Nourishing women: toward a feminist political ecology of community supported agriculture in the United States

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the motivations of women farmers actively involved in community supported agriculture. Drawing from interviews with farmers situated in a metropolitan region of the USA, it argues that these women's motivations are expressive of an ethics of care that defines their work as centered upon nourishing themselves and others. Women came to this work as a conscious choice to change their life-work. These choices are shaped by the urban context of their farming practices and also by their race and middle class status. These motivations and choices express a care ethics centered in self-care. Drawing from Foucault's ethics of self-care, these motivations express a liberatory transformation of self that is also radically responsible to others and expressive of a post-capitalist politics. These ethically informed agricultural practices correspond to the development of a post-capitalist politics that challenges neoliberal subject formation in food production and consumption. Feminist care ethics contributes to feminist political ecology by focusing upon the social relations of caring practice, and also revealing how self-care is ethically embodied and politically transformative in the case of middle class urban farmers active in community supported agriculture. Este artículo examina las motivaciones de las mujeres granjeras involucradas activamente en la agricultura sustentada por la comunidad. Basándome en entrevistas con granjeras situadas en una región metropolitana de los EE.UU., propongo que las motivaciones de estas mujeres son expresión de una ética del cuidado que define su trabajo como centrado en alimentarse a sí mismas y a otros. Las mujeres llegaron a este trabajo como una elección conciente para cambiar su proyecto de vida. Estas elecciones están determinadas por el contexto urbano de las prácticas de su trabajo agrícola y también por su raza y su estatus de clase media. Estas motivaciones y elecciones expresan una ética del cuidado centrada en el cuidado propio. Basándose en la ética del cuidado propio de Foucault, estas motivaciones expresan una transformación liberadora de uno mismo que también es radicalmente responsable hacia los otros y expresiva de una política postcapitalista. Estas prácticas agrícolas éticamente informadas corresponden al desarrollo de una política postcapitalista que desafía la formación neoliberal del sujeto en la producción y el consumo del alimento. La ética feminista del cuidado contribuye a la ecología política feminista al centrarse en las relaciones sociales de las prácticas del cuidado, y también al revelar cómo el cuidado propio está éticamente corporizado y es políticamente transformador en el caso de las granjeras urbanas de clase media que participan en la agricultura sustentada por la comunidad. Keywords: political ecologycare ethicssustainable agricultureKeywords: ecología políticaética del cuidadoagricultura sustentable Acknowledgments Funding for this research comes from the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and USDA-NRI Agricultural Systems Grant 2001-35209-10174. I would like to thank Joan Qazi, Ray Jussaume and Theresa Selfa for collaboration on agrarian questions in Washington State, Caroline Faria for her superb research assistance, and Vicky Lawson and Craig Jeffrey for their insightful and helpful comments on earlier drafts. The helpful and constructive comments and suggestions of Beverley Mullings and three anonymous reviewers are also appreciated. Notes 1. Community supported agriculture means that consumers pay farmers a set subscription price at the beginning of the growing season in exchange for weekly boxes of food grown on the farm throughout the growing season. 2. I also visited farmers' markets, became involved in community supported agriculture as a subscriber, and joined several nongovernmental organizations dedicated to promoting farmland preservation and sustainable agriculture in the region. Participant observation is also a key method in this study. 3. Growers listed in this directory may vary from year to year. What distinguishes this listing is that farmers are grouped into those who are certified organic, not certified organic, transitional and sustainable. Certified organic farms are accredited by the Washington State Department of Agriculture or another agency accredited by the US Department of Agriculture. Those growers follow organic practices as defined under the national Organic Program and are exempt from certification if their sales are less than $5,000. Transitional farms are in the process of completing qualifications for certification. Sustainable farms use pest, disease and weed controls that exert minimal impacts on the environment, and they also aim to provide humane working conditions (Washington Tilth Producers Directory Citation2007, 3). This comprehensive listing reveals that more women in organic agriculture are not certified, and therefore under-counted in national surveys that emphasize organic certification (such as the Organic Farming Research Foundation surveys). 4. Recent research points to the variety and hybridity of food networks as well as the porous boundaries between conventional and alternative food networks (Maxey Citation2007). I maintain that these boundaries are more pronounced in the examples of tiny, urban-based CSAs.