure 2: "Pick-A-Farmer" photomontage
When I attended this event the role of the family in marketing the farm became
even more apparent. To promote themselves they all had big poster boards with images
of the farm in order to familiarize people with what they do. I found that even though on
most of the falms I interviewed there were no children present, images of children were
very often used to sell the fanns.
The cover of the Oregon Fanner's Market directory (see figure 3) and other
pictures taken from the websites where I conducted visits (see figures 4 and 5) offered
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images typical of the ones that I found at the "Pick-A-Farmer" event and were typical of
images used at the market itself, where vendors also commonly display photos of their
fam1s.
Figures 3a, 3b, and 3c: Cover of the Oregon Farmer's Market directory [left],
photograph of children in cabbage used to advertise market farms [middle], and
photograph of children enjoying a water trough used to advertise market farms [right].
The photos tend to romanticize the idea of the family as well as the roles for children at
the market and on the farms. These are happy images with the sun shining and children
literally frolicking down a row of cabbage. The image of children can be seen as
representing multiple ideologies that are present at the market: these images suggest the
ways that sustainable farming preserves the environment for future generations as well as
the ways sustainable food helps young, growing bodies thrive. But these images also
suggest the ways that the white, heterosexual family is used to sell the idea of sustainable
food. Sustainable agriculture as constructed at this Northwest Fanners' Market seems to
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privilege the white, heterosexual family and ultimately links the wholesomeness of
sustainable food to the perceived wholesomeness of this hegemonic family form.
This idea of children and the family as a marketing tool was pointed out to me as I
conducted a fann visit at Winding Road Fann with one ofthe operators. It was a
beautiful day and I mentioned to the farmer how lovely the land was. She noted that the
aesthetic beauty of the land was actually a good selling point of the fann, that consumers
liked how beautiful the farm was. I then I mentioned that her kids were pretty cute too as
they worked with the animals and she said, you know the kids are "huge, it really is a
selling point for people, I don't mean to diminish it, like it's like I'm using my kids that
way, but it's really helpful." In the selling and marking of the fanns "the family"
becomes an important element in the production and selling of food, and the idea of the
white nuclear family becomes written onto the space through these kinds of images.
Furthennore, for the consumers of the market, it was clear from my interviews
that the idea of the family plays an important part in their vision of sustainable
agriculture. When I asked consumers what makes sustainable agriculture different from
conventional agriculture, 1/4 of the consumers mentioned the idea of the family fann and
families working the land together as what makes food at the market different than food
at a conventional grocery store. For example, a 28-year-old woman noted, "Farmer's
Markets are really small and family oriented, and are kinda like, you know, that
stereotypical farm that you see on the television." In fact, some of the language of the
consumers seems to romanticize this idea of the family on the land. For these consumers,
the vision of family as tied to sustainable agriculture reflects their own assumptions and
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beliefs about what sustainable agriculture should be. A 41-year-old woman envisioned
the fanners as being familial: "Most likely they are family members, raJ closer group of
people, family run most the time. It is colorful, it is bright it is vibrant. It is a sense of
lost traditional values in tenns of community. The Fanner's Market seems to be more
like family type farms." While a 61 one-year-old man noted, "oh, I would imagine that
they're probably smaller and operate on a much smaller ah, like a smaller scale within
maybe a family and a few close friends. I like the atmosphere, the friendliness, the family
orientedness."
Of course, I do not know for certain that when the consumers talked about "the
family" they were specifically referring to the white, heterosexual family; however, I
think the use of phrases like "stereotypical farm," and "lost traditional values" and even
"family orientedness" are phrases that suggest the consumers are using an idea of the
family that is in line with hegemonic visions of it. In other words, there is nothing in any
of my interviews that suggest that the vision of families that the consumers are referring
to works to deconstructs a hegemonic vision of the family or the "family fann." Of
course, the ways the fanns are marketed to the consumer also do nothing to invoke a
different image of "the family."
Furthelmore, while it is clear that "the family" is used to market the fanns-that
the idea of "the family" is something that draws at least some consumers to the market?
it is also a space that is quite welcoming to consumer families, something that is
demonstrated by the number of children who explore the market with their parent(s). It
was clearly a "family fliendly" space where children were often openly welcomed.
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However, the same cannot be said for the workers at the market. At a basic level the
market seems to resemble other work arenas where workers are androcentrized. That is,
it is assumed that workers either do not have children or that they have "wives" to care
for those children (Acker 1990). Based on my observations it is clear that very few
people are able to combine the work of selling at the market with the work of parenting.
Perhaps this was particularly salient to me because collecting my data meant leaving my
one-year old at home. I was struck by how the space was family friendly for the
consumers, but not the vendors. So while the role of the family at the market is
important in its marketing and its consumption, the workers at the market still must
adhere to an androcentric vision of their labor that denies their family responsibilities.
Thus, despite the emphasis on the family-and the large presence of families
shopping at market-like most other occupations, working at the market is a space that
assumes workers do not have family responsibilities. Typically workers at the market
could not combine their family obligations with their work obligations. They had to find
something else to do with their children while they worked. This became quite salient to
me one day 1sat on a bench watching the market and a man brought a little girl, probably
age four or five, to see her mom who was working the cash register at the largest stand at
the market. The little girl was absolutely heartbroken, crying and sniffling; she wanted to
stay with her mom. Her mother took a few minutes and consoled her as someone else
took over the register and explained that she had to work, but the little girl clung to her
mom. As her dad walked away with the crying little girl I imagined her mother felt quite
tom. I was struck by the ways the family and children were a part of the space, but
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almost exclusively existed as consumers. While I am not necessarily advocating for child
labor at the market, it is striking that while images of children play an important role in
constructing sustainable agriculture~theirrole at the market is defined almost
exclusively through their consumption.
There were, however, a few exceptions that complicated this conclusion. First,
there were a number of older teenaged children and grandchildren of fam1ers who sold at
the market. One of the farmers I interviewed routinely had her teenaged children running
the booth at the market. Furthennore, two of the very short season belTy stands were also
run by young family members: one stand was run by the fanners two granddaughters and
the other stand by a rotating set of sons of a Russian immigrant fanner. So there does
seem to be some role for families and older children. Additionally, there were some
young children participating on the vendor side of the market. Specifically, the Asian
immigrants who sold flowers often brought children with them; in fact, at one stand it
was not uncommon to see up to three children. These children often played an important
role as translators and sign makers at the market, making the skills they bring essential to
their family's success. I think it is important to note that these farmers did not use images
of the family (or really any images) to sell their products~the idea of the family was
simply not romanticized in the same fashion among the Asian immigrant farmers despite
the clear importance the family played in their success at the market. Another stand run
by a family who sold fresh-caught fish at the market often brought a very young child and
a newborn baby to the stand. At this stand the grandmother of the children offered
samples and interacted with the consumers while the father ran up the sales and answered
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questions. The mother mostly looked after the children and did small tasks around the
stand. These fam1ers who bring their children have certain things in common: they are
outside the core group of the most visible farmers, they sell at the spatial periphery of the
market, and they are all small enough that they staff their own booths. This is compared
to the woman with the crying daughter who was an employee at the flagship stand at the
market. While there is no question that laws protecting children against exploitation in
the public labor market are a positive step, these few vendors suggest that there are ways
of incorporating the demands of parenting with the demands of labor in ways that do not
exploit the labor of children.
Gender Equity: Buying and Cooking Sustainable Food
While there was certainly a sizeable male presence at the market, particularly at
the Saturday market, I found based on my observations that the actual purchasing and
selecting ofthe food at the market was highly feminized. As I sat and watched at each
stand there were typically four to five women who would make a purchase for everyone
man. It was fascinating to watch the number of men get smaller and smaller the closer
one actually got to the cash registers. This makes sense when we think about how the
care work of cooking for one's family is gendered. Women are typically responsible not
only for preparing a family's meals, but also for doing the emotional labor associated
with that preparation-for example making a grocery list (which requires a sort of
running inventory of what foods are in the house), and remembering the food "rules" of
the house (who is allergic to certain foods and who dislikes which foods). Thus the act of
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preparing a meal extends far beyond chopping and baking and requires often intense
amounts of invisible labor. As other scholars have noted, shopping at a farmers l market
and the preparation that comes with it is often much more labor intensive than compared
to purchasing food available at a conventional grocery store (Allen and Sachs 2007). A
number of women that I casually chatted with at the market mentioned the challenge of
using the food they found there; they noted that they were attracted to some of the more
"unusual" foods like kale or kohlrabi but did not necessarily know the best ways to
prepare it. This led to Internet searchers and trips to the library and bookstore for new
cookbooks learn how to prepare these foods. In fact, 1noted at least one farm that
delivered their CSA boxes to the market included recipes in those boxes to help the
consumers prepare the food.
The men's seeming disinvestment in cooking and the labor around cooking was
confirmed in my interviews, where I found cooking tasks where mostly handled by
women. Specifically, I found that while there were ten respondents that reported a male
as responsible for cooking, eight of these men did not live with women. Thus there were
only two reports of men who were solely responsible for cooking where there was a
woman in the household. On the other hand, 25 of my 48 respondents reported that
women were solely responsible for cooking in their households and of these only seven
women lived in women-only households. The rest of the respondents reported that the
cooking was split in their households either between married couples or between
roommates. Interestingly, the couples most likely to report splitting the cooking were at
the market together and did the interviews together. One could either conclude that these
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couples work together at both the market and at home or that one feels compelled to
report splitting the labor when one's partner is present. In fact, I found myself a little
skeptical about some of the rep0l1s of the labor being "split." For example one man told
me that he had decided that he and his wife were going on the raw food diet and that
although she had done the cooking in the family, he was going to be in charge of making
the smoothies; this division of labor did not necessarily seem evenly split to me. Another
man in his seventies reported that he makes breakfast and that his wife makes the
afternoon and evening meals, which suggests that while they are sharing duties they are
not particularly evenly split. Tellingly, all but one of the respondents with children
reported that the woman did the cooking. So while women were largely responsible for
cooking, if children were present that responsibility only seemed to increase.
Examined from this lens, the way gender is perfonned in this space is
extraordinarily complicated. Men are clearly present at the market and are frequently
responsible for their children in this space. For example, one of the first patterns 1
noticed at the market was the number of men who were wearing babies in backpack. In
some ways the market seems clearly counter hegemonic and seems to open up the
possibility for a new level of gender equity where men have greater responsibility for the
care work of their children. Of course, 1 would certainly not argue that sustainable
agriculture is causing this male involvement; instead, 1argue that the market and
sustainable agriculture more generally is part of a cultural shift that is attractive to
families who are already invested in certain kinds of alternative practices.
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As a feminist and a parent, it was wonderful to see men taking on a more responsibility
for caring for their children in this space, but it also seemed to privilege a very normative
vision of the family as a two-parent, straight arrangement. This is certainly something I
feel in my own life. While my (male) paIiner and I are very conscious about raising our
son and running our household in a very egalitarian way, a way that we would like to be
considered "alternative to the mainstream," we are continually struck by how often we
receive comments about what a "nice" or "cute" family we are. This is particularly
pronounced when we walk our old yellow-lab. Thus, perhaps like other families at the
market, while we are attempting to live in a way that is "counter-hegemonic," we literally
embody the idea of the "traditional" or "nice" family: white, heterosexual, young (but not
too young), and middle-class. And as such we are frequently "rewarded" with overt
public approval for our family. In the space of the market, a similar phenomenon may be
at work, where a particular image of the family~a white, heterosexual one~is what
becomes most salient despite attempts on the part of some consumers to disrupt
traditional or conventional patterns in the family.
Race, Whiteness, and Sustainability
As I discuss above, the images used to represent the market suggest that the idea
of the white heterosexual family is integral to the construction of sustainable farming.
