3 Things I’ve Learned as a TGE Intern
About a month and a half ago, I packed my bags, got on a plane, and careened about 1500 miles through the air from my home in Los Angeles to Sioux Falls, SD. When I landed, the magnitude of the journey I had just begun dawned on me: I was about to spend my entire summer interning at The Good Earth Farm, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
After all, the small town of Lennox (where TGE is stationed) was practically an alien planet to me. I was born in London, and I’ve spent the majority of my life in the LA area, where “open space” doesn’t really exist as a concept. For college, I simply moved a few hundred miles up the West Coast to the San Francisco Bay Area—again, not a whole lot of room to stretch your legs. Putting it bluntly, I’ve always felt most at home in counties of 8, 9, even 10 million residents, where the tightly interwoven urban and suburban lifestyles allow for remarkable convenience and efficiency, despite relatively limited personal space. I had always appreciated the charm and intrinsic value of rural America through the lens of culture and academic study, but in terms of practical experience, I was woefully underinformed.
So, it probably comes as no shock that I felt a significant amount of anxiety while deplaning that day. It sounds dramatic, but I truly had no idea what this new world would have to offer me. What challenges, responsibilities, lessons, and experiences were waiting at The Good Earth?
Looking back on that moment today brings a smile to my face. By now, I feel so well-adjusted to the ins and outs of The Good Earth life that it’s amusing to remember how nervous I was upon arriving. What was I so worried about? If I could, I would travel back to that day to calm my slightly younger self with some advice, stories, and lessons to expect in the coming weeks. I’m sure that if I knew then what I know now, my nerves would have dissolved away quicker than an ounce of organic pesticide dissolves in a gallon of water. Since time travel doesn’t exist (and is practically impossible under our current understanding of the laws of physics), I’ll have to instead settle for this blog post.
Presenting…THREE THINGS I’VE LEARNED AS A GOOD EARTH INTERN!
1. Farm work is good work.
I don’t know if this is a city thing or a human being thing or both, but I am used to dealing with a lot of emptiness in my life. It’s not excruciating or anything, but there’s something deeply unsatisfying that comes with the K-12 to college to white-collar job pipeline, a sort of sense that all the hours you spend working are hours you’re losing. I’m talking about the assignments you turn in and immediately forget about; the standardized tests you cram for just to up your score by one more point; the days of work on a product that you don’t even get to take credit for in the long run. You know what I’m talking about.
But here on the farm, something’s different. The work is less glamorous, sure, but it’s real. You get to tear things out of the ground with your hands and put different things back in, drive nails deep into a wall that will support hundreds of pounds of weight, and even care for living, breathing, thinking creatures who acknowledge your presence and keep you company. You can look back on a field after a long day of work and think, “I did that,” and then a few weeks later, you can return to the same field and suddenly there’s a living organism growing out of the dirt that you can eat!
Okay, I might be making a mountain out of a molehill here. But it’s a big deal to someone like me! I rarely feel this kind of satisfaction because my life is usually so far removed from this kind of physical labor. In some ways, that’s a good thing—Nancy and Jeff will be the first to tell you that you don’t get into this business for the money. But there’s something missing from my usual work, something that I’ve found plentifully in farm work. And I’m really grateful for that.
2. Teamwork isn’t stupid.
In case you don’t know, I share my precious role with Savannah, The Good Earth’s other intern and an all-around excellent person. Of course, sharing responsibilities is hardly something new for me—I’ve been doing it in the classroom since kindergarten. But here’s the thing: I’ve always hated it.
Years of clubs, games, and group assignments have taught me that, much of the time, you cannot rely on other humans to get things done. Call me a control freak, but I jump at the chance to embark on a task by myself, protected from the messiness and inefficiency of a group dynamic that too often seizes a cooperative venture. I’m sure that some of you can relate to this.
Unfortunately, this strategy does not bode well on the farm. It turns out that that weeding and planting and watering several acres of land is not terribly practical as a solo activity (shocker)! Rather, in an environment like this, a partner can literally double the speed at which you get things done. Not a terribly profound point, I know, but it’s a reality that I had never encountered so plainly before. It reminds me of something I learned in an economics class: the marginal product of labor starts off very high. In other words, the amount of extra productivity you get going from 1 worker to 2, 2 to 3, etc., can be remarkably impressive!
Again, I already knew all of this in theory. I think it perfectly embodies one of the main themes of my time here: reading about something falls very short of actually experiencing it in action. At this point, I jump at every chance to work with somebody (usually Savannah) because I know it’ll be easier, more fun, and more rewarding. I think that’s a pretty cool bit of character development.
3. Think about your food.
I’ve been referring to the stuff we do here as “farm work,” but that’s not 100% accurate. In reality, modern farming usually looks quite different from how things operate at The Good Earth. I’ve learned this both from conversations with Nancy and Jeff and just from looking at the fields around us. Heavy herbicides and pesticides, ludicrously expensive equipment, more crops than you could possibly hope to count, a questionable corporate lobby…as I’ve learned, the real story of American agriculture is a lot less glitz-and-glamor than how it’s commonly told.
See, we interns put in a lot of hard work for those of you who are CSA shareholders. When I mention “weeding,” I’m not talking about spraying barrels of Roundup over our tomatoes. We walk through the fields, row by row, pulling pesky weeds out of the earth with a hoe or our gloved hands, all so that you get the clean, sustainably grown veggies you know and love.
Okay, I’m being too self-congratulatory. In reality, farmers who make a living using conventional methods are no better or worse than us. In our economy, taking shortcuts is the only way to stay afloat, and currently, being sustainable or organic is hardly a shortcut. But I think that getting my hands dirty with sustainable agriculture has made it profoundly clear to me the price we pay for cheap food. There’s a reason why we only have 75 shareholders this year: the climate simply won’t allow for a small team to produce at a massive scale Good Earth-style right now. It’s just not feasible.
So, next time I go to the grocery store in drought-stricken California and buy a bag of potatoes grown thousands of miles away for practically nothing, I’ll be acutely aware that this luxury is only possible because of those huge-scale farmers and their chemicals and giant mechanical contraptions. I won’t be under the illusion that they come hand-tended from a Good Earth a few miles down the road, because that’s only possible with immense effort, and with immense effort comes immense pricing. No such thing as a free lunch.
On the other hand, I feel a lot more committed to seeking out local sustainable farmers in my own area and supporting them with my patronage. It may be less convenient, and certainly a little pricier, but hey, if I can afford it, I feel like I owe it to them. They didn’t take many shortcuts, and as a result, I know firsthand that their product is cleaner, greener, and tastier! For this reason, if you’re not a shareholder yourself, I suggest you consider trying it out next year. Or, if you’re not in the Sioux Falls area, look for farmers like Nancy and Jeff near where you live! I know I will.
I’m sure I could come up with more wisdom from my time at The Good Earth, but to be honest, I’m just a 21-year-old guy who’s still figuring things out. I feel like there’s still a lot left for me to learn, and I know that the remainder of my summer will be full of even more trials, tribulations, and good times. I’m incredibly grateful to be here, and I can’t emphasize enough how lovely this place is. Thanks to Jeff and Nancy for hosting us, and I hope to see as many of you as possible at future Sundays at the Farm!
If you have any questions or want to connect with me for some other reason, you can email me at noahgeller@protonmail.com or message me on Instagram (@noahgeller). Be safe, be healthy, and thanks for reading!
Noah