This week we're talking to Vanessa García Polanco, Director of Government Relations with the National Young Farmers Coalition. Vanessa is a Dominican immigrant with her Master's Degree in Community Food and Agriculture Systems from Michigan State University, and as a teenager she rebelled by volunteering at non-profits.

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Arlene: 00:00:12

Welcome to another episode of Barnyard Language.

Arlene: 00:00:14

Thank you for joining us here on the podcast again today.

Arlene: 00:00:18

And as usual, I'm gonna ask Caite, what's going on in Iowa?

Arlene: 00:00:20

I can hear the birds chirping this morning.

Arlene: 00:00:22

Katie, your bird feeder must be busy.

Caite: 00:00:26

It's not actually, I think they're pissed off because

Caite: 00:00:28

I need to go fill the feeders.

Caite: 00:00:29

Oh, okay.

Caite: 00:00:30

So what you're hearing is Angry Birds going, WTF lady.

Caite: 00:00:33

Yeah.

Caite: 00:00:34

You have made us dependent on you and now you are

Arlene: 00:00:36

not here.

Arlene: 00:00:36

No.

Arlene: 00:00:37

Now you've not done your part

Caite: 00:00:38

in this.

Caite: 00:00:39

Yeah.

Caite: 00:00:40

Not a lot.

Arlene: 00:00:44

Were you not ready for that question?

Caite: 00:00:46

I, I feel like there should be stuff going on, but it's that time of

Caite: 00:00:50

year where the, we're just waiting.

Caite: 00:00:53

Mostly it hasn't rained in several weeks, so now we're in that.

Caite: 00:00:58

Continual space where my life pro tip is to never tell any farmer

Caite: 00:01:04

what the weather forecast says.

Caite: 00:01:06

No matter how nicely they ask, because you will be on the receiving

Caite: 00:01:10

end of their feelings about it.

Arlene: 00:01:14

Because as if you're the meteorologist who you

Caite: 00:01:17

know, like yes, clearly the access to the forecast

Caite: 00:01:20

denotes control of said forecast.

Caite: 00:01:23

And

Caite: 00:01:24

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:01:25

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:01:25

So just tell them to check their own app or listen to the radio or however

Arlene: 00:01:29

they watch their weather channel.

Arlene: 00:01:30

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:01:30

However, they get their many forms of weather, not through

Caite: 00:01:33

you.

Caite: 00:01:34

Whatever they do, it's not my problem.

Caite: 00:01:37

Yesterday though, my mom was here with her coon dog and we're having

Caite: 00:01:43

a serious raccoon problem in our neighborhood just because it is so dry.

Caite: 00:01:46

And I do, I feel for them because they have babies to feed.

Caite: 00:01:51

However, our neighbor had a raccoon take a full-grown chicken out

Caite: 00:01:55

of his front yard in the middle of the afternoon a few days ago.

Caite: 00:01:59

Our benevolent feelings are over.

Caite: 00:02:02

So my mom was here this weekend with her coon dog and he managed to

Caite: 00:02:05

tree a raccoon inside a antique all crop combine in the back of Jim Shed

Caite: 00:02:11

yesterday at five 30 in the morning.

Caite: 00:02:15

And if you ever want to hear a racket, A coon dog, a lab, and an

Caite: 00:02:20

Australian shepherd with the raccoon stuck inside a combine inside a

Caite: 00:02:25

metal pole shed is really, is that a nice way to wake up quite a thing.

Caite: 00:02:30

I was awake real quick.

Caite: 00:02:32

I took the 22 out there, saw where they were and went, Nope.

Caite: 00:02:35

Good luck you guys.

Caite: 00:02:36

And turned around and came back in the house because

Arlene: 00:02:38

you weren't gonna shoot up the combine.

Caite: 00:02:42

That too, but there was also no way in hell I couldn't get past

Caite: 00:02:45

the middle of the shed without pulling equipment out and it's not worth it.

Caite: 00:02:51

Yeah.

Caite: 00:02:51

Now we wait.

Caite: 00:02:52

But I don't know if they got the raccoon or not.

Caite: 00:02:57

Yeah.

Caite: 00:02:57

Since they left the shed.

Caite: 00:02:59

I'm gonna assume they did, because if anyone else here has coon dogs or has

Caite: 00:03:03

ever dealt with hunting dogs, they don't stop until it's dead generally,

Caite: 00:03:08

which is, what they're red for.

Caite: 00:03:09

But yeah, that's their purpose.

Caite: 00:03:12

And their purpose.

Caite: 00:03:14

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:03:14

So does life change much now that the kids aren't in school on

Arlene: 00:03:18

your farm or they just go to the same.

Arlene: 00:03:21

Daycare where they do before and after,

Caite: 00:03:24

they generally get after school care at daycare, during school anyway.

Caite: 00:03:28

So now they just go to daycare for the whole day instead of right after school.

Caite: 00:03:32

Sure.

Caite: 00:03:33

So now it's pretty, pretty same.

Caite: 00:03:37

The level of, I don't wanna say chaos at daycare is a little

Caite: 00:03:42

higher, but daycare is not.

Caite: 00:03:48

Bound to some of the same educational goals.

Caite: 00:03:51

Sure.

Caite: 00:03:52

Which is good.

Caite: 00:03:53

I don't want my kids to be forced into, attainment at all costs all summer.

Caite: 00:03:57

I think it's good for them to have time to screw around and be little kids, and

Caite: 00:04:01

daycare takes very good care of them, and they get healthy meals and they're

Caite: 00:04:05

perfectly safe and blah, blah, blah.

Caite: 00:04:07

Yes.

Caite: 00:04:07

I'm on the daycare board.

Caite: 00:04:09

But I'm glad that they get time to just mess around.

Arlene: 00:04:11

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:04:12

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:04:12

This is their summer holiday, right?

Arlene: 00:04:14

Yeah.

Caite: 00:04:15

The girl child has been asking every morning.

Caite: 00:04:18

Now, if today is the first day of first grade, and we are many days away from

Caite: 00:04:23

that one week into summer vacation.

Caite: 00:04:26

And also, you cannot say summer vacation anywhere near her because

Caite: 00:04:29

she assumes that means that today is the day that we are going somewhere.