Despite these images, however, not all the vendors at the market are white. There are a
number of stands at the market that are operated by Asian immigrants. The market is
an'anged in a U-shape with most the stands in the busiest middle section and with two
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arms extending off this middle section onto side rows where the number of vendors
waxes and wanes. The Asian immigrants are always assigned these side streets (see
figure 6). The assigning of space is a somewhat complex process at the market, but
typically comes down to a vendor's "seniority" at the market. Seniority, according to the
Lane County Farmers Market Member Handbook, is based 40% on the gross recorded
sales, 40% on the number of markets attended, and 20% as the total number of years the
member has been a voting member of the market. Given that 40% of seniority is related
to gross sales, it stands to reason that the larger, better marketed and capitalized stands
will end up with better market position and will then be able to continue to maintain these
better spots. On a number of occasions I watched the owner of the largest stand at the
market telling the market manager that his stand did not have enough room or was at the
wrong angle; the market manager, who is supposed to be in charge of the market, was
extremely deferential dealing with the man. This seemed out of character for him based
on other interactions I had observed. While it is not the least bit surprising, it is still
worth mentioning that those at the market with the most selling power are able to use that
power to position themselves to be even more successful at the market. It is difficult to
imagine the Asian immigrant vendors complaining about their position to the market
manager and have much luck in getting their stalls changed.
Normally at the market there are between three and four Asian immigrant families
that set up and sell at the market. All these nonwhite vendors specialize in selling
bouquets oft1owers as their primary products. So while they operate on the literal
periphery of the market, the goods they specialize in are also outside the core products
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the market is known for. There is one other stand that specializes in selling flowers, but
this stand is typically run by a white woman and is located in the "core" area of the
market. Occasionally the Asian immigrant fanners add other items; many of the food
items they sell are specially coded as "ethnic," for example pea tendrils and cilantro with
roots.
II White
Asian Immigrant IIIII II
Figure 4: Racial distribution of stands at the Northwest Farmers' Market
As many of the consumers and farmers alluded to in our discussions, eating is an
intimate affair and you need to trust the person who provides your food. As I observed
the flowers being sold by the Asian immigrants it struck me that these farmers mostly
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specialized in products that are not consumable (something that seems different from
other markets I have visited). The reasons that these Asian immigrants focus on selling
flowers is likely quite complicated, having to do with everything from the land they use,
their particular farming experience, and the ability to fill a niche. 8 The fact that they
mostly focus on selling goods that are not consumable, however, is worth noting.
Moreover, unlike the stands on the main section of the market, the stands on the
sides tend to look more utilitarian. Especially among the Asian immigrants, signs tend to
be written with black markers on tom pieces of cardboard and produce displayed on
plastic tables sans tablecloths and wicker baskets. In this same section an elderly white
woman and one of her grandchildren nms a stand; she simply backs her pickup truck with
camper shell into the stand, has shelves that come from the back of the truck, and
displays her produce in miniature plastic laundry baskets. The fact that the stands are on
the periphery of the market is a sort of metaphor for the market in general--the people
selling in these areas are somehow outside the core of "sustainable" agriculture, a fact
that is only reinforced by the "seniority" system that allows the most profitable stands to
remain in the core area of the market. If these profitable and recognizable stands were
moved off the main street and onto the side street it would likely draw more consumers to
the less "senior" stands and perhaps it would open up the space in ways that allowed for
vendors of color to have more opportunities to be part of the core of the market.
8 As noted in my methods chapter, [ attempted to interview these vendors on a number of occasions, but
language baniers made it difficult. Furthenl1ore, I got the impression they were eoneemed about allowing
me to interview them for other reasons that I could not ever quite make out. Eventually I quit asking them
about interviews.
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This issue of land ownership at the market can also help to explain the racialized
inequality at the market. As researchers have noted, land ownership among people of
color (and African Americans in particular) is grossly unequal. This is despite the
necessity of labor from people of color to the success of both conventional and
sustainable agriculture; according to Allen "ethnic minorities have not had equal access
to land, capital, or decision making in the food and agriculture system" (Allen 1993: 148).
I think it is important to note, that access to farm land does more than just allow
people of color opportunities to fann. Other research suggest that when people of color
have access to land they are more likely to sell their food in underserved communi tics of
color and that people of color are more likely to shop at farmer's markets where they feel
they have a connection to the famlcrs. But at the market where I observed, the "core"
vendors as well as the images presented where overwhelmingly concerned with
whiteness and the white nuclear family. I think this reflects both the racialized make-up
of the fanns as well as the ways whiteness may be written into ideas about sustainable
agriculture. As Slocum (2007) notes, "Whiteness is hegemonic in the US; it is dominant
regardless of the number of bodies in a certain place... ,whiteness... is not about
counting all the whi tes and arguing that whiteness is 'more' or 'less' in places with
greater or fewer white people." Rather, this is about an image, an idealized
representation that relies on more than numbers--it is about space, geography, what
people do, the roles they have, in the market.
My observations at the market focused on understanding how race was
constructed in this space rather than counting bodies in part because there were so few
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people of color at the market. As I noted in my literature review, the research on race and
farmers' markets come to similar conclusions: sustainable agriculture is a space of
whiteness. My observations only supported these conclusions.
Interestingly, however, my observations were often in contrast to the interviews I
conducted with consumers, most of whom saw the space as inclusive. In part, I think
some of this may be tied to how we were looking at the market. To most of the
consumers, the market was clearly quite beloved and does seem to be able to absorb
people who might very well be ostracized in other spaces. I think because many ofthe
market consumers may feel "othered" in the consumer oriented spaces of contemporary
capitalism, like the typical shopping mall, they are particularly attuned to making the
market seem welcoming. Furthermore, in all my observations I saw nothing on the part
of the consumers that would suggest that people of color were not welcome in the space.
In fact, nearly every weekend and many weekdays an older African American man, Sam,
would set up at the market and play his guitar. He seemed to be a well-known and well?
liked member of the community. As he played his music people would drop change into
his guitar cas.e and he would pause for a moment and encourage them to take one of the
."Our Town is Too Great for Hate" stickers out of his case. I think in part the consumers
use his presence and the presence of other people of color at the market to construct the
space as inclusive. In part, I think they also recognize that they have good intentions, that
they want to be inclusive and they reflect these beliefs onto the space itself. They see
Sam handing out his anti-hate stickers and see a rainbow community.
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Yet while the consumers at the market want to believe it is an inclusive,
welcoming space, this does not make the space any less white. I had never actually been
to the Farmers' Market before I began this project; instead my partner and I tried to grow
as much of our food as possible and did our grocery shopping across the river, in a
neighboring working-class community at a large discount grocery store that catered to a
quite economically and racially diverse set of clientele. Thus, after a shopping at WinCo
for many years, the whiteness of the market, even in a white community in Oregon, was
surprising to me. My years living in a racially diverse neighborhood and shopping at a
racially diverse grocery store that was only a IS-minute bus ride from the market helped
to shape my observations at the market. Perhaps the market looked white to me because
where I lived and did most my shopping there was a large Hispanic presence; for
instance, I frequently bought tamales out of a van that drove around my neighborhood
and learned a little Spanish from some of the children who lived one door down and liked
to play in my yard. While I did not live far from the market, the difference in the racial
make-up between my neighborhood and the market was a stark contrast. This is not to
say my working-class neighborhood was a space of easygoing racial inclusion. My white
neighbors were convinced that our Hispanic neighbors were stealing cars in the
neighborhood and "jumping over fences with knives." But, when I attended the market,
everything from the foods available to the consumers buying those foods constmcted the
market in a way that saw the ideal type of consumer as white and middle-class.
This is not to deny the real social value of sustainable agriculture as offered by
this farmers' market. Often consumers really were getting a chance to interact with the
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fanners who grew their food; I found it particularly refreshing to see farmers with high
paying off farm jobs taking their Saturdays to set up their own tables and interact with
their consumers. Furthennore, the more 1 got to know the fam1ers and the market
community the more 1realized that many of the farmers were giving up material wealth
to provide sustainable food to the market community. Furthermore, as many consumers
noted, making the market a priority was not always convenient; yet they still managed to
prioritize supporting the market despite these inconveniences, and their support of the
market is critical to its success.
Yet, 1 made two observations at the market that I found quite contrary to a vision
of inclusiveness. It is difficult to weigh the importance of these observations, because on
the one hand they were relatively rare, but on the other hand, given the small number of
people of color, particularly Hispanic people, at the market these observations stuck out
to me. The first observation happened during the early moming hours while I watched
the vendors setting up. During those early moming hours, I watched a Hispanic man haul
vegetables from a truck to the stand where two Hispanic women were arranging the
vegetables in the display. While the Hispanic workers were busying themselves with the
task of setting up the stand-a stand I always found particularly beautiful because of the
ways the vegetables were stacked in such large, yet neat piles-two young, white women
busied themselves with writing out the price list for the stand and giving directions to the
Hispanic man and women. As I watched the Hispanic man hauling heavy boxes from the
truck and the Hispanic women laboring to unload box and after box under the direction of
the young white women, I found myself thinking: why I had never seen the Hispanic
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workers during any of my other observations? Then, before the market was opened the
man and woman got in the fanTI truck and drove away leaving the young, white women
in their summery cotton dresses to work the stand. Over the course of the summer I
watched this same scene take place whenever I observed the market before it opened.
This was not the only stand to do something similar. 1 observed something quite
similar at the flower stand that occupied a small area in the core area of the market; a
white middle aged woman usually runs the stand. Fragrant peony blossoms and long
trailing houseplants surrounded her as she quickly assembles stems of flowers into
bouquets for waiting consumers. Yet, during the set up process she is not alone. Two
Hispanic men who did the heavy labor of hauling bucket after bucket of flowers from a
large van to the stand assist her. The morning I observed it was clear that they were
behind schedule. The woman running the stand was agitated and the language barrier
between her and the men, who appeared to only speak Spanish, only exacerbated her
frustration. There was an awkward, aggravated dance between the men and the woman
as she would shout "el fronte, el fronte" to the men unloading the van trying to convey
that she wanted a specific flower from the front of the van. I felt uncomfortable
observing these interactions that normally take place behind closed doors in workspaces.
However, what I watched next only affirmed to me the ways that people who are
poor and of color can literally become invisible in the space. The stand was being set up
quite late; it was graduation morning at the local university and they likely had orders to
fill before setting off to the market, but before they could even finish setting up,
customers were eager to buy bouquets. The first consumer looked affluent in her large
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sunglasses and immediately began demanding that certain flowers be removed from the
bouquet she had selected, pointing to the flowers she liked and indicating that she wanted
them in her bouquet. At the same time two Asian American women came to the stand
and begin selecting annfuls of !lowers. The flower stand is one of the smallest at the
market. Buckets overflowing with flowers line a long nan-ow aisle less than five feet
wide. Yet, all four women were crowded into this tiny space, and all of them seemed
hurried. The proprietor seemed caught off guard by the rush of customers and flustered
that the stand was not completely set up. In spite of all this, somehow in this tiny space
the two Hispanic men continued to set up. With buckets in hand they ducked between
the woman and everyone carried on as if the men were not even there. No one backed up
to let them through; no one made eye contact with them. Only the woman running the
stands seemed to acknowledge their presence as she occasionally yelled something like,
"where are the scissors?!" Soon, the customers were taken care of, the stand was set up,
and the Hispanic men left in the van as the woman put the finishing touches on the stand.
Both this example and the example of the farm stand above suggest that while the
labor of Hispanic people may be necessary for at least some of the farmers, this labor is
hidden in a variety of ways. This is not say that all the farms engage in these practices.
