Food Geographies                                                                                           Robbie Faselt

Work Activity Write-up                                                                                 11/20/14

On one beautiful Friday afternoon this October, I decided to make my way down to the Middlebury College Organic Farm and volunteer for a few hours partly for this class, but more because it was a beautiful fall day and I had never been down to the organic farm in my 2.5 years at Middlebury. I have no good reason why I had not been there before this fall, but I am certainly glad I finally made my way down there. The farm itself is beautiful and very well-kempt and the views of campus and of the Adirondacks and Green Mountains are simply stunning.

When I got down there after my last class of the day, I went over to the man in charge, Jay Leshinsky, and asked if there was anything I could do to help for a couple of hours. He said that a massive pile of compost just got delivered and that I could help spread it over the garden beds. So that is what I did for the next two hours. I got a wheelbarrow, filled it to the brim with compost, then wheeled it uphill to a bed with nothing currently growing in it, and unloaded the wheelbarrow so that I could spread it evenly throughout the bed. Over the two hours, I probably made about 20 trips up and down the hill and spread compost over three pretty long garden beds.

The work itself was physically strenuous, but pretty mind-numbing doing the same thing over and over again for two hours. But even though it was kind of boring, I made the most of it by taking in the beauty of Vermont and letting my mind drift. I was only working for two hours and I started to get bored, so I started thinking about the workers in the movie, Our Daily Bread, and what they must do to deal with the boredom associated with their jobs. I remember watching that movie and thinking that I could never do a job like the ones portrayed in the film. After two hours of moving compost up and down a hill, I got bored, so I cannot even imagine what it must be like for agricultural workers who perform tedious tasks, like picking fruit from trees or clipping chicks’ beaks, all day long. The way that the director of Our Daily Bread portrayed these workers doing their jobs with no narration or music and just natural sounds really got to me and showed the mind-numbingness of their jobs.

Having worked at the organic farm performing a menial task for two hours, seeing Our Daily Bread, and observing the Jamaican migrant workers at the apple orchard we visited, I have really learned to not take advantage of the all of the work that goes into the food I eat. Knowing that there are actual people performing tedious work day after day that contributes to the food that all of us eats really makes me think about where my food comes from and who had to do what so that it could make its way to my plate. I think that in general, people need to think more about the labor that goes into the food they eat.

One thing that I think can make this type of tedious food work more bearable is if one has company while doing it. During my last half hour of hauling compost, an acquaintance of mine who is one of the MCOF interns came to the farm and helped me out a little. Chatting with him while shoveling and spreading made it a lot more manageable and made me forget about the tediousness of the work. This also reminded me of our field trip to the apple orchard when we could hear the Jamaican workers talking and laughing with each other in the distance. The fact that they had each other’s company while they were picking apples throughout the day, I’m sure makes the long hours of performing the same task much more bearable. Comparing the Jamaican workers to some of the workers in Our Daily Bread who were working alone, made me realize that sharing an unpleasant experience with other people can make it a lot more tolerable. The connections that workers make with each other make their workspaces into places with meaning, which is what Doreen Massey means when she states that “space is constituted through interactions.”

Overall, I found my two hours at the organic farm to be very rewarding because it allowed me to gain just a little perspective on how agricultural laborers do their jobs. I definitely hope to return to the farm to volunteer next fall.

I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment.

Robbie Faselt