Caite: 00:04:33

She

Arlene: 00:04:33

has a vacation.

Arlene: 00:04:34

Means you have to leave.

Arlene: 00:04:35

Yeah.

Caite: 00:04:36

Yeah.

Caite: 00:04:36

She does want to go back to last summer we took him into the Circus World

Caite: 00:04:39

Museum in Baraboo, which was the.

Caite: 00:04:42

Winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus, Oh, neat.

Caite: 00:04:47

Before that shut down.

Caite: 00:04:48

But they have elephants there, so she really wants to go ride an elephant.

Caite: 00:04:51

This is the last year.

Caite: 00:04:52

The elephants will be there before they're retired.

Caite: 00:04:55

They do have a circus every day.

Caite: 00:04:56

It's a really cool museum and a really cool place to visit, but, Having to start

Caite: 00:05:03

every day with telling her that a today is not the first day of first grade.

Caite: 00:05:07

And also we are not going to the ocean or to write elephants today.

Caite: 00:05:11

He it's not nice to start your day with that much disappointment

Caite: 00:05:14

for your six-year-old, because who are hooray, you get to go.

Caite: 00:05:18

It's a daycare, no matter how cool daycare is, it can't really

Caite: 00:05:22

compete with riding elephants in the ocean on her way to first grade.

Caite: 00:05:27

That is true.

Caite: 00:05:28

She thinks she should be doing

Arlene: 00:05:29

that.

Arlene: 00:05:30

Those are things that she has in her head.

Arlene: 00:05:32

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:05:32

So avoid

Caite: 00:05:33

the way she did graduate to the Yeah, she did graduate

Caite: 00:05:36

to the big kid class at daycare because she's a first grader now.

Caite: 00:05:41

Yeah, Henry, oh, the boy child is still in the kindergarten classroom.

Caite: 00:05:49

So I think that's actually been really good for them, that

Caite: 00:05:52

they are not together all day.

Caite: 00:05:54

Yeah.

Caite: 00:05:54

And then coming home and being together all day.

Caite: 00:05:57

So that's helped matters substantially.

Caite: 00:05:59

That's good.

Caite: 00:06:01

Other than that, nothing.

Caite: 00:06:03

Have you been, Arlene, you had big excitement at your farm this weekend?

Caite: 00:06:07

Yes, this weekend

Arlene: 00:06:08

was glad Spring got done in time.

Arlene: 00:06:09

This weekend was prom and yes, the spraying got done in time

Arlene: 00:06:14

that needed to get done last week.

Arlene: 00:06:16

There's more to be done this week, but that's fine.

Arlene: 00:06:18

The tractor got cleaned, the tractor got decorated.

Arlene: 00:06:23

We.

Arlene: 00:06:25

Traversed into town at various different routes.

Arlene: 00:06:28

So our town is a little tricky to get through with farm equipment because

Arlene: 00:06:32

there's a canal system and we are at the middle point of the canal.

Arlene: 00:06:36

So there are several bridges that are not all that wide and our swing

Arlene: 00:06:40

bridges for boat traffic to get through.

Arlene: 00:06:43

So we were trying to get from our farm to the first photo location

Arlene: 00:06:48

because you couldn't just have one.

Arlene: 00:06:50

Prom didn't start until the evening, but pictures started at noon, so

Arlene: 00:06:53

there was a lot of hours of photos and being very looking, very beautiful.

Arlene: 00:06:58

Yeah, we, your daughter did

Caite: 00:06:59

look absolutely gorgeous.

Arlene: 00:07:01

Yes, she did look, yeah, she did look very

Caite: 00:07:03

nice as did the tractor.

Caite: 00:07:05

Lovely decorat.

Arlene: 00:07:05

Good job.

Arlene: 00:07:06

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:07:06

And her date was all right too.

Arlene: 00:07:07

Yeah, he was fine.

Arlene: 00:07:08

No, he looked

Caite: 00:07:09

handsome as well.

Caite: 00:07:09

I haven't seen any pictures of him, so I'll just take your word for it,

Arlene: 00:07:13

yeah.

Arlene: 00:07:13

We did the route straight downtown and then around, around the outside edges

Arlene: 00:07:18

of town to get to the first location, which is where they're doing photos at.

Arlene: 00:07:21

The railway museum.

Arlene: 00:07:23

So if you want pictures with kabua engines or all other manner of old

Arlene: 00:07:27

railway cars, that was the place to be.

Arlene: 00:07:29

But it does have a lot of neat porches and areas set up.

Arlene: 00:07:33

The staff were really great.

Arlene: 00:07:35

They had lots of little nooks and crannies for the kids to, to take

Arlene: 00:07:38

smaller groups in benches and flowers and all kinds of nice locations.

Arlene: 00:07:43

And then, There's another small museum in town where they were doing more

Arlene: 00:07:46

pictures, so they moved over there and then we went over to one of the

Arlene: 00:07:49

waterfront areas, did some pictures there.

Arlene: 00:07:52

Then there was still time to come back to the farm and lounge for a

Arlene: 00:07:54

few minutes and get something to eat because when you start doing hair at

Arlene: 00:07:59

10 in the morning and it gets too mid afternoon, you start to get a bit hungry.

Arlene: 00:08:02

And then the actual problem was at the high school.

Arlene: 00:08:06

And I would say most.

Arlene: 00:08:09

Schools that I've ever heard of in our area anyway, don't do prom at the

Arlene: 00:08:13

high school, it'd be at like a golf course or maybe a hotel or something.

Arlene: 00:08:17

But in our town they still do it at the high school.

Arlene: 00:08:19

And the hospitality teacher was the caterer.

Arlene: 00:08:22

So it makes it definitely more affordable.

Arlene: 00:08:24

And so that was convenient location-wise too, cuz we're

Arlene: 00:08:27

not very far from the school.

Arlene: 00:08:29

And actually right next to the high school is where my husband's

Arlene: 00:08:32

grandmother lives in retirement home.

Arlene: 00:08:35

So we.

Arlene: 00:08:36

Called her and did a little drive by, pulled into the entry area

Arlene: 00:08:40

of the retirement home and so she could see the girl and the boy and

Arlene: 00:08:46

the tractor all decorated and she recruited a whole bunch of people

Arlene: 00:08:48

to come out and say hi and see them.