As I noted earlier, it is quite the contrary: most the stands are actually run by the fanners
themselves, farmers who are mostly white. Yet the observations at these two stands
suggest that racialized labor is hidden from the buying public. These stands white wash
their wares by using Hispanic laborers for set up but not as the public faces of the fann
itself. Furthennore, customers (at least the ones at the flower shop) are implicated in this
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as well by not seeing this labor even when it is right in front of them. 1 was shocked at
how the men at the flower stand seemed to work completely unseen in a space no bigger
than a small bathroom.
Yet the space of the market is extraordinarily complex. This same morning 1
watched another Hispanic man help set up a produce stand, but his relationship with his
coworkers at the stand was markedly different than at the other stands 1 described. It is
worth noting that this man also looked different from the Hispanic men and woman who
were setting up the other two stands; for example, he was lighter skinned and taller.
However at this stand, rather than doing the heavy, manual labor alone, everyone
working at the stand came together to load the van and to set up the produce. Then, when
the stand was set up, they sat down together on a bench behind the display and rested
together as they enjoyed a brief break before the opening. Even after the market opened
they all worked together selling produce and replenishing the food. I was struck by how
different this was from my other observations. This was clearly a team of people who
worked together quite well and from my observations seemed to be treated equitably. He
was not treated like a "Hispanic farm labor" in the ways the people setting up the two
other stands were. 1 think this is the image that consumers and farmers alike have when
they think of the market as an inclusive space.
1 think it is important to understand that if a consumer were to visit the market
more than likely they would never see the first two cases. If they arrived even 10 minutes
after opening they would only see the beautifully set up stands run by white people.
They might see one Hispanic man working at the stand with his friends or Sam playing
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the guitar and perhaps in these moments see the space as inclusive. But these moments
of inclusiveness does not take away from the whiteness at the market; instead 1 think they
suggest the complexity of the market, the ways that personal beliefs about race can affect
the space. Clearly the different vendors have different perspectives about race, but
overall the presentation at the market, particularly in terms of vendors, is a presentation
of whiteness.
But 1 want to be clear that, as Slocum reminds us, "while it should be said that
there is something white about alternative food practice, that 'something white' is not
equivalent to 'something negative '" (521). Like Slocum, I want to emphasize that
"Whiteness coheres in alternative food practice in the act of 'doing good', a productive
moment, that should not be condemned outright." (526). Overall, 1 would argue that the
construction of the market as a space that privileges whiteness (and in particular the
white, heterosexual family) may end up limiting participation in sustainable agriculture.
This, however, does not have to take away from the good that sustainable agriculture
does nor does it take away from the sacrifices that consumers often make to support
sustainable fanners and the market. Furthermore, in a society where the white,
heterosexual family is hegemonic in nearly every space, it should be clear that the
vendors and falmers are not necessarily responsible for creating this form of inequality.
Instead, the market is a space where the dominant family form in the culture is
maintained in part through the invisibility of privilege.
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Conclusion
There is little doubt in my mind that people involved in sustainable agriculture
either as consumers or fanners want sustainable agriculture to be inclusive, especially
when one considers the mission statement of the market and statements from both
consumers and fanners about wanting people to feel welcome. Yet it seems that despite
these good intentions certain inequalities that are certainly present and hegemonic in the
larger culture are reproduced at the market at well. Unfortunately, undoing systems of
inequality that are part of the larger culture is going to require more than good intentions
or an articulate mission statement can deliver. Making sustainable agriculture a space for
everyone, if that really is an intention, will require the kind of careful planning and action
that is in some ways are a hallmark of sustainable agriculture. Industrial agriculture has
always seemed like a juggernaut, a force that epitomized industrial capitalism and has
been supported by huge government subsidies. Yet sustainable agriculture, one fanners'
market at a time, seems to be shifting this playing field and making people think
differently about the food they eat and the way they relate to the people producing that
food. When I think about this I am often overwhelmed; it is tangible proof of the kind
change that is possible. Some people 1have talked to about my project have suggested
that I am expecting too much of a farnlers' market; they often acknowledge that markets
tend to be white and perhaps middle class, but they suggest that sustainable agriculture
should not expect fanners or consumers to have to take on the project of making
sustainable agriculture more inclusive. The dominant assumption is that people who are
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interested in being involved will become involved, and you cannot force people to shop
at a fanners' market.
Many of the inequalities that I have described in this chapter are part of much
larger structural and institutional systems of inequality. I am certainly not arguing that
the "market" is creating gender inequality and "making" women take on the labor of
cooking for their families. Yet the ability to sell this food at the market relies on
someone who is able to not only go to the market to buy the food but also someone to do
the labor of tuming the food into dinner. Ultimately if making sustainable agriculture
more egalitarian and inclusive is an imp0l1ant to goal, and I believe it is, change will need
to take place on a structural level. If we deem it important that sustainable, local food is
available to everyone, then we need to have markets in places where working class
people live, where people of color live. Or perhaps more importantly, we need to
advocate for housing policies that do not lead to class and race segregation in the first
place.
If this mission is important, if we want sustainable agriculture to be more
inclusive, we need to do the work implementing structural changes that support this goal.
However, before that, we have to acknowledge that these inequalities exist in the space of
the fanners' market, that they are not the product of some natural phenomenon but are
socially constructed and that some of us benefit from these constructions.
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CHAPTER VI
THE CONSUMERS
During my observations at the market, it was clear that many people are
"regulars" in this space. There is a particular crowd that comes early before the heat of
the day; they line up before the stands open and are assured first choice of the food.
There is the afternoon crowd that wanders around a bit more lazily, taking in the music
and enjoying the blueberries they've purchased as they browse the market. The market is
often a place to run into and chat with people you might not normally see in the course of
your week. In fact, people recognizing one another from a distance and stopping to chat
frequently punctuates the experience of browsing at the market. During my observations
I frequently ran into people that I knew-including my dissertation chairs with their
families, the midwife who delivered my son, classmates, and students. The market is a
place where people come together for the common purpose of buying locally grown food
and often to enjoy summer days surrounded by the buzz of fellow shoppers. The market,
in other words, is a space defined by a sense of community and a shared commitment to
supporting local and organic food, a space that often seems as much about socializing and
communal values than it is about purchasing food.
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In this chapter I use interviews with consumers to understand how they
understand the space of the Northwest Farmers' Market and the project of sustainable
agriculture in general. I see the consumers at the market as key to understanding how the
idea of sustainable agriculture is constructed because without consumers there would
literally be no market. The fact that the market relies on the support of the consumers
and their commitment to sustainable agriculture is what makes the interviews with
consumers so important to this project. The ways that consumers understand the market
and sustainable agriculture is a window into how sustainable agriculture is understood by
those who are committed to its success.
This chapter explores how the participants at the Northwest Farmers' Market
define and describe their fellow consumers at the market, how they understand barriers to
participation at the market, and ends with a discussion of the consumers' understanding
of "sustainability." By examining consumers' perceptions of the market, who shops
there, and why, I hope to better understand how consumers see this space the project of
sustainability. To that end, this chapter uses interviews with consumers at the Northwest
Farmers' Market to explore how such consumers understand the market, sustainable
foods, and the community of people who frequent the market. I asked them demographic
questions as well as questions about why they shopped at the market, whom they thought
shopped at the market, why more people did not shop here, and how they define
sustainability, among other questions.
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Who Shops Here?
I begin this chapter by discussing consumer perceptions of who shops at the
market. As I note in my Literature Review chapter, demographic surveys ofthe market
find that the average consumer is a white, well-educated woman (Onianwa, Mojica, and
Wheelock 2006; Walton, Kirby, Hemleberry, and Agustini 2002). Furthermore, a
number of scholars have suggested that farmers' markets are places of whiteness
(Guthman 2008; Slocum 2007). For this portion of the project, I was concerned not only
with my perceptions of the market as a researcher, but also with understanding how the
consumers see the space. Thus, I specifically asked the consumers I interviewed about
how they perceived the demographics of who was shopping at the market.
Given that this project is particularly concerned with issues of race, class, and
gender equity I asked the consumers: "What kinds of people do you think shop at the
market in tem1S of race, class, gender?" Race, class, and gender, of course, are
notoriously difficult for many people to talk about; they often make people very
uncomfortable. Importantly, these were also short, 10-minute interviews where I was not
able to develop a real rapport with the respondents, so the responses were often quite
short and perhaps not representative of how these individuals would have responded
under different conditions. Nonetheless, the consumers I interviewed were all willing to
engage with the question and all answered it. In my analysis of this data, I found patterns
that suggested some of the different ways that the consumers saw the space. In this
section I specifically address how the consumers talk about gender, race, and class. I also
discuss the importance of age to their understanding of the space and close with the
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consumers' tendency to use universalizing language while describing shoppers at the
market.
One of my most colorful consumer interviews was with an 81-year old retired
teacher. She made a point of talking about how "upscale handsome" many of the
shoppers were and how the farmers who sell at the market looked "fit and trim,"
especially compared to some of the "chubs" she knows. Her point was that you could
trust the farmers to sell you food that was nutritious because they \\;ere healthy looking
and so were their customers. In a sense her observations reflected what I observed at the
market as well. In fact, two others including a 61-year-old man mentioned that the
people selling and buying the food other were "all skinny; all the people are skinny who
sell this stuff, if you've ever noticed." The people shopping and selling the food were
mostly people who by even today's relatively narrow standards seemed to fit a
hegemonic vision of attractiveness, not necessarily in a fashion model type way, but in a
white, middle-class, Northwest natural, outdoorsy, sandal wearing way.
Similar to the teacher's response were others who did not actually address the
topics of the question I asked but answered with a humorous quip, perhaps speaking to
the ways this question may have made consumers somewhat uncomfortable or perhaps
simply speaking to a consumer's sense of humor. For example, one 45 year old woman
joked, "Very attractive people," and then added with a slight grin "wouldn't you say'?"
Two respondents, both middle aged men, replied with, "cool people."
While these responses are certainly interesting and tell us something about how
these consumers understand their fellow shoppers, one of the most common responses I
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received to the question involved age as a category. In fact, 15 consumers discuss age in
their answer. And while some of them also included other categories in their analysis
(class for example), I found this particularity interesting because, while age is an
important category of analysis, it was one I had not included. For these consumers,
clearly the fact that there was a distribution of ages at the market left an impression on
them. For example, a 41-year-old woman argued, "Right now it's the 20's to 30's that
we are really starting to push because they are our future and the children of course it's
amazing to see how many little preschools on Tuesday morning will take their children to
the farmers' market to get them exposed." A 23-year-old female student argued it is
"people that are more older people that like seem to be parents or even grandparents but
um it's kind of wide open." A 61-year-old man noted, "I've seen all ages today,
everybody wants to eat healthy." The consumers who included age seemed to be happy
about the age distribution. In a society where there are often few public spaces where
everyone from young children, to college students, to elderly people can come together,
the intergenerational mingling did seemed to mark space in what I felt was a welcoming
way.
I was somewhat surprised as I coded my data to find that although 15 consumers
discussed age, given only 10 mentioned race and six mentioned gender, categories I
specifically asked about and often reiterated if they didn't bring it up in their answer. In
fact, so few people brought up gender and their answers were so short that it is difficult to
theorize about their comments. Of the six who mentioned gender, three consumers said
they found it to be equally mixed, while three said there were more women. A 27-year-
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old woman noted, "I don't know, just like a good mix of the sexes"; this was echoed by a
59-year-old woman who said, "I think gender seems to be mixed to me." A 20 year-old
male argued, "As far as gender goes I see both males and females." These comments
were in contrast to those of a 33-year-old woman who said, "I do see typically more
women" and a 32-year-old woman who noted, "I see more women than men." A 28?
year-old woman's response that "It seems to be a lot of upper classed motherish ladies"
was the only response to explicitly link gender with another category_
Ultimately (and in line with other researchers' findings) while my observations
suggested that the market was indeed gendered, with women making most of the
purchases, it was interesting how invisible these gender differences tended to be to
consumers since the vast majority of them simply did not include gender despite the fact
that the category was included in the question.
