Lesbian and Queer Sustainable Farmer Networks in the Midwest

Abstract

Heteropatriarchy underpins contemporary U.S. agriculture, even within the alternative sector. This paper builds on the legacies of women farmers and farmers of color creating peer networks to circumvent heteropatriarchal hurdles by investigating how lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer (LBTQ) sustainable farmers access human resources. If and how did the farmers encounter or resist heteropatriarchy in this process? Drawing on four years of ethnographic research with 40 LBTQ Midwest sustainable farmers, I argue that resources through government agencies, neighborhood farmers, and like-minded practitioners did not necessarily align with LBTQ farmers’ sustainable practices or queer identities. LBTQ farmers convened with others at the intersections of their queerness and sustainable practices formally, informally, and through the labor market to access human resources removed from heteropatriarchal domination. I conclude that LBTQ farmer networks bolster human resources in sustainable agriculture and conservation practices.

Keywords:

• Ethnography
• farmer networks
• gender
• queer farmers
• sexualities
• sustainable agriculture

Notes

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jane Collins, Alice Goffman, and Isaac Leslie for comments; to Sarah Cramer and Leslie Touzeau for co-presenting aspects of the project; to participants at the Pennsylvania State University’s Rural Studies Graduate Student Conference and the Rural Sociology Society’s Annual Meeting for their feedback; to the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions; and to the farmers for their time and generosity. The author takes responsibility for all mistakes.

Notes

1 All participants’ names are pseudonyms.

2 The farmers in the sample identified their gender as cis woman, nonbinary, and transman. They identified their sexuality as lesbian, bisexual, queer, or no label but in a relationship with a person who identified as the same gender. Due to the number of identities, I broadly refer to the farmers as lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LBTQ) or queer as an umbrella term.

3 Segregated agricultural education continues with the designation of tribally-controlled Land Grant institutions to serve Native American students in 1994 (Ramaswamy 2015) and USDA grants for Hispanic-Serving agricultural colleges and universities since 2008 (USDA n.d.).

4 The recent rise of women farmers should consider that the USDA agricultural census began collecting data on women in 1978 and it only permitted one operator per farm until 2002. Heterosexual couples likely marked the man as the sole operator, under-representing women operators. Additionally, women have struggled to claim the title “farmer” despite their agricultural contributions (Brasier et al. 2014).

5 Some farmers worked in other regions before or after our initial meeting. I retained accounts from other regions to inform farmers’ background and trajectories, but centered their Midwestern experiences.

6 The USDA census provided “female” and “male” as exclusive binary sex categories and therefore did not capture gender identity, specifically transgender identities. It also only accounted for farm operators (up to 3 in the 2012 census), excluding the population of farm employees with higher levels of racial and ethnic diversity.

7 Single quotations denote words captured in field notes. Double quotations denote words captured in audio recordings.

8 While Erika believed that FSA’s mission encompassed supporting queer individuals, the FSA’s definition of “historically underserved farmers and ranchers” listed the following groups: women, African-Americans, Alaskan Natives, American Indians, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (FSA n.d.).

9 Approximately 45% of the farmers attended a queer farmer meet-up or topical session at a farmer conference. This number is likely higher than the average queer farmer for two reasons. First, I met participants through farmer conferences so attendees were both more likely to be in my sample and to attend queer-related conference events than those not present. Second, I responded to farmers’ desire for queer farmer networking by organizing spaces at conferences for farmers to gather; therefore, farmers in my network were more likely to know about these events. Some of these spaces continued and expanded even when I did not organize them.

10 I broadly refer to internships, apprenticeships, and traditional employment as labor market opportunities.

11 All of Mel’s previous employees had been heterosexual, with the exception of one person.

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to thank the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Community and Environmental Sociology for the Crowe Scholarship for Graduate Research that contributed as funding for this research.