Arlene: 00:08:51

So that was very sweet too.

Arlene: 00:08:53

So they had some adoring fans of the retirement home

Arlene: 00:08:55

before they went over to prom.

Arlene: 00:08:57

So yeah, everything went well.

Arlene: 00:08:59

It had been super hot this past week, like I don't know what it is, an American,

Arlene: 00:09:04

but 32, 35 degrees and humid, like just super sticky hot for a few days, but

Arlene: 00:09:10

thankfully the weather changed overnight.

Arlene: 00:09:11

Friday and Saturday was breezy for sure.

Arlene: 00:09:14

Everyone had the tossled hair look, no matter what their hairstylist had done.

Arlene: 00:09:18

But it was not nearly as hot, so it was much more comfortable for

Arlene: 00:09:21

standing around and taking pictures.

Arlene: 00:09:23

So that was good.

Arlene: 00:09:25

Did you go to your pro.

Arlene: 00:09:27

I did.

Arlene: 00:09:28

Yes.

Arlene: 00:09:29

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:09:29

Back in those days, presumably not

Caite: 00:09:31

with the, not with the one you're married to now.

Arlene: 00:09:33

No.

Arlene: 00:09:33

A different guy.

Arlene: 00:09:34

Back in those days we still had grade 13 here in Ontario, so I graduated

Arlene: 00:09:38

almost a year and a half older than my daughter, just based on, we had

Arlene: 00:09:43

an extra year of high school, and I'm a summer birthday and she's a winter

Arlene: 00:09:47

Yeah, and I lived closer to a major city, so we actually went like right

Arlene: 00:09:52

downtown into the city to a hotel, had a catered meal, all that kind of stuff.

Arlene: 00:09:56

And at that time we're als we are also on the border of an Ontario

Arlene: 00:10:00

and Quebec, and the drinking agent Ontario is 19, but in Quebec it's 18.

Arlene: 00:10:04

So after prom, then you could go on these like boat tours.

Arlene: 00:10:09

And it would basically just brought you across the provincial line

Arlene: 00:10:12

and then anyone who was 18 could drink once you crossed that line.

Arlene: 00:10:16

So that's what you did after prom.

Arlene: 00:10:18

So it was a slightly different scenario than what we have

Arlene: 00:10:21

out here, but it was fine.

Arlene: 00:10:23

Yeah, I don't have like bad memories of prom, but I don't remember it being

Arlene: 00:10:26

the best night of my life either.

Arlene: 00:10:28

It was fine.

Arlene: 00:10:29

Did you go to yours?

Arlene: 00:10:31

I did.

Arlene: 00:10:32

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:33

Should we go ahead and introduce our guest for this week?

Caite: 00:10:37

I suppose we should.

Arlene: 00:10:44

Today we are excited to be talking to Vanessa Garcia Polanco, who's an

Arlene: 00:10:48

experienced leader, researcher, speaker, writer, and organizer on issues around

Arlene: 00:10:52

food, agriculture, and climate change.

Arlene: 00:10:54

So Vanessa, we start each of our interviews with the same question,

Arlene: 00:10:57

and this is a way for you to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Arlene: 00:10:59

So we always ask, what are you growing?

Arlene: 00:11:01

So for our farmers, that can cover crops and livestock, but it also covers

Arlene: 00:11:05

families, businesses, career, social change, and all kinds of other stuff.

Arlene: 00:11:09

Vanessa, what are you

Vanessa: 00:11:09

growing?

Vanessa: 00:11:11

I'm growing boundaries because it's a really busy farm bill year.

Vanessa: 00:11:16

So it's a really important for people like me who are really

Vanessa: 00:11:19

involved in Washington DC to still grow connections and self-care.

Vanessa: 00:11:24

So the way you do that is by having boundaries.

Vanessa: 00:11:26

I actually shutting down your computer at 6:00 PM and saying no to

Vanessa: 00:11:31

things which is really hard for me.

Vanessa: 00:11:33

As I pol policy co-director, young farmers.

Vanessa: 00:11:36

But I always try to be really mindful of my boundaries, so always growing to

Vanessa: 00:11:41

take care of myself more, and prioritize connections, community and boundaries.

Arlene: 00:11:47

That is a really good one.

Arlene: 00:11:49

I'm sure we could all use some some work on our boundaries for sure.

Arlene: 00:11:53

Or

Caite: 00:11:56

so.

Caite: 00:11:57

Vanessa, what is your background when it comes to agriculture

Caite: 00:12:01

and how did you, yeah.

Caite: 00:12:01

So how did you end up where you are now?

Vanessa: 00:12:04

I always like to say my mom say I took care of the countryside, but I

Vanessa: 00:12:08

didn't take the countryside outta you.

Vanessa: 00:12:10

And so that one better in Spanish is

Vanessa: 00:12:15

And I come from a really agricultural background in

Vanessa: 00:12:18

community in the Dominican Republic.

Vanessa: 00:12:20

I usually compare to the Midwest of the Dominican Republic cuz it's where a lot

Vanessa: 00:12:24

of the tubers and products that we eat traditionally consume, like cassava,

Vanessa: 00:12:30

plantains are produced and we produce all 50% all the eggs in the country.

Vanessa: 00:12:34

And that time is called Mok in the Dominican Republic.

Vanessa: 00:12:37

My dad is a farmer.

Vanessa: 00:12:39

All my grandparents have own land and worked the land.

Vanessa: 00:12:42

So when we moved to the United States to rejoin with my family, inform my family

Vanessa: 00:12:46

to pursue more career opportunities, I was really interested in environmental

Vanessa: 00:12:52

issues with a focus in agriculture, like sustainable agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:12:55

So that was really shocking to my family.

Vanessa: 00:12:57

We literally, they literally took me.

Vanessa: 00:13:00

From not rural community, but like a really agri-business centric

Vanessa: 00:13:04

town to the United States, and are you gonna study agriculture?

Vanessa: 00:13:08

So that was really shocking for them.

Vanessa: 00:13:11

But it was also really beautiful because it allow us as Dominican immigrants to

Vanessa: 00:13:16

stay connected to a lot of our identity through me studying agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:13:20

Like I will call my dad asking them about sub production.