While most consumers did not comment on gender, lO did mention race.
However, many of those who included it seemed quite uncomfortable. As 1noted earlier,
race can be a very difficult topic to discuss under ideal conditions, so in a ten-minute
interview in a public space these anxieties were likely particularly pronounced. In
general, the responses that included a discussion of race reflect trends that are found in
other research about race and whiteness, specifically, in Frankenberg's (1993)
groundbreaking examination of whiteness.
More specifically, a number of consumer responses reflect what Frankenberg
(1993) refers to as "color-blindness," where one does not acknowledge the influence that
race has on one's social location. For example, the response from a 24-year-old woman
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captures some of the discomfort that many respondents seemed to have with the question
itself. She noted, "Well, it is a little more expensive than buying in the stores, so I
imagine it's probably more middle-class, but [the town] itself seems like it's more ofa
liberal community and people are just more interested in their health and whatnot than
maybe other places that just use just grocery stores. So, 1 don't really know how to
answer that question. 1'm not sure that race has anything to do with it." A 27-year-old
woman started her response by saying, "Today I've seen all kinds of different people, I
think they take the Oregon Trail food stamps here, I think, all the vendors, so you kind of
cross socio-economic with having it more accessible like that. You know, I think there
probably tends to be more people focused on eating organically and fresh, so maybe
there's a certain cultural element there that you see more of." The woman ended the
question by with, "Other than that, I think you can find just about, as diverse as [this
town] is, you find just about every group represented here. We don't really have a lot of
ethnic diversity, so 1 don't think it's a/air question."
In fairness, this is a town that is mostly white, although it is not entirely so. In
fact, the U.S. Census Bureau (U.S. Census Bureau 2009) reports that 85% of the county's
population described themselves as non Hispanics whites; nearly seven percent of the
county are people who described themselves as Latino or Hispanic, and these numbers
are growing. There are various grocery stores in the area that reflect this shifting
demographic, yet as a group, Hispanics are rarely represented at the market as either
consumers or vendors. As in many places, however, this city does seem to be racially
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segregated in terms of where people shop and live, so if one was not aware of the area's
shifting demographic trends, it might be easy to overlook.
The responses that actually addressed race specifically were somewhat limited.
Many of the responses, such as the two above, suggest a discomfort with discussing race,
and these comments were not isolated; in fact, four, of the consumers immediately
explained away any underrepresentation at the market with a "well it's just this town,"
with the understanding that since this Northwest town is not racially diverse then it is
unnecessary to discuss race.
As I argued in the "Northwest Farmers' Market" chapter, I found the market to be
a space where people of color, when they worked at the market, were frequently made
invisible. In fact, while I had very few observations of people of color consuming at the
market, I observed two instances that struck me as quite unusual. In the first, a Hispanic
looking woman was trying to buy hot peppers. They were in a small basket labeled 5/$1.
It seemed that she wanted to buy three rather than five peppers because she had three
peppers in her hand and was asking: "how much?" The woman running the stand had no
other customers but was quite curt and just kept saying: "five for a dollar." The woman
would hold up three peppers and ask again: "how much?" Until finally, the woman
running the stand took the peppers out the woman's hand and put them back in the
basket-the implication was that she would not sell her three peppers. Finally, the
woman trying to buy the peppers turned and left.
In another instance, a Hispanic-looking family arrived at a nursery stand; I had
been observing from the parking lot above the stand for some time and was struck by
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how this family made a direct line to this one particular stand and to a particular cactus
that had the large flat paddles that are often used in Mexican cooking. The husband and
the proprietor asked "how much" and then left while the wife and child stayed with the
plant. 1 assumed that they had not brought enough money and he had to make a trip to an
ATM to get more cash. What ensued was one of the most awkward interactions or lack
of interactions 1 saw at the market. This particular stand is long and probably only 4 feet
wide. The woman and her child stood next to the large cactus and the man running the
stand managed to navigate the narrow stall without ever talking or making eye contact
with the woman for what seemed like at least ten minutes. The market is a place where
the proprietors are often very friendly; when I'm shopping they ask what 1'm going to
make with what 1'm buying, if 1 like the weather, and a variety of other mundane but
friendly questions. I felt so uncomfortable watching the interaction and could not
understand why the man didn't just ask her a question about the cactus or smile at the
little boy.
While in both these examples there could be any number of reasons the people
running the stands interacted in the ways they did, it was hard not to at least wonder what
role the racial dynamics played. The market has an aura of friendliness, but 1kept
wondering how it would feel to me if] had experienced one of these interactions. It also
occurred to me that while there were a few instances at the market that seemed
particularly racialized at least to me, they came out of many, many hours of observations.
Furthelmore, all the cases I observed of what may be described as racial inequality (both
in this chapter and the previous chapter) were cases in which people of color where
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interacting with white farmers or vendors either as employees or customers. Thus, except
for the case of the flower seller I mentioned in the previous chapter, consumers were not
a part of these interactions. For consumers who come to the market and get to work
getting their food for the week, it is not surprising that they might not see or perhaps may
not take note of these kind interactions or register them in the same way that I did as a
researcher.
This perhaps explains why consumers who saw the market as white were in a
small minority. Ultimately in my interviews only three consumers identified the market
as mostly white; two of these were students. One 26-year-old female student noted,
"Unfortunately, I see a lot of ... white people, I think that part of that has to with the fact
that this is [our town] and there are a lot of white people in [our town], more so than other
races, but, yeah, I mean I think that's unfortunate, but that's mostly what I see." Another
student, a 20-year-old male, was more matter of fact, saying, "1 definitely see a broad
range of people, 1 think most people who go there are liberal because they are looking for
organic foods, I see more white people than 1 do others. As far as gender goes 1see both
males and females, age, probably mid age to older." The third person who noted that it
was mostly white was the 81-year-old woman who found people at the market to be "fit
and trim." She noted, "you don't see a great variety of races, that's something you don't
notice, but 1 did notice that they look like liberal thinking people that 1wouldn't mind
knowing." This ability to "see" whiteness when one is white can be difficult given that
whiteness is an "unmarked" category. Frankenberg argues that whiteness is "not so much
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void or formlessness as norm" (198). Thus, because whiteness is the norm it is also often
becomes invisible to those occupying this "unmarked" category.
Compared to the responses I received related to gender and race, I was surprised
by consumers' seeming willingness to engage with issues of class at the market.
Fourteen consumers included an analysis of class in their answer, which is not many
more than the ten who discussed race; however, the consumers who discussed class did
so in a way that often did not require much prompting. Furthermore, the responses were
often much more developed and engaged. Instead of short one-sentence answers-the
kind I often received regarding race and gender-the responses were often quite lengthy.
It was also interesting that that eleven of the fourteen consumers mentioned that
they thought the market was marked as a middle or upper middle class space (the other
three consumers thought "all classes" shopped at the market). This was a clear deviation
from the frequent unease I encountered while discussing race with most of the
consumers. The eleven consumers who mentioned the market being classed in their
responses often said something similar to a 32-year-old man who noted, "It's definitely
people who have a little more income" or the 24-year-old women who replied, "I feel like
I see upper middle-class." Yet, while many people mentioned that they thought the
market primarily attracted the upper and upper-middle class, six of the respondents were
careful to point out that, despite this, they did not think the market was an exclusionary
space. In fact, six of the eleven who mentioned that it was mostly middle class went on
to point out, as the 32-year-old man did, "it's not necessarily a cross-section, but it's not
exclusively anything," while the 24-year-old woman went on to note, "it's great that they
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take WIC, that they can use their WIC coupons here." These consumers felt that while
the market may be predominantly middle or upper class, there were reasons to believe
that it was not an economically exclusive space. In fact, three people pointed out that
they accept Food Stamps and WIC at the market. For example, one 32-year-old woman
noted, "I would assume people are definitely middle class. I know that they take senior
and WIC checks, but I've never seen anyone using them. It generally seems to be a bit of
a more ...middle class group of shoppers." And a 27-year-old woman noted, "I think they
take the Oregon Trail food stamps here, I think, all the vendors, so you kind of cross
socio-economic with having it more accessible like that." While these three specifically
mentioned a benefit program, four others mentioned poorer consumers who shopped at
the market. One 50-year-old male consumer noted, "Actually, I know poor people that
shop here." Others echoed this response. A 59-year-old woman said, "I think you see
more people who are financially comfortable here. But I know some very hard up people
that just insist on coming here to get the quality of food." A 28-year-old male said,
"people that are trying to live an organic lifestyle ... do a lot of shopping here, so that
could be your upper middle and upper class that, you know, the yuppie types that have
the money, but they still want to at least act like they're doing the natural thing all the
way to people who are very poor, but they still feel that they are big enough deal to do the
natural thing."
I think some of these responses suggest a tension felt by the consumers, a tension
in recognizing that the space was perhaps classed, but a recognition that was in
opposition to their vision of what the market signified to them, which seemed to be an
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inclusive space. First, these consumers seem on the one hand to assert that it is
predominantly middle and upper-middle class people who shop at the fanner's market
while on the other hand they seem uncomfortable with that assertion and thus resist it by
noting that the market "isn't exclusive or anything" and that they "know poor people"
who shop there. These responses sometimes felt a bit tacked on, a defense of the market
and a def~nse of a system that they see as valuable and important, but perhaps flawed.
All but one of the consumers interviewed described the market in positive terms,
and some almost seemed surprised by their answers that suggested class inequality
existed in the market. I think in part the question itself was unsettling since it explicitly
asked about race and class, categories that are often difficult to talk about, and categories
that are often "unseen," particularly by those in positions of privilege. Thus, in noting
that people who frequent the market may be upper or middle-class, it follows that the
market is perhaps more welcoming to some kinds of people than others, a realization that
is antithetical to notions of liberalism. This is not to say that all the consumers seemed
unwil1ing to articulate inequality_ The 26-year-old student who had noted that the market
was predominantly white also included a discussion of class. She argued,
"Unfortunately, I see a lot of middle, of upper middle class white people ... I mean that's
unfortunate, but that is mostly what I see." Her answer included level of critique that was
not present in most other responses.
This response was the most critical of the market, but I was still surprised by the
number of consumers who suggested that the market is perhaps marked as middle or
upper middle class (although not necessarily in a restrictive way). I was particularly
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interested in why the consumers were much more likely to discuss class rather than race
or gender. I think it may be in part because class is somewhat less difficult to talk about
than race and gender, but I also see it related to the market's handling of class inequality
in the space; specifically, the market board has worked hard to be allowed to accept food
stamps and WIC vouchers. In other words, the market itself acknowledges a certain level
of class inequality in the space. While I discuss the onerous process of actually using the
benefits in the Northwest Farmers' Market Chapter, the fact that many vendors display
signs announcing that they accept these benefits is perhaps related to the consumers'
responses about class equality at the market. Of course, the inverse may also be true:
perhaps it was consumers' concems about class inequality in the space that led to the
implementation of these benefit programs here. If this is indeed the case, it is perhaps a
hopeful sign that when "the market" (the board of directors or the market manager) puts
in place systems to make the market more inclusive-in part to encourage a more diverse
set of clientele, but also to improve the bottom line of the market-it may be reflected in
how the consumers understand the space as well.
Despite the consumers who emphasized class in their responses, the most
common response to my question was one that emphasized the market as an inclusive
space where "everyone" was present. In fact, 20 of the consumers used what I refer to as
"universalizing language" where these consumers noted that "everyone" shops at the
market or that there is a "good mix" of people." A 41-year-old women who noted,
"Everybody [shops here]; there is no color difference" is a typical example of this type of
response.
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I found these responses to be particularly interesting because of the ways these
particular consumes avoided dealing with the categories that I explicitly included in the
question. Instead of following the "everyone" up by explaining how that included people
of various races, classes, genders or sexual orientations, most of the people who answered
"everyone" went on to answer like this 59-year-old female consumer: "Everyone: young,
old, middle-age, old you know everybody," or like this 35-year-old woman: "Everything,
everyone, there are people in suits, people on their bikes, there is everyone, children,
elderly, it's really well-rounded." These consumers tended to answer in a way that
suggested that they did not actually see the market as racialized, gendered or classed in
particular ways; rather they saw the market as an inclusive space that welcomed
"everyone." Responses to the question that used universalizing language and saw the
market as inclusive were by far the most common. This is perhaps not surprising given
that the "Farmer's Market Coalition" (2007) itself asserted that "Farmer's Markets are
Good For Everyone." These responses may reflect the dominant ideology within the
sustainable food movement, which sees the movement as universally important and tends
not to address how issues of inclusion, especially issues of race and gender inclusion, are
specifically being attended to.
The varying responses I received to this question were particularly interesting.
The responses included the student who noted, "Unfortunately, I see a lot of middle, of
middle upper middle class white people" to the woman who felt that "Everything,
everyone, there are people in suits, people on their bikes, there is everyone, children,
elderly, it's really well-rounded." The fact that consumers tend to see the market in very
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different ways likely reflects their own particular understanding of "inclusion"-for
example, some people see any acknowledgement of race as "racist"-and thus may use
universalizing language as a result. There were, however, some clear patterns in the
responses. In general these responses suggest that while some consumers see the market
as classed, but not necessarily in a way that actually restricts participation, the majority of
consumers that I interviewed see the market as "good for everyone."
Why Doesn't Everyone Shop Here?
Many consumers saw the market as open to "everyone" and they described the
market often quite glowingly. Thus when 1 asked the consumers "why doesn't everyone
shop at the market?" it often posed a difficult question for many to answer given that they
obviously chose to shop at the market and seemed to be enjoying the experience. The
answers, however, were surprisingly similar; in fact, 27 consumer responses included a
discussion of convenience, although the comments about convenience were often quite
dissimilar. Some people talked about convenience in a rather neutral way, while others
were empathetic in their discussion; another group condemned people who they felt
placed convenience over shopping at the market. The second most common response
was one that focused on "education"; in fact, nine consumers discussed education,
although, again, the tone of these responses varied greatly. Beyond these categories there
was very little consensus. Two consumers mentioned that the market was not well
adveIiised and that people might not know about it. Three consumers briefly mentioned
that the market was more expensive but largely focused other issues (such as
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convenience) in their responses. In general, the responses fell either in the category of
convenience or education, although two consumers included both categories in their
responses.
Of the 27 consumers who mentioned convenience, 13 noted that it might not be
convenient for everyone to shop at the market in a value neural way. For example, a 20?
year-old female student noted, "Well, it usually happens once a week or maybe twice a
week so it is more convenient to run out and buy stuff at the time you need it instead of
planning ahead and it takes more planning." A 55-year-old woman noted, "it's not as
convenient as the grocery stores, I think it's just easier to run in and get everything you
need at once." During a very hot day, a very pregnant 33-year-old woman (with a young
child in tow) suggested, "Probably, they just don't want to be walking around in the sun,
it is more comfortable to have a car and drive your stuff and put it in there than be
carrying all these bags." A 32-year-old woman noted, "It's probably a lack of ease, it
takes a little bit more work to come down here and plan to shop three times a week." A
59-year-old woman argued, "Maybe it's not as convenient to come to town and park, that
sort of thing." In fact, three consumers brought up the issue of parking. This issue of the
market being somewhat inconvenient to access because of limited street parking,
especially during the work week, was on the minds of a number consumers who were
adamant that parking at the market was difficult.
These responses were coded as "neutral" because while consumers saw barriers to
participation they were framed in ways that emphasize individual reasons one might not
choose to participate rather than suggesting more structural reasons. For example, while
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a number of consumers mentioned "parking" as a problem, it was not framed as a larger
issue of access, though at times they seemed to be perhaps hinting at these structural
issues. While the responses were framed in individual, rather stmctural ways, it is not
difficult to see how in at least some of these responses the consumers were engaging
structural ideas about access, but in more individualized terms.
Based on my observations, the issue of access was one of the clearest ban-iers to
shopping at the market. For example, while I had a car and normally accessed the market
that way, I once decided take the bus to the market during the weekend as part of my
research. However, during this attempt to take the bus Ileamed that the bus I normally
took to downtown left every half and hour during the weekend rather than every ten
minutes. Thus, if you missed the bus, the wait was quite long, and it required some
planning to know when to catch the weekend bus. Furthermore, during the weekend the
bus does not actually stop at the corner where the market is set up because the hubbub of
the market makes it too difficult for the bus to stop there. Instead, bus riders must get off
a few blocks before or after the market. Thus, if one does not live somewhat close to the
market so they can walk or ride a bike or if one does not have access to a car, getting to
the market on the weekend in particular is a bit of a trial.
Furthermore, the buses, which are handicap accessible, are one of the primary
means that people with disabilities are able to independently access the community. If
one had a disability and relied on the bus for transportation, it would be nearly impossible
to get there given that the bus changes stops to avoid the market during the weekends.
However, if one was physically disabled or even physically very large, the market would
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be exceptionally difficult to navigate anyway; it is crowded and the stalls are often quite
nan'ow. During my observations I observed only one woman in a wheelchair who
routinely shopped at the market, and she almost always had a younger woman who
accompanied her and helped her gather the food. The market as it is laid out is clearly
designed with an able body in mind.
Only two consumers mentioned ability as tied to market access, Both women's
responses were in line with what I call an empathetic explanation for nonparticipation. In
total there were five responses that rather than taking a "neutral" perspective seemed
empathetic to the reasons it might not be convenient for everyone to shop at the market.
One consumer, a 64-year-old woman, noted a number of reasons why some people might
not shop at the market. Interestingly, she both begins and ends her response with "I don't
know," despite giving what was perhaps the most thorough response I received. She
noted,
Well, I don't know, I see pretty good crowds here, but ... I don't think you
take food stamps here, if you could take food stamps here that would help
tremendously. I think some people have trouble getting about you know
whether they're in wheelchairs or whatever. Sometimes it is a time factor
they go closest to home, I really, I really think and hope that they do quite
well here. Perhaps parking is a problem, particularly if you had a lot of
children. I don't know.
The only other consumer to mention ability was a 59-year-old who was on disability.
She talked about her own struggle to get to the market. She used herself as an example,
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noting "This year 1 haven't [been here as much] because it's too difficult to haul and I'm
not supposed to lift ... othelwise I would probably come down here more. When you
have a basket at the store and then they are willing to put it in the car for you and then
when you get home you can take it out one at a time I think that's probably [why]." Two
other consumers framed their discussion of convenience in this way. A 58-year-old
woman noted, "They don't have a reason to come downtown, I can see why they wouldn't
shop here. If they are a younger family and have kids, it's too much of a hassle. I think
you have to have a strong desire to have this kind of food." A 77-year-old woman had a
similar comment; she noted, "~I think probably finances maybe come into to it to a certain
degree. If! was still raising my four children I would have to think twice about some of
the things that I buy now, for myself." Interestingly, these two women were some of the
very few consumers who mentioned children in their responses.
The responses that did include children, while limited, reflected what I observed
at the market: consumers with children rarely had more than two in tow. Given the
crowds at the market, it is difficult to navigate with children, particularly young and
mobile children. Many of the people (almost exclusively mothers) who did have a child
came during Tuesday or Thursday markets when they could use a stroller because the
market was less crowded. Of course, this means that those parents were free from the
demands of paid labor during Tuesdays or Thursdays. During the Saturday market when
the crowds are sometimes difficult to navigate with a stroller, consumers tended to use a
backpack or sling to calTY a child their child through the market. Interestingly, on
Saturdays, people who came with children were usually heterosexual couples and it was
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quite common to see the father carrying the child while the woman did the marketing.
While I am certainly not arguing that grocery shopping with multiple young children (or
even one young child) at a grocery store is easy for a single parent, there are stmctures in
place at a grocery store that make it more accessible than the famlers' market. For
example, a parent shopping alone can bring a grocery cart directly to the car (which is
parked in front of the store), then load and strap the children in, and then attempt to do
her shopping. Simply getting to the market from a car or bus stop with multiple young
children would be a very challenging task. Thus in some ways the success of the market
(which often makes it very crowded) also means that a particular kind of family is better
able to attend the market on the weekends, mostly mother/father dyads with one and
occasionally two children.
A 24-year-old mother did not mention children in her responses but did note, "I
think for some people maybe it's the hours, I'm on vacation this week, that's why I'm
here, but most weeks, I have to sneak away and come, but I'm not off of work by 3:00
when it closes, so maybe that." This consumer noted that she was fi-ee from the demands
of her job for long enough to participate. While in the clear minority, these five
"empathetic" consumers seem to recognize structural limitations or barriers to coming to
the market.
The five responses that I labeled "empathetic" were much clearer about non?
participation likely being related to access or other issues. It is perhaps not surprising
that the woman who was on disability and was not able to attend the market as much as
she wanted articulated very clearly the different physical demands between going to a
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grocery store and going to the fanl1ers' market. It is interesting to note that of the five
"empathetic" all were from women, four of whom were over age 50. Moreover, four of
the women used their personal experiences to fioame their responses. They all go to their
current sociallocation--two as women who no longer have to care for young children but
who are empathetic to the demands of mothering, one who is on vacation from work and
understands the flexibility it givers her, and one who is currently disabled-to frame their
responses to the question about why people may not shop at the market.
On the other end of the spectrum, nine responses took a decidedly negative view
of the reasons people may not shop at the market. These nine consumers framed their
responses in way that suggested ideas about convenience, but these consumers did not see
structural limitations to participation; they seemed to blame nonparticipants and see them
as making poor personal choices for their own convenience. In fact a number ofthese
consumers who used convenience in a negative way described nonparticipants as "lazy."
For example, a 22-year-old man argued, "Because they would rather go to McDonald's.
Something easier. They'd just like to be in their car, in the air-conditioning, drive up to
McDonald's and buy some cheeseburgers. They wouldn't want to go into the fresh air.
It's green, everything's looking great, great for you. Society these days, a lot oflaziness
has to do with a lot of things for people that want to come here but are too lazy to do it."
Another young man said, "Sometimes they are too lazy to go, that maybe going to a
regular store is easier, and it is easier, that they don't understand that its very important to
support the people of [our town] and the farmers of [our town]; just laziness." A 63-year?
old woman argued, "I think that it's a little bit more time consuming, it's less convenient
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and it's probably not as quick. Some people are just more in a rush, they don't care what
they eat as much, they eat out all the time, eat quick food or deli food, don't savor the
food part of their life, they feel like they want to rush around and do too many things." A
53-year- old woman argued, "maybe fear and maybe a little bit oflaziness, they like the
ease of going to one place with their little shopping carts and paying at one place: that's
the American way."
Not all consumers, however, used convenience (whether "neutral," "empathetic,"
or "negative") to explain why some consumers might not shop at the market. In fact,
nine suggested the reason was that non-market consumers lacked the knowledge or
education that would lead them to shop at the market. Five of these responses had a
decidedly negative tone. One 35-year-old woman's response bridged the gap between
convenience and education. She said, "I think they don't know, I think a lot of people
don't know about it and I think it's laziness. We really shop at three different stores
because we get different things from other places; a lot of people I talk to go to one store
and get everything there, I think it's just people don't want to take the time." A 28-year?
old woman noted, "They're just uneducated about really how important it is to have local
and organic foods. I really think it's just not being educated about where it's at, what
times it's at, and what's really there."
As noted, not all the responses about education took a negative tone, in fact the
response from a 69-year-old woman, while at first mentioning issues of education ends
up being a response perhaps best characterized in the "empathetic category." This
woman notes, "I think those people who are more informed about nutrition and who take
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the time [shop here]." She then adds, that the people who shop at the market "have time
to cook, even some people who are quite well informed about nutrition have very busy
lives and they can't come to a farmer's market in the middle of the day to gather the
produce they need for the evening meal, that's just impossible, young families where
both parents work, even though they want to give very nutritious food to their children,
it's all they can do to prepare it themselves." Similar to the other women with empathetic
responses, this woman's social location may have played an important role in her
responses. During the course of the interview and our conversation afterward, she told
me that she had to cancel her CSA subscription and was coming to the market more
often. Her young granddaughter had cancer and she was traveling to her daughter's
home to help care for her. She was sad she had to cancel her CSA subscription because
she had been a longtime member, but she simply did not ever know what weeks she
would be home and what weeks she would be with her granddaughter. Though this
response was still framed around education as a reason people might not shop at the
market, the woman also goes on to explain why even people who care deeply about the
food they feed their families may not be able to participate in the system. Her response
connects individual education and structural inequalities and is indicative of the ways that
discussions about education can be included in responses without ignoring structural
inequalities. In total there were four responses that included education that fell between
neutral and empathetic.
The responses that pointed to a lack of education and that framed convenience
negatively were particularly troubling to a vision of "social sustainability" and suggest
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that these consumers saw those who were not shopping at the market in a negative light.
Interestingly, it was often older women who framed their discussions about participation
in empathetic ways and it was often the youngest consumers I interviewed-those in their
twenties-who were the most likely to use the more troubling responses about education
and convenience. Among the younger consumers, structural barriers to participation were
infrequently acknowledged and instead the decision about where to shop was often
framed as "individual" choice. I believe that these kinds of attitudes that focus so
negatively on non-participants may create barriers to participation in part because a focus
on the individual does not necessitate structural changes that may increase participation.
Ultimately, however, it may be that some of the consumers are simply in a
difficult position to explain nonparticipation given that they are often going out of their
way to participate. As the consumers often pointed out, the market can be difficult to
access, even for them. It sometimes means sneaking away from work, fighting for
parking, struggling to keep an unwilling toddler in a backpack, or feeling the pain of a
disability, yet the politics of supporting the market mean making shopping here a priority.
As a scholar, it is often easier to critique systems-such as consumers' particular beliefs
about the market-than to see the complications in this mode of consumption. Clearly
the consumers have other choices about how and what to consume, yet their responses
suggest the ways that they prioritize shopping at the market. Furthermore, without the
material support of the consumers there would be no market, no sustainable food
movement. As]ohnson (2008) is points out in her discussion of food politics, it is easy
to point out the villains, but it can much harder to see the counter hegemonic mechanisms
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consumers use in their food decisions. Simply, we should not ignore the agency or the
progressive politics of shopping at the market.
What Is Sustainability?
In both the Introduction and Literature Review of this dissertation I discussed my
personal struggle with defining "sustainability." While I have adopted Feenstra, Ingels,
and Campbell's (1997) definition with their emphasis on the "three legs of
sustainability"-environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic
equity-in conjunction with the Bruntland Commission's definition, particularly its
emphasis on not compromising the needs of future generations as we go about meeting
our current needs, the truth is it that it literally took me years of thinking about
sustainable agriculture to settle on this definition. Thus when I asked the market
consumers "what does sustainability mean to you?" I was not sure what kinds of
responses I would get. Just the same, given my interest in how the consumers construct
the space of the market and understand sustainable agriculture, I was interested in what
components of sustainability were the most frequently emphasized by these consumers
and how this idea of "sustainability" resonates with consumers.
There was certainly some confusion among a small number of consumers about
how to define it. For example, a 33-year old woman struggled and then said, "Well, we
have a good climate urn I'm sure, I never really thought about it." I was somewhat
surprised, however, given my own struggle defining sustainability, that only three
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consumers had definitions that seemed very unclear, while an additional two consumers
answered with "1 don't really know." These five consumers were clearly in minority.
While a number of consumers struggled to articulate a definition, the vast
majority of the consumers came up with a definition that included components that are
emphasized in the most widely used definition. In fact 26 consumer definitions included
an element that was "future looking." A 27-year-old woman's response is a good
example of the ways consumers may have initially struggled with a definition, but
ultimately went to a definition that included this idea that sustainably is future looking.
This woman said, " Um, goodness, what a loaded question. Sustainable to me means, I'm
not giving you a good answer, sustainable means um ...That it has, that there's a longevity
to it, that um, it's .. .it's something that will be able to last for awhile without having
adverse affects." A 53-year-old woman noted simply, "Sustainable means that we might
have something in years to come." Like this woman's, many of the future looking
responses were quite succinct. A 45-year-old construction worker said, "Well, it means
you'll be here tomorrow," and a 55-year-old chef said, "sustainability means lasting."
These future looking definitions were clearly in line with the Brutland Commissions
definition with its emphasis on future generations.
Many of these consumers who had a future looking definition also emphasized an
environmental understanding. In fact, seven of the 26 future looking definitions included
an environmental element. A 21-year-old man's definition, "It means providing for us,
but with a focus on the next generation and keeping things stable and not exploiting the
environment for our food or our next housing or anything. Just kind of keeping in mind
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that we want the balance or having some for us now, with a focus on the next
generation," is a clear example of this twin emphasis.
In total 15 consumers had definitions that emphasized the environment. A 51?
year-old Judicial Assistant said, "1 think it means it helps sustain the environment. It
gives back, it doesn't harm the environment," while a 59-year-old woman said,
"Sustainable, well, I guess treating the land with respect, and growing things that should
grow in that place, at the time that they should grow and eating that same way, [for
example] what is ripe at the time, available at the time. Mostly treating the land with
respect and raising things organically, so we're not changing the chemistry of the soil."
In general, many of these definitions were well developed and included specific elements
about environmental sustainability-everything from mentioning rotational planting and
eating seasonally to soil chemistry.
An emphasis on the environment and on the future comprised the vast majority of
my responses. Two consumers' definitions included discussion of sustainability being
related to "the local," three mentioned that it was related to "self-sufficiency," and two
mentioned "personal health" in their definitions. Four consumers mentioned
conservation in their definitions, an understanding I found particularly interesting after an
interview with a farmer who stressed that sustainability was largely meaningless to him
because it allowed the discussion to be about consuming resources "sustainably" rather
than conserving those resources. This farmer saw this an important ideological
distinction. This idea that sustainability was "meaningless" or watered-down was much
more pronounced among the farmers; in fact, only one consumer, a 32-year-old man
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included this idea (along with an environmental emphasis). He noted, "At this point, I
mean it's funny because this word is so diluted, I'm in architecture, everything we do is
unsustainable, so when they talk about sustainable designs, so I sort of go back to the
work and try to do something that can be continued and try not to foul, especially with
food, our water, and our soil."
Given the emphasis on social sustainability in this project, I was particularity
interested in whether any consumers would include a discussion of social sustainability in
their definition. Ultimately, only two consumers included elements that might be
considered "socially sustainable." Even these definitions however, are somewhat vague.
A 41-year-old woman emphasized a "quality of life" in her definition. She said, "In three
sentences or less, promoting safe and healthy food, mental health practices, enjoyment,
reaching a quality of life that we deserve to have." A 26-year-old woman included the
idea of the "community" in her definition. She said, "Sustainable means continuing
living in a way, living in away where we can continue to live that way, meaning not
putting undo stress on resources or people or fossil fuels sustainable basically means
living in a balance with your environment and your community." Though both of these
definitions seem to include an element of social sustainability, they are not as well
developed as the discussions of the environment. Specifically, it is somewhat difficult to
know what these women might mean include when they say "your community" and "a
quality of life we deserve to have."
Ultimately, I was not surprised that so few consumers included any discussion of
social sustainability in their project. The idea of social sustainability is rarely
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emphasized; if one goes to the Northwest Farmers' Market website, they might notice the
mission statement which includes an element of social sustainability, and if one searches
definitions of sustainability on the Internet they will likely find these discussions.
However, the idea of social sustainability, particularly an emphasis on social equality, is
simply not visible at the market in the ways the environmental elements are. For
example, the farmers emphasize that their farms are "all organic" or "bio-dynamic" and
have compost buckets at the market that are labeled "organic only." However, except for
signs that suggest the farms are "family" farms, no one announces with pride the working
conditions on their farms; there are no signs that announce: "our employees have health
insurance! "
Furthermore, though the Northwest Market Handbook is clear to point out the
requirements for labeling food at the market, the requirements are all tied to
environmental regulations about how the food is grown. There are no rules about the
working conditions on the fanns or any other element that might fall under the guise of
"social sustainability." Thus, while the Northwest Market includes elements of social
sustainability in the mission statement, on a practical level how and if to implement
"social sustainability" is up to each individual farmer and is not regulated. It is perhaps
not surprising, then, that the consumers' definitions of sustainability tend to be future
looking and focused on the environment rather than including elements that might fall
under the definition of social sustainability. I think this emphasis on elements of
sustainability other than the social elements are particularly apparent given that this
question about "sustainability" was the last question I asked (before the demographic
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question). The consumers were finishing ten minute interviews where they had just been
asked questions about the working conditions for farm workers on the farmers and asked
about who shops at the market and why. Ultimately, these consumers had just spent ten
minutes talking about people and farmers' markets, yet when asked to define
sustainability only two consumers mentioned anything related to the social element of
sustainability.
Conclusion
Based on my interviews with consumers, it seems safe to say that most would
agree that the market plays a valuable role in the community, not only in terms of
providing food, but also the ways it provides a space for sustainable agriculture.
Furthermore, these consumers are a key to the success of sustainable agriculture.
Whatever their personal allegiance to the moment might be, the market and sustainable
agriculture more broadly simply would not exist without their support. This is what
makes the consumers' perspective on the market so important. Through their
participation they are helping to shape the market, and based on their perspectives of
what is important, 1 see them as a key to helping make the market to be more "socially
sustainable."
Of course, much of what the consumers seem to see is a vision of sustainable
agriculture that is the most widely circulated by the culture at large. For example, based
on the interviews it was clear that most of the consumers saw the market as an inclusive
space where "everyone" was welcome to shop. In general the consumers' responses were
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interesting in the ways that they reflect a particular ideology about sustainable
agriculture. For example, these interviews suggest that consumers along with groups like
the Farmer's Market Collation see sustainable agriculture as "good for everyone" without
critically questioning what that might actually mean.
If we believe sustainable agriculture is important and has the potential to change
our relationships-not only to farming but also to our communities-then it is essential
that we find ways of making the market more socially sustainable and equitable. This
poses an important challenge for sustainable agriculture and for this market. The framing
of the consumers responses suggest important first steps. First, the market needs to make
a commitment to social sustainability in the same way they have made a commitment to
environmental sustainability. The consumers' definitions of sustainability tended to be
quite thoughtful and developed, yet, it is also clear that the idea of "social sustainability"
is one that many consumers are not familiar with nor it is an idea that they immediately
connect with the setting of the farmers' market. The relationship between healthy
environmental practices and healthy social practices needs to be more visible. Perhaps
this means the market board develops "definitions" for social sustainability such as
"using sustainable labor practices" which vendors can use to promote their farms at the
market. It means a focus on topics that are tied to social inclusion and making them
visible at the market. The fact that consumers talked about class and then often brought
that issue back to a discussion of food stamps and WIC suggests a relationship between
implementing this program at the market and awareness about class inequality in this
space. This program is far from perfect, but visibility of this social issue is brought into
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the public consciousness at the market because of the signs that announce: "food stamps
accepted here."
Furthennore, although the tone of the responses varied greatly, discussions about
why some members of the community were participating in the market rarely included
structural explanation. Rather, most consumers said that it was not convenient for some
people to shop at the market without unpacking how someone's social location is related
to that convenience. Much more troubling, although less common, were responses that
blamed the individual and suggested that personal failings such as "laziness" were to
blame for nonparticipation. In part this is likely tied to much larger issues about the way
the American culture tends to blame the individual rather than examining the social
structures to explain social location.
I see the project of social sustainability within sustainable agriculture to be
extraordinarily important, yet based on my interviews with consumers, it seems that this
part of sustainable agriculture gets little attention. It is perhaps not surprising: this is a
difficult project. Ultimately, we are asking sustainable agriculture to create a space of
inclusion and equality, but this is something that very few (if any) institutions in our
society are able to do effectively. lust the same, without this goal and consciousness
about social sustainability, sustainable agriculture will end up as a system that simply
reproduces the social injustices of conventional agriculture behind the veneer of beautiful
food.
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CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION
This project began by asking how the ideals of social sustainabihty are put into
practice by consumers and farmers of sustainable food in a society where social injustices
are often embedded on both a struchlral and individual level. Throughout this project I
have attempted to answer this question by examining the Northwest Farmers' Market and
the actors-both farmers and consumers-who participate and construct this system.
On the most basic level, based on my interactions with farmers and consumers I
was struck by their commitment to this agricultural system. The farmers in particular
were often making choices to farm that came with what seemed like personal sacrifices
(particularly in a society that often measures success and happiness by material
possessions). Thus ifthey were not farming, many of them likely would have had nicer
homes or fancier clothes. It seemed clear, however, that ultimately they were presently
content with the choices they were making. Most if not all of the farmers were very
happy with the lives they were making because they realized the costs both in tenns of
personal well being (many of the farmers had left high pressure lives to begin fanning)
and the environmental degradation that came with affluence. Thus the fanners were
participating in this system because of what was mostly a concern with creating a more
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environmentally and socially just food system and saw they "sacrifices" they were
making as less than the overall benefits both to themselves and the society at large.
The consumers' motivations for participating at the farmers' market were more
mixed. In general, consumers seemed concerned with supporting local farms and the
market but also espoused a concern about their health as a factor motivating their
participation. Generally, consumers did not seem to see their participation as requiring a
sacrifice, although when discussing why some people might not participate at the market
some consumers did mention the work they went to get to the market to demonstrate the
not only feasibility of the shopping there but also that sometimes shopping there did
require sacrifices, sacrifices they were willing to make. Most of the consumers believed
that the food at the market was the best quality available and also enjoyed the experience
of shopping there. The importance of personal enjoyment to shopping at the market was
always clear on cold, rainy summer days when the number of people at the market shrunk
drastically_ For some consumers, the market was important, and they believed in
supporting it, but there were limits to that support. Of course, without the support of the
consumers-even those who only come on sunny days-there simply would be no
sustainable food movement. Ultimately, without their willingness to support the market,
regardless of their varying motivations, the sustainable food movement would grind to a
halt. The importance and the commitment of consumers to the movement cannot be
overstated.
Of course, despite the often counter-culture feel of the market, it is a space that is
clearly part of the capitalist system. Though both the farmers and the consumers see this
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space as an alternative to conventional agriculture and conventional grocery stores (and it
clearly is), it still is a space where the farmers are trying to make a living and the
consumers are trying to get the best value for their money (value that is measured in
terms of quality of the food, which they see as worth a premium price). The farmers are
literally invested in making as much as they can for the food they are producing, and this
interest is often antithetical to values of social sustainability. Ultimately, the only ways to
charge a premium for your product was to be the first one to have it. The first farms to
have strawberries or tomatoes always sold out of these products quickly, despite the
price, and I overheard conversations between farmers each trying to get the other to share
when that farm would bring tomatoes to market. It was not uncommon to see farmers
casually strolling the market and looking at competitor's prices and products. I was
always amazed by how little variation there was in the price of the food.
Personally, I found the food at the market expensive. Lev, an economics
professor at Oregon State who specializes in direct farm marketing, points out "solid data
about relative costs of local and nonlocal food purchases don't exist yet" (quoted in Cole
2009). lust the same, there are numerous newspaper aI1icles that compare the prices of
individual food items at farmer's markets with grocery store produce with a goal of
explaining how the food is or is not affordable to average consumers; the findings in
these articles tend to differ. For example Cole at The Oregonian (2009) found farmers'
market food was more expensive, but only slightly more so than New Seasons Grocery,
an upscale local Northwest Chain, but 30% higher than WinCo, a large discount store.
However, in Gaudette's (2007) article for the Seattle Times, she concludes that farmers'
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market food is no more expensive than food from a grocery store but uses Whole
Foods-an upscale, and very expensive grocery store-as her point of comparison.
Throughout my research I was struck by the difficulty of putting a concept like
"social sustainability" into practice. Ultimately, the fanners and consumers exist within a
system where inequality is deeply structured. The farmers need to sell their food at a
premium if they are going to pay themselves anything for their labor. Yet, because of the
high price of land and the limited subsidies for small scale, sustainable falms, the food at
the market was often much more expensive than discount grocery stores, despite desires
on the part ofthe farms to make the food available to the community at large. These
elements led to a particular class of consumer being privileged in this space. These same
elements lead to farmers who typically come from a particular social location, often one
of privilege. Moreover, gendered inequalities, though less than those I observed in
conventional agriculture, meant that the female fanners I observed and interviewed often
were able to farm because of their relationship to their husband. Both the women and the
men I interviewed often felt that a "woman's perspective" was an asset in sustainable
farming and seemed to genuinely appreciate and see women's labor as essential, yet
clearly barriers to women's farm ownership are part of a much larger issue about
women's earning and wealth. These same structural barriers are also clearly at work in
why so few people of color own f,ums, sustainable or not. These barriers to farm
ownership are particularly salient given the amount of farm labor that is done by Hispanic
men and women in the Northwest.
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Yet, because ofthe ways that privilege is often unmarked, privilege in this space
of the market is often invisible. Thus it is not surprising that the majority of the
consumers see the market as a place where "everyone" shops. It is not surprising that
very few consumers pointed to structural baITiers to participation in their discussions
about why some people might not shop at the market. This privileging is also marked in
the ways the white, heterosexual family is used to signify the wholesomeness of
sustainable food and farms. The farmers who develop the marketing for their farms and
the market mangers and others who develop the marketing for the market or the "Pick-a?
Famler" event certainly did not invent this link; the white, heterosexual family is used to
sell everything from political candidates to minivans. Yet the consequences mean that a
particular family, one that is idealized throughout the culture, becomes the ideal in this
space as well. This is particularly frustrating because both consumers and farmers want
the market to be an open, inclusive space. The farmers often fret over how to price the
food to make it available to the community, and I think the consumers may see
"everyone" at the market because of an abiding belief in inclusion.
I am struck as I finish this project by questions that have plagued me since I began
my research. There are two primary questions that I am left with as I finish this project.
The first question is: what is sustainable agriculture? Despite all the work that I have
done on this project I still am grappling with that question (as are many of the fanners
and consumers that I interviewed). I find myself grappling with what "social
sustainability" would look like in practice and why it seems to get so little attention from
those within the movement. I suppose like many scholars and activists alike, I am willing
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to use the definition devised by the Bruntland Commission, in which they define
sustainability to mean "meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs" ((1987:8). Yet I am struck by
Zeb's comment during our interview: "I gotta tell you, organic fanning, 1believe in it,
and it's better for the land, but any fanning is hard on the land and certainly there's
nothing remotely natural about it. Let's face it, from an ecological standpoint, farming is
a disaster." I find myself fumbling for a definition that manages to incorporate these two
seemingly incompatible definitions of sustainable agriculture and left wondering how to
make social sustainability a bigger part of the conversation.
Part of the reason that 1 am left fumbling for a definition is because of another
question that remains as 1 finish this project. 1 am left wondering: who gets to decide
what "sustainable agriculture" is and is not? Julie Guthman's (2007) book, Agrarian
Dreams, addresses this question in a peripheral way. She explores the corporatization of
the "organic" agriculture. The truth is that many organic products are now produced
within an essentially industrialized system, albeit one that trucks in organic chicken
manure rather than petroleum-based fertilizer. This system is arguably better for the
environment, but it does very little to change the agricultural system as a whole. It is a
system that is still controlled by the same multinational corporations and that still uses
exploitive labor practices that target Hispanic families particularly cruelly (for example,
the organic industry's lobbying of the California legislature to allow the use of the short?
handled hoe). The USDA first officially defined what organic is, and since then large
corporations have used that definition to squeeze their way into the organic market.
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Furthermore, these same corporations are now working to water down the environmental
protections that the organic label has come to represent. In contrast, there are strict
regulations at the Northwest market about what it takes to detemline if a product is
"organic" or "all natural." For example, to be considered "organic," food must go
through a yearly verification process, develop a "farm plan" which addresses "strategies
and technologies for long-tenn improvement of the soil," and have the soil and plant
tissues tested for pesticides. In addition there are protocol that allow other farmers to
"challenge" another farmer's food. Yet, these regulations tell us nothing about the social
relations that went into producing that food.
Just the same, nearly everything I saw during my farm tours gave me hope for a
grassroots altemative to this form of industrial organic. The "sustainable" fanners that I
observed showed a deep, personal concem for practicing a holistic, vigilant kind of
farming. It often seemed that every decision was one that weighed heavy on the fanners
I interviewed. I want to be clear, then, that there are altematives to both "industrial
organic" and "industrial" agriculture. These farmers, though sometimes using different
techniques and visions, are providing clear altematives.
Despite this, the question of who gets to decide what is sustainable continues to
plague me. The reason is straight forward enough. With the power to define what
"sustainable" agriculture is comes the power to co-opt this system in the same way that
the "organic" label has been co-opted. For example, a number of the farmers I
interviewed were running "organic" farms, but had become so frustrated by the co?
optation of this label that they refused to use the label and often quit complying with the
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certification process. Without a clear definition of "sustainable" it becomes the
responsibility of both the consumer and the farmer to decide what a sustainable
agriculture should look like and then to act on this definition. At times I find this idea
important and refreshing. Without a clear "definition" of sustainability it means the
fanner must continue to strive to make his/her farm able to meet his or her own
sometimes nebulous definition of sustainability. It also requires the consumer do the
same thing. And then, perhaps most impOliantly, it requires the consumer and farmer
come together to form some kind of relationship where they are able to merge these
ideas.
My second year observing at the "Pick-A-Farmer" event, I had the pleasure of
watching this process in action. Four close friends of mine decided they wanted to join a
CSA and they came to the event looking to "Pick-A-Farmer." These two couples had
decided the values that were the most important to them (as well as the price they were
able to pay) and went around looking for the perfect CSA. They nan-owed the list to four
farms and then continued to grapple with the decision for many more days, researching
the farms on websites and discussing and re-discussing the merits of each fann. In fact,
they even asked me for my input on the farms since I had visited many of them.
Although I tried to remain somewhat impartial, I found myself steering them towards the
smallest farms since I found those farms were the ones that best fit my own vision of
sustainable agriculture; I often found their labor practices to be the least exploitive
(although, frankly, it often meant these farmers were simply exploiting their own labor
and bodies). A month after choosing their CSA my friends received an email from their
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farm that stated a hailstonn had decimated their spring crop and they would likely be
delivering very little spring produce. So I found myself grappling with the advice I had
given; I knew my friends had invested a lot of money in their CSA choice and the larger
farms seemed to have escaped much of the devastation of this particular hailstonn.
Maybe these larger fanns were better prepared by having the crops covered in hoop
houses or simply located in a more protected areas~I just don't know. Just the same, I
found myself again grappling with the advice I had given and the reason I had given it.
Maybe the larger farms are a better choice because they have more experience and
history to provide a more stable food supply.
Thus, while the idea of consumers coming together with fanners to decide what
they value and then acting on those values seems like a good idea, I still grapple with the
ways this individualizes the problems in the food system in this country. If it takes four
highly educated people who have access to a researcher who has visited many of the
fanns a week to chose a CSA, it strikes me that this solution privileges a particular kind
of consumer. Essentially, I want a food system where one cannot make a "bad" choice
(although I think the Pick-A-Fanner event comes close to this). I think that to create
these kinds of choices, the food system needs to be changed in a structural way that
requires large-scale interventions, interventions that are as concerned with the health of
the consumer as the health of those producing the food.
Throughout this project I found myself coming back to asking whether or not this
farn1ers' market system is a solution to the unequal access to food in this country.
Unfortunately, at this point I tend to see the market system as a way for educated and
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middle and upper-middle class people to opt out of industrial food system without
actually changing this food system. Based on my research, I worry that the sustainable
food movement may be a way for a particular kind of consumer to avoid consuming
industrially produced food without actually challenging the larger food system. Of
course, I am certainly sympathetic to the argument that change must start somewhere and
that this may become the beginning of a consumer led revolt. Perhaps these consumers,
despite their relative privilege (or perhaps because of it) are at the forefront of creating a
revolutionary new food system. Based on my interviews with consumers it seems that
for many of them their visions for the market and sustainable agricultural rarely include
elements of social justice. For example, many of the consumers see pmiicipation at the
market as a personal choice and rarely discuss the structural barriers that may lead to
unequal access. Yet despite this, their commitment to this alternative food system and
the importance of their presence to this movement should not be minimized.
The contradictions between the ideal and the reality exist at all levels of this food
system. For example, the farmers, while often committed to issues of food equity, are
also invested in selling their food and making at least enough money to continue doing
what they are doing. This means sometimes plowing under perfectly good food and
disposing of food that is not prime quality by either composing it or feeding it livestock
in order to keep prices stable. This may arguably be a reasonable way of "using" the
food, but I would feel better if that food were feeding people. And I would guess that
Phil, who runs the Food Bank Farm, would agree with this sentiment. Ultimately, when
the food is disposed of in this way and for this reason, it simply does not challenge the
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mindset of industrial agriculhmll, which ultimately puts profits above all else. Of course,
I would imagine the farmers would argue what other choice do they have if they want to
continue farming? They cannot give their food away.
After talking about my project with various people, they've asked me if! was
going to share it with the sustainable agriculhlre community when I finished with the
hope that perhaps this project would help address some of the places where sustainable
agriculture seems inequitable. I am certainly not opposed to doing that and have planned
on sharing the project with a number of farmers I interviewed who asked to read it. But
as I think more about how to help shift sustainable agriculture in a way that allows it to
meet its own values of social justice and social sustainability, I wonder who the correct
audience for this kind of plea is. Typically, when I am asked if! am going to share it, it
is assumed that I should share it with the farmers. While the farmers are typically deeply
committed to the goals of sustainable agriculture, they also have a profit motive, or even
a survival motive, for keeping the market system mostly unchanged.
As someone invested in the idea of public sociology and who would ultimately
like to see this project as offering some kind positive change, I also find that sharing this
with the farmers and expecting some kind of real change is unfair to those farmers.
During my work it often felt like the farmers were bearing the burden of changing this
food system. Ultimately, I believe that real change in the food system needs to come
from a struchlrallevel. In the industrial food system producers of crops like corn rely on
government subsidies. This com typically becomes animal fodder, corn syrup and corn
meal filler which appears in nearly every piece of processed food. Activists and scholars
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alike have pointed to these subsidies as one of the root causes of our broken food system
(Pollan 2007; Pyle 2005). These subsidies mean that particular kinds of foods (like com)
become so cheap that they become omnipresent in our diets, fillers that offer little
nutritional benefit. Importantly, every dollar that goes to subsidizing industrially
produced monocrops like com, means a dollar that is not going to subsidize other kinds
of foods. Furthermore, it means that the food system is weighted in a way that makes
foods like cornmeal and com symp artificially cheap.
Thus, based on my research, it seems that if we want sustainably grown, local
food to be affordable and available to "everyone," then these are the kinds of farms and
foods that should be subsidized or at the very least the subsidies to industrially grown
foods like com need to be reconsidered. Of course, I recognize the scope of this
suggestion and the political battle involved in this kind of suggestion. But if we are tmly
invested in changing the food system it must change on a stmcturallevel. It remains to
be seen what the issues will be that make us reconsider these food subsidies. Obesity
levels in the US, particularly among children, have risen to the level of moral panic. I
recently read a newspaper article which concluded that a full 1/3 of teenagers are unable
to join the military because they are simply too fat (Brown 2009). Perhaps it is the cynic
in me that could not help but wonder if the military industrial complex might be the only
thing in this country powerful enough to change the industrial food system.
As I suggest above, I think another level of social change that those involved in
the sustainable agriculture movement need to consider is who gets to decide what is in
fact sustainable food. At first this perhaps seems like a simple questions, but throughout
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my work at the market I was struck by the ways that those involved in the market~-the
consumers, the farmers, and the market managers-ultimately decided what was
sustainable food. I found it ironic that many of the practices from the conventional ranch
I grew up on appeared here as "sustainable" food. For example, there was a large push
for food preservation like canning and gardening. Growing up we picked wild berries,
wild horseradish and had a large garden. We spent the fall "putting up" foods and took a
great deal of pride in the perfectly canned foods that lined the shelves in our basement.
Yet, in the time and place where I grew up this was considered at best an "old fashioned"
thing to do, and at worst things "poor" people did that caused you to die of botulism. It
seems a bit ironic now that my hip farmers' market shopping friends are asking me to
teach them how to can.
I also grew up in a family of hunters; given that we had a cattle ranch we did not
eat as much venison as some people, but we had more than our share of "elk loaf."
Frankly, I always found hunting to be cruel and a little tacky; let's just say I was not the
kid who brought elk jerky to school in my lunch box. So I was surprised when Michael
Pollan devoted an entire chapter of the bestselling book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, to
hunting feral boars. Far from an activity that seemed best immortalized on the side of a
box of Hamm's beer, Pollan made hunting seem kind of cool as well as good for the
planet (if still highly masculinized). In the same way I tried to think about those boiling
hot days in the kitchen canning food as something hip and "sustainable," 1tried to think
about my brother and dad as falling inside a definition of sustainable food as they hauled
a dead deer out of the back of their pickup truck. I realized how much of what is
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sustainable is tied to the power to define what you are doing as sustainable. The truth is I
am still not sure if hunting is a sustainable practice, and part of that is clearly because I
find it difficult imagining my brother and dad anywhere near the Northwest Farmers'
Market. I can image them complaining that they didn't lmow "what the heck kinds of
foods them guys are trying to sell."
I think, then, that one of the main hurdles to creating a more sustainable and
socially just food system is creating a space where everyone is at the table. I think that
conventional farmers probably would have a lot to add to discussions about sustainable
agriculture, but based on my interviews with both conventional and sustainable fanDers,
there is simply no dialogue between the two camps. I think we need to see sustainable
agriculture in a more open way, in a way that conventional farmers may see room in the
movement for them. I am not suggesting that we water down what it means to produce
sustainable food but recognize that these kinds of labels may actually be too reductive. In
fact, many of the "conventional" farmers that I talked to in my previous research used
practices that would clearly fit within the sustainable paradigm. I see one of the main
issues with involving conventional farmers in the movement is a lack of the kind of
cultural capital that would allow them to market their foods effectively. My brother
essentially raises pastured, grass-fed cattle, but sells the cattle for a pittance because he
does not think anyone would actually buy the beef like that; of course, in the particular
market he is in, he may be right.
Furthermore, I do not think people should be faulted for wanting cheap food.
During the course of my research I often heard consumers and producers lamenting all
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the cheap food. They make two conclusions about this cheap food. The first is that the
food is artificially cheap because it does not take into account extemal costs of
production-for example, the costs of polluted water and rising temperatures are not
reflected in the food. Furthermore, I have heard the argument that the real cost of eating
cheap food comes in the costs of medical bills. Finally, farmers and consumers at the
market both mentioned that the artificially cheap prices at conventional grocery stores
give consumers sticker shock when they get to the market so that cheap food undermines
the project of sustainable agriculture. I think all these arguments are conect in their
assessments; nonetheless, the fact remains that Oregon is one of the hungriest and most
food insecure states in the country. Even with all this cheap food, there are many
thousands of people in this state who cannot afford to buy it. What will happen if we ask
people to bear the "tme cost of cheap food?" I think the tmth is we will have many,
many more hungry people. This is a fmstrating conclusion for me to come to, but it is
one we cannot ignore as we try to change the food system. We live in a country and a
world where access to food is radically unequal. Of course, part of the reasons that
people cannot afford to bear the "tme costs" of food is related in particular to rising
healthcare and housing costs. Just the same, paying the tme costs of food will not lower
these other costs of living.
I think one of the first steps to creating a market with a more economically
diverse set of consumers means that there needs to be an acknowledgement that buying at
many farmers' markets is more expensive than a conventional grocery store. It is simply
disingenuous to compare the prices at a falmers' market to the prices at high-end grocery
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stores and say that shopping at a farmers' market is not more expensive than a grocery
store, which, as I mentioned earlier in the chapter, is the most common way that prices
are compared. People who are buying groceries on a budget are not shopping at high-end
grocery stores. Until farmers and consumers acknowledge this, it seems impossible to
make any real change to make markets more accessible for poor and working-class
shoppers. For many years my partner and I lived on a grocery budget of $37.50 a week
for the two of us. This is how much we received in food stamp benefits and we could not
afford to spend more than our allotment. This kind of budget simply does not allow for
any wiggle room to buy food that is even a little more expensive. And I would imagine
that we were a fairly typical of the average American consumer. Of course, part of what
allowed us to live relatively well on this budget was growing a garden-something that
requires access to ground, and knowing it was temporary and that when we were no
longer students we would eat better (and we do). As I have suggested elsewhere in this
dissertation the issue of who has access to land is a major hurdle in creating a more social
just sustainable food movement. If only educated, white, heterosexuals are able to access
to land in order to produce sustainable food, it should not surprise us if the people buying
the food end up looking like those growing it.
I am not sure if it is because of the conclusions of this project or in spite of them
that I find myself more committed to issues of access to sustainable food than ever
before. I wonder what a truly integrated sustainable food system would look like. How
do we address the fact that the ability to shop for and then prepare sustainable food
requires someone's labor and time and means that someone in the family (usually a
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woman) is expected to bear this additional labor? Can we accept the claim that fanners'
markets are "good for everyone" without also buying into destructive ideas about living
in a country that is "colorblind" and where everyone is middle-class? How do we
integrate the reality that we live in a country that is stratified by race, class, gender, and
sexual orientation into farmers' markets and sustainable agriculture? I am even left
wondering if the market system is best way to distribute food when I see the number of
people that Phil is able to feed on his relatively small nonprofit farm. Mostly I wonder
what a truly integrated farmers' market would look like and sound like.
But what I do know is that we have to start somewhere. These questions keep me
invested in this project. If sustainable agriculture is as important as we have been led to
believe-and I think it is-then the work is in finding answers to these questions and
trying new approaches to making this food accessible. To me, the beauty of the
sustainable food movement is that its history is still being written. I have seen first hand
the ways that the industrial agricultural system has broken the people that believed in it
the most. I see sustainable agriculture as offering real promise for changing this broken
food system, but an important part of this promise is working to make the goals for social
justice and social sustainability more visible, and then working to make them realities.
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