Vanessa: 00:13:23

I will call my uncle asking him about chicken fit one day at 10:00 PM when

Vanessa: 00:13:29

I always remember that he freak out.

Vanessa: 00:13:30

No, I have a question about feeding animals.

Vanessa: 00:13:32

And obviously I had to visit a lot of farms and learn a lot about farming in the

Vanessa: 00:13:36

United States because it was so different than the kind of farming that I grew up.

Vanessa: 00:13:40

And my family will come to all my field trips and they still come

Vanessa: 00:13:43

every time I have to go visit a farm.

Vanessa: 00:13:45

So it has been a beautiful journey of using agriculture to stay connected to

Vanessa: 00:13:49

my identity as a Dominican immigrant.

Vanessa: 00:13:53

Can

Arlene: 00:13:54

you tell her a little listeners a little bit about where you attended

Arlene: 00:13:57

school and what you did in your undergraduate and master's programs

Arlene: 00:14:00

in terms of studying agriculture?

Vanessa: 00:14:03

Yeah, sure.

Vanessa: 00:14:04

So I attended a University of Rhode Island.

Vanessa: 00:14:06

That is a land grand university, but agriculture is not the main focus

Vanessa: 00:14:10

because we are also an o an ocean grand that is also a land grand.

Vanessa: 00:14:14

So we are really ocean oriented.

Vanessa: 00:14:15

So we will take a lot of classes on fishery management, no agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:14:20

But I was one of the few people in the entire program that was actually

Vanessa: 00:14:23

really interested in agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:14:25

But obviously we had your traditional land grant classes like horticulture,

Vanessa: 00:14:28

vegetable production and I got the opportunity to work for Extension

Vanessa: 00:14:32

for the four years of my undergrad.

Vanessa: 00:14:34

And that really solidified my passion for community outreach, talking to

Vanessa: 00:14:39

farmers, talking to gardeners about how we can grow food in different ways.

Vanessa: 00:14:44

And after that I kept asking my mentors, where should I go to grad school?

Vanessa: 00:14:48

And everyone kept saying Michigan State and Michigan State told me, come here.

Vanessa: 00:14:52

So I got the opportunity to move to Michigan where I learned a

Vanessa: 00:14:55

lot about agriculture because it's really different from the.

Vanessa: 00:14:58

New England Agriculture, Rhode Island.

Vanessa: 00:15:01

And I had a great time there in a program called Community Sustainability

Vanessa: 00:15:04

that focused in more alternative agriculture and more community driven

Vanessa: 00:15:08

agriculture, but also being one of the biggest land grants in the country.

Vanessa: 00:15:12

I got to learn a lot about agri-business management, dairy management, and

Vanessa: 00:15:16

agricultural economics when my undergrad having environmental

Vanessa: 00:15:20

economics with a concentration of food.

Vanessa: 00:15:22

So it was just a really.

Vanessa: 00:15:24

Full circle opportunities always driven about programmatic interventions

Vanessa: 00:15:29

and policy because I was really interested on how do we do we have

Vanessa: 00:15:33

this land run institutions and we have many nonprofits that are working

Vanessa: 00:15:37

to change our food systems, but how do we actually funding, how do we

Vanessa: 00:15:41

actually institutionalize the support?

Vanessa: 00:15:44

So I got really interested on funding, like how do we actually fund things?

Vanessa: 00:15:48

How do we actually allocate money for things?

Vanessa: 00:15:50

And what is the role of federal government to impact our communities

Vanessa: 00:15:55

through those kind of programs that are impacting us in our daily lives?

Vanessa: 00:15:58

Like couple of ascension, like land grant universities, like those

Vanessa: 00:16:02

nonprofits that do outreach and technical assistance to farmers.

Caite: 00:16:07

I think as someone who also attended a land grant,

Caite: 00:16:10

I went to Iowa State I think.

Caite: 00:16:13

That the land grant universities get so underestimated for their public work.

Caite: 00:16:19

And things like extension because we think of college as just a place where you go

Caite: 00:16:25

for four years and they hand you a sheet of paper and then they send you a bunch

Caite: 00:16:28

of bills and then that's it, and that's like the extent of the college experience.

Caite: 00:16:34

So I'm wondering as we have a fair number of non-US based listeners, if

Caite: 00:16:40

you can explain a little more about what the land grant system is like

Caite: 00:16:44

and what things like Cooperative Extension do, because it doesn't seem

Caite: 00:16:49

to be a big thing in other places.

Caite: 00:16:52

Is that correct, Arlene?

Arlene: 00:16:54

Yeah, I, yeah, Vanessa, I'm Canadian and I hear those terms, but yeah,

Arlene: 00:16:59

we don't have a similar system in Canada.

Arlene: 00:17:01

There's not really an equivalent system as nationally.

Arlene: 00:17:05

There are universities where there are ag programs, but they

Arlene: 00:17:08

aren't affiliated in the same way.

Arlene: 00:17:10

I wouldn't say

Vanessa: 00:17:12

definitely.

Vanessa: 00:17:13

I think that's, it's definitely really unique.

Vanessa: 00:17:15

And actually there's a specific ad that created a couple of ascension

Vanessa: 00:17:19

systems called the Mid Liver.

Vanessa: 00:17:20

A.

Vanessa: 00:17:21

Of 1912.

Vanessa: 00:17:22

I remember that because it's one of my favorite agricultural act.

Vanessa: 00:17:25

And basically it creates a mandate to land grant universities that they

Vanessa: 00:17:28

need to extend knowledge change lives.

Vanessa: 00:17:31

And I always remember that tagline because it's beautiful.

Vanessa: 00:17:33

I think we sometimes see universities as this gay kept places where research

Vanessa: 00:17:38

is happening that is only for other academics and maybe for the students.

Vanessa: 00:17:43

But that mandate actually tell the university you need to allocate

Vanessa: 00:17:47

certain amount of resources to actually share the re the resource

Vanessa: 00:17:51

that you're doing to the community.

Vanessa: 00:17:52

So impacts the community.

Vanessa: 00:17:54

And we are actually all following better science-based decisions.

Vanessa: 00:17:57

And when I say science-based decisions, it's not, it's only for farmers,

Vanessa: 00:18:01

it's also for homeowners, residents.

Vanessa: 00:18:03

For example you.

Vanessa: 00:18:04

I, couple of extension was really unique that we also had a lot of

Vanessa: 00:18:08

like groundwater education, a lot of residential gardening, education.

Vanessa: 00:18:12

And farmer education and many other things that I probably do not remember.

Vanessa: 00:18:15

So it's a lot, it's a lot of this idea that if you live in a community,

Vanessa: 00:18:19

the university, you should be having resources from the university so you can

Vanessa: 00:18:23

protect your natural resources because again, it's water, grass, watershed, or

Vanessa: 00:18:28

soils, A lot of those things like that.

Vanessa: 00:18:31

Initially in other countries it's just call as extension and it's usually done

Vanessa: 00:18:34

by the Department of uca of agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:18:37

Like for example, my dad is an station agent in the Dominican Republic

Vanessa: 00:18:41

with the Department of Agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:18:43

But his mandates are really different.

Vanessa: 00:18:45

His support structures are really different.

Vanessa: 00:18:47

Wearing in the university is just more structure because there's a set of

Vanessa: 00:18:51

programs that almost every university does always mandated to do, especially

Vanessa: 00:18:55

if it's a land grant by statutory authority of the depart of the.

Vanessa: 00:18:59

Of the government.

Vanessa: 00:19:00

So I think that's really unique.

Vanessa: 00:19:02

But it's also really energizing because at example, young farmers, every

Vanessa: 00:19:06

time that we ask our farmers, where do you like to get resources from?

Vanessa: 00:19:09

They do not say the farming, agriculture, they say extension.

Vanessa: 00:19:12

So it's a great way to see how this localized community driven education

Vanessa: 00:19:20

and data science based is affecting our farmers in our, in, in our communities.

Caite: 00:19:25

I think too, as a farmer who, went to a land grant school and then

Caite: 00:19:30

takes a lot of advantage of our local extension office, it's so great to

Caite: 00:19:36

not only have research that's actually being applied to something besides

Caite: 00:19:41

writing papers and putting them in journals that nobody outside the

Caite: 00:19:45

university system will ever see, but to have, a lot of extension agents.

Caite: 00:19:52

Are farmers themselves, are community members themselves, and so having that

Caite: 00:19:58

interpretation between the research that might not be super approachable for a lot

Caite: 00:20:05

of folks into something that makes sense in our area and can be put out there by

Caite: 00:20:15

people who farm in our area and know the community is so great to really make that

Caite: 00:20:22

research useful because there's really not a lot of point in doing research

Caite: 00:20:27

that sits in a journal that nobody sees.

Caite: 00:20:29

It's a lot of money and a lot of work for nothing really.

Caite: 00:20:36

Knowledge is important for the base, for the sake of knowledge, but

Caite: 00:20:40

knowledge that is useful is even better.

Vanessa: 00:20:44

Definitely, and I think especially in the United States in

Vanessa: 00:20:47

the past few years, we have invested more in science communication.

Vanessa: 00:20:51

Like I was part of my science communication club at Michigan State u I

Vanessa: 00:20:55

has one of the best science communication trainings in the country right now.

Vanessa: 00:20:59

So I think right now, after a lot of attacks that happening in science in the

Vanessa: 00:21:04

United States, we have reinvigorated this idea that we need to be communicating

Vanessa: 00:21:08

science more effectively because it's an important role to play in your decision

Vanessa: 00:21:12

making in government, in our communities.

Arlene: 00:21:17

Yeah, that's a really good point because.

Arlene: 00:21:19

It's not just about doing the science, but making sure that people understand

Arlene: 00:21:23

it and have access to it and Yeah.

Arlene: 00:21:25

And to have it be useful in their lives.

Arlene: 00:21:28

For sure.

Arlene: 00:21:28

So you've talked a little bit about your work.

Arlene: 00:21:31

You work now at the National Young Farmers Coalition, and I'm gonna be the

Arlene: 00:21:36

the Canadian co-host again and ask you to tell me about what that is because

Arlene: 00:21:40

I'll be honest I don't know what it is.

Arlene: 00:21:42

So if you can tell me a bit about the organization and what

Arlene: 00:21:45

you're working on and what the mission is, that kind of stuff.

Vanessa: 00:21:48

Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa: 00:21:49

I actually think there's like a Canadian counterpart.

Vanessa: 00:21:52

I do not remember how they're called.

Vanessa: 00:21:54

But basically we are a grassroots chapter and membership based organization.

Vanessa: 00:22:00

We have 45 chapters nationwide and over 250,000 supporters.

Vanessa: 00:22:05

Basically we believe that we wanna equip the next generation of farmers with

Vanessa: 00:22:10

resources so they can farm and focusing on feeding their communities, fighting

Vanessa: 00:22:14

climate change, and building equity and sustainability in our food system.

Vanessa: 00:22:19

And the way I came to young farmers is really funny.

Vanessa: 00:22:21

I was a member in Rhode Island and in the island chapter a lot of what we do is

Vanessa: 00:22:26

just go to go visit farms and meet people.

Vanessa: 00:22:30

You do a little bit.

Vanessa: 00:22:31

Every chapter needs to have a policy component.

Vanessa: 00:22:33

So we will do policy education to how to get involved in the Farm bill

Vanessa: 00:22:37

with the local food policy council within the agricultural department.

Vanessa: 00:22:42

So right now I'm policy director.

Vanessa: 00:22:45

I have been with the coalition for three years and I started as a policy associate.

Vanessa: 00:22:50

So I have grown a lot the coalition and a lot of what we do is provide.

Vanessa: 00:22:55

What we usually call movement support to farmers so they can

Vanessa: 00:22:58

feel that a lot of their needs and wants are being represented and

Vanessa: 00:23:01

advocated for at a state level.

Vanessa: 00:23:04

And also the federal level here in Washington DC And that's why I'm based

Vanessa: 00:23:08

in Washington DC because in my main role is to communicate to elected officials

Vanessa: 00:23:13

and administrative officials at U S D A.

Vanessa: 00:23:15

The concerns we're hearing from our farmers on the ground, and especially in

Vanessa: 00:23:19

a farm bill year that is only every five, six years, making sure that we actually

Vanessa: 00:23:24

introduce legislation and pragmatic changes so the conditions can improve

Vanessa: 00:23:28

on the ground for, or young farmers who are the next generation of farmers

Vanessa: 00:23:32

who are farming now and are struggling now in the ground to stay farming.

Caite: 00:23:39

So what is how old is too old to be a young farmer?

Caite: 00:23:43

Somebody's I'm aging out quickly.

Caite: 00:23:46

But

Vanessa: 00:23:47

We do not have a definition as a coalition because

Vanessa: 00:23:50

of many different definitions.

Vanessa: 00:23:52

Just to give an example, the Department of Agriculture in the

Vanessa: 00:23:54

United States says that beginning farmer, no young farmer is anyone

Vanessa: 00:23:59

with less than 10 years of experience.

Vanessa: 00:24:01

The risk management agency inside U S D A, I think it says

Vanessa: 00:24:05

only five years of farming.

Vanessa: 00:24:07

We, the United Nations is anyone under 35.

Vanessa: 00:24:12

The U definition of the United States is anyone under 18.

Vanessa: 00:24:15

So again, there's many different definitions and because our farmers

Vanessa: 00:24:19

come from many different backgrounds, some more farmers are like 42 and they

Vanessa: 00:24:23

just started farming two years ago.

Vanessa: 00:24:25

Is that a young farmer?

Vanessa: 00:24:26

For us, it is.

Vanessa: 00:24:27

Some more farmers are 22 and literally graduated college and are looking

Vanessa: 00:24:31

to do a farmer apprenticeship.

Vanessa: 00:24:34

So that's one more members.

Vanessa: 00:24:36

Again, I think our members, even when we say young in the title is more values

Vanessa: 00:24:41

affiliated and less about your age.

Vanessa: 00:24:44

Even our boring, our staff, we, our younger person is 22 and our older is 39.

Vanessa: 00:24:50

And our membership is really brought

Caite: 00:24:52

too.

Caite: 00:24:54

So the other thing is someone who lives in a very, I don't know, normal,

Caite: 00:25:03

conservative farm area, like Iowa, but in a very liberal, small corner

Caite: 00:25:10

of that area, how can we make advocacy and a lot of the work that the Young

Caite: 00:25:20

Farmers Coalition is doing more.

Caite: 00:25:24

Accessible to a wider range of people, because I know a fair number

Caite: 00:25:28

of more conventional farmers who don't feel like things like young

Caite: 00:25:37

farmers are necessarily for them.

Caite: 00:25:39

But there are so few farmers and so many stresses against farmers that I think it

Caite: 00:25:47

makes a lot more sense for all of us to work together, because we all have a lot

Caite: 00:25:51

more in common than we do differences.

Caite: 00:25:54

But I'm wondering how we approach bringing people in, and bringing the community

Caite: 00:26:02

closer generally, because there's enough problems without us fighting each other.

Vanessa: 00:26:08

Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa: 00:26:09

And I think a formula year is a perfect year to be thinking about that because

Vanessa: 00:26:13

we do have a really large ecosystems of farm groups in the United States.

Vanessa: 00:26:17

So if you think young farmers is not the right group for you across the

Vanessa: 00:26:22

street, find another organizing space because there will be other places

Vanessa: 00:26:27

that have your values and and also your theory change or theory change.

Vanessa: 00:26:30

We believe in incremental change that way we focus a lot on policy

Vanessa: 00:26:33

and where others would like to maybe focus more on mutual aid and

Vanessa: 00:26:36

localized responses and that's okay.

Vanessa: 00:26:38

And others will like for and a stronger association to represent their interest

Vanessa: 00:26:42

that is older and more traditional.

Vanessa: 00:26:44

And that's fine cuz at the same time we all gonna be fighting

Vanessa: 00:26:47

for the same thing in the farm.

Vanessa: 00:26:49

We're gonna be fighting for more resources.

Vanessa: 00:26:51

For farmers and for rural American to keep our families fed.

Vanessa: 00:26:54

Because we all need a farm bill, we just gonna disagree on the details.

Vanessa: 00:26:59

So I think that's the beauty of the organizing in agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:27:04

But I also, you mentioned triggers and I think there are many things

Vanessa: 00:27:07

that we all agree that are important.

Vanessa: 00:27:09

And for example, is there farmer Stress Assistance Network called

Vanessa: 00:27:13

farson that's in a specific grant that the United State Government created

Vanessa: 00:27:19

to support farmer mental health and farm work and mental health.

Vanessa: 00:27:23

And that is a program that it has completely bipartisan support.

Vanessa: 00:27:28

All farm organizations support it because we all want more resources for farmers.

Vanessa: 00:27:32

So things like that we all agree on what is needed so we can better

Vanessa: 00:27:36

equip our farmers to be successful.

Vanessa: 00:27:39

That's just an example.

Caite: 00:27:40

So what sorts of.

Caite: 00:27:44

Programs and legislation, would people be surprised to hear

Caite: 00:27:48

are included in a farm bill?

Caite: 00:27:49

Because I know that there are always things that are in a farm bill that

Caite: 00:27:55

just seem surprising or unexpected.

Caite: 00:28:00

So I'm wondering what's snuck in here this year that we don't know about yet?

Caite: 00:28:05

Because it seems like there's always something.

Vanessa: 00:28:09

I don't think we have anything controversial yet.

Vanessa: 00:28:13

Also just to give you an idea of the timeline for this year, right

Vanessa: 00:28:16

now we are in market avail season.

Vanessa: 00:28:19

So on for now until annual March, people are gonna be introducing bail.

Vanessa: 00:28:23

So things they want the farm bill.

Vanessa: 00:28:26

Then it's gonna go to markup.

Vanessa: 00:28:27

That means the committee's gonna discuss if Ida proposal is worth

Vanessa: 00:28:31

it to be making to the farm bill.

Vanessa: 00:28:33

And then we will have an actual farm bill written by the summer.

Vanessa: 00:28:38

That's the hope.

Vanessa: 00:28:39

And then they will, it will get boarded on by the house and the Senate, and then it

Vanessa: 00:28:42

will go to conference, or what we usually call reconciliation, when they will

Vanessa: 00:28:46

actually decide if it's something that the house voted versus the house voted, how it

Vanessa: 00:28:51

can be merged, how it can be reconciled.

Vanessa: 00:28:54

So a lot of, right now we, most of advocacy groups are young farmers.

Vanessa: 00:28:58

We have, or less of things that we want.

Vanessa: 00:29:00

So right now we are working with elected officials to see if we can

Vanessa: 00:29:03

get a marker well, to see if some of those weird things or crazy

Vanessa: 00:29:08

things can actually be introduced.

Vanessa: 00:29:09

Because if they're not introduced they're just a, they're in

Vanessa: 00:29:11

a piece of paper in my desk.

Vanessa: 00:29:13

They're not actually being considered by elected officials.

Vanessa: 00:29:16

For example, last week we got the justice for black farmers at re introduced.

Vanessa: 00:29:20

That was in re introduced two years ago, and now it's actually.

Vanessa: 00:29:23

Has a potential to be considered because it's a market bill in a farm bill year.

Vanessa: 00:29:29

And for many folks that Bill is really transformative and really outlandish.

Vanessa: 00:29:33

And we don't know if it's gonna, if it's gonna move forward, but it's there.

Vanessa: 00:29:38

And now we can even consider it during a farm bill year.

Vanessa: 00:29:41

And there will be many more bills, like data will be introduced

Vanessa: 00:29:44

to push the boundaries of what the farm bill can look like.

Vanessa: 00:29:47

But there will be simple bills, like literally changing one or two

Vanessa: 00:29:50

words in one sentence of a program.

Vanessa: 00:29:52

Of a program that will probably increase access or will change who

Vanessa: 00:29:57

is eligible or increase the payments.

Vanessa: 00:30:00

And also those bills are really important because they change programmatic things.

Vanessa: 00:30:04

They're working or not working.

Vanessa: 00:30:06

So I think we need to keep ourselves realistic that the Farm bill is

Vanessa: 00:30:09

an opportunity to do nitty gritty.

Vanessa: 00:30:11

Good things, but also to push the envelope a lot.

Vanessa: 00:30:15

And every farm Bill has an opportunity to drainage our

Vanessa: 00:30:18

food supply in our food system.

Vanessa: 00:30:20

For example, in the 2018 Farm Bill, we got the Office of Urban Agriculture,

Vanessa: 00:30:25

which we never had before, and that was authorized in 2018 and the office has

Vanessa: 00:30:29

been running now for the past two years.

Vanessa: 00:30:31

So things like that are really exciting that we did in a farm bill and now we have

Vanessa: 00:30:36

it and we will continue investing on it.

Vanessa: 00:30:39

God willingly.

Caite: 00:30:41

Am I right too in thinking that both the supplemental nutrition

Caite: 00:30:45

program and the school lunch program or through the Farm Bill, or are they

Caite: 00:30:48

just through the Department of Ag?

Vanessa: 00:30:52

I believe they're under agriculture.

Vanessa: 00:30:54

The only one that is outside of Farm is child nutrition, if I remember

Caite: 00:30:59

correctly.

Caite: 00:31:00

Yeah, I feel like that's an unexpected one for a lot of

Caite: 00:31:02

folks that those are under the.

Caite: 00:31:05

Egg instead of human services.

Caite: 00:31:08

But yeah, it is what it's,

Vanessa: 00:31:11

yeah, but also there's a lot of people who wish farm workers were on their

Vanessa: 00:31:16

the farm bill and they're not right now.

Vanessa: 00:31:18

Wish many of us are like, we wish it was there.

Vanessa: 00:31:21

It will be so much easier to actually do things.

Vanessa: 00:31:24

But they're not, they're outside the jurisdiction on the farm.

Caite: 00:31:28

Who are they under the jurisdiction of them?

Caite: 00:31:30

Department of Labor.

Caite: 00:31:32

That's doesn't make any sense.

Caite: 00:31:35

It doesn't.

Caite: 00:31:36

So here we are, government.

Caite: 00:31:37

Okay.

Arlene: 00:31:43

So Vanessa, how does your experience as an immigrant

Arlene: 00:31:46

to the US inform your work?

Arlene: 00:31:47

I know you do a lot of volunteer work as well, so how does your background as an

Arlene: 00:31:51

immigrant inform the way you use your time for both volunteering and your paid work?

Vanessa: 00:31:57

Definitely.

Vanessa: 00:31:58

I would say I.

Vanessa: 00:32:00

When people ask me what is my community obviously I can always say Dominican,

Vanessa: 00:32:03

but I actually, since the moment I'm migrated, I have never been surrounded

Vanessa: 00:32:06

by a lot of Dominicans, only my family.

Vanessa: 00:32:09

So I always say my community is the food and agriculture space

Vanessa: 00:32:13

because I feel that's the community that receive me and welcome me.

Vanessa: 00:32:16

But at the same time, I know that I also have a lot of privilege when we know 80%

Vanessa: 00:32:21

of food system workers look like me, brown and woman and immigrant, but they do know

Vanessa: 00:32:27

of them get to lobby in Washington, DC to change the conditions or food system.

Vanessa: 00:32:32

So for me it's also knowing that I have a lot of privilege, but also that my

Vanessa: 00:32:37

identities and experiences allow me.

Vanessa: 00:32:40

To champion for things that a lot of people like me don't get to champion for.

Vanessa: 00:32:44

And that's also one of the reasons that I'm in the coalition because a lot of our

Vanessa: 00:32:48

members are first generation immigrants or the children or immigrants that wanna stay

Vanessa: 00:32:52

connected to their agrarian background.

Vanessa: 00:32:54

And also because we do have an intersectional vision the farm workers

Vanessa: 00:32:59

are the future of our food system.

Vanessa: 00:33:02

And there are many things that we need to change in our food system to

Vanessa: 00:33:05

reduce the harm and oppression for people who have been the so that's

Vanessa: 00:33:10

something I always keep in mind.

Vanessa: 00:33:12

As an immigrant, as I navigate my work there's not a lot of people like us.

Vanessa: 00:33:15

There's actually, I met really few Dominicans that do my job.

Vanessa: 00:33:21

But it's also really exciting, that I, not just Dominican, also an

Vanessa: 00:33:24

immigrant, a woman and Afro-Latina.

Vanessa: 00:33:27

So it's also bringing all those identities and experiences and.

Vanessa: 00:33:31

Even other identities, like I'm from the I say I'm from Rhode Island.

Vanessa: 00:33:35

When I ask, where are you from?

Vanessa: 00:33:36

I say, I Rhode Island and Dominican, a little bit of the Midwest because

Vanessa: 00:33:39

I lived there for two years.

Vanessa: 00:33:41

And all those identities you bring to your work.

Vanessa: 00:33:43

So you always have to remember that you have to bring your full

Vanessa: 00:33:46

self and your authentic self.

Arlene: 00:33:49

You've mentioned the term food system a few times, and I

Arlene: 00:33:52

don't know that's something that we in agriculture always think about.

Arlene: 00:33:56

Can you define what the food system incorporates?

Arlene: 00:33:59

Because I think a lot of us as primary producers just think of our role as, we

Arlene: 00:34:04

grow, we raise the food and people eat it.

Arlene: 00:34:07

But the food system is more complex than that.

Vanessa: 00:34:11

Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa: 00:34:12

And I always like, think we cannot think on silos when it always need to be

Vanessa: 00:34:15

thinking intersectional and systems-wide.

Vanessa: 00:34:19

So when we, when I say food system, I actually think everything from.

Vanessa: 00:34:23

Inputs in the production to waste management of that food that we, that

Vanessa: 00:34:28

you grow and everything in between.

Vanessa: 00:34:30

And that is bottlenecks in distribution and processing how we access food

Vanessa: 00:34:37

through supermarkets, farmer's markets, and how we handle the byproducts of

Vanessa: 00:34:41

consuming that food, like food waste encompass composting, other natural

Vanessa: 00:34:46

resources that are part of that.

Vanessa: 00:34:48

And obviously the policy.

Vanessa: 00:34:49

All of this is happening under an economic policy regime.

Vanessa: 00:34:52

So we have to be thinking about what policies enable food production,

Vanessa: 00:34:56

what policies allow for food access.

Vanessa: 00:34:59

And all of that is thinking about the food system as an interconnected regime.

Vanessa: 00:35:04

Something that is happening in silos.

Vanessa: 00:35:06

And I think we all gotten better at thinking about food as a

Vanessa: 00:35:10

part of our system during the pandemic when we're like, I.

Vanessa: 00:35:13

Farmers are producing food, but where's my food?

Vanessa: 00:35:15

It's not in the supermarket.

Vanessa: 00:35:16

So people realizing that the many waves and the, or food moves and food supply

Vanessa: 00:35:22

change and the interconnectors all that on, I think it's moments like that we

Vanessa: 00:35:27

need to push ourselves to be thinking.

Vanessa: 00:35:29

It is a system.

Vanessa: 00:35:30

So I will love that.

Vanessa: 00:35:31

The farm bill will not be called a farm bill.

Vanessa: 00:35:32

I would love it to be called a food systems bill.

Vanessa: 00:35:36

Because there are things on the farm will like exports and trade

Vanessa: 00:35:39

that you will never think going back to your previous questions.

Vanessa: 00:35:42

There are also governed by those laws.

Vanessa: 00:35:46

And it's because we are, we think about food holistically in a

Vanessa: 00:35:50

cycle, not just in production.

Vanessa: 00:35:52

If, we would just, if it was actually a farm bill, it will only be, it will

Vanessa: 00:35:55

be like maybe a quarter of that bell.

Vanessa: 00:35:57

There's 13 titles in that bill.

Vanessa: 00:36:00

So we had to think about all the things, production,

Vanessa: 00:36:03

conservation, soil so many things.

Vanessa: 00:36:08

When we're thinking about food.

Vanessa: 00:36:09

So that's why I prefer to say food system or like food and agriculture sometimes.

Arlene: 00:36:13

Yeah, that makes a

Vanessa: 00:36:14

lot of sense.

Caite: 00:36:17

So as both Americans, and I think it's similar in

Caite: 00:36:22

Canada there seems to be a real

Caite: 00:36:27

lack of acknowledgement of how, of the importance of

Caite: 00:36:35

immigrants in our food system.

Caite: 00:36:38

And is someone who, lives in a town with a processing plant.

Caite: 00:36:42

And I know that the, what people picture when they think of someone who's

Caite: 00:36:48

involved in ag in us is a white man in his sixties in overalls with a straw

Caite: 00:36:55

hat, and Certainly looking around our processing plants and our dairies and

Caite: 00:36:59

our fields that's not what the face of American agriculture looks like.

Caite: 00:37:05

I'm wondering what we can do both to draw awareness to that and to really push

Caite: 00:37:16

for some immigration reform because this whole, bringing people here illegally

Caite: 00:37:23

so we can exploit them is bullshit.

Caite: 00:37:27

And it is not a system I am proud to be part of.

Caite: 00:37:31

And whether people want to admit that our system depends on those immigrants

Caite: 00:37:39

or not, doesn't really matter because it does whether they like it or not.

Caite: 00:37:44

And so it would really be nice to reform it in a way that all people have.

Caite: 00:37:52

Access to social programs and safety through being able to call

Caite: 00:37:57

the police without worrying about getting deported and whatever else.

Caite: 00:38:02

So I'm wondering where there are weak spots that are more effective

Caite: 00:38:08

for us to lean on towards actually getting some changes made.

Caite: 00:38:14

Yeah.

Caite: 00:38:14

I don't like it and I don't like it.

Caite: 00:38:16

Let's just put it that way.

Caite: 00:38:18

It's bullshit.

Caite: 00:38:19

We should be decent to other humans.

Caite: 00:38:22

It doesn't feel like it should be a big debate.

Caite: 00:38:27

Anyway.

Vanessa: 00:38:28

What I had to say.

Vanessa: 00:38:31

Aside from immigrants themselves and immigrant communities, iactually,

Vanessa: 00:38:34

farm farmers, one of some of the biggest allies for immigration reform

Vanessa: 00:38:38

because they understand the need.

Vanessa: 00:38:40

I have met farmers in Michigan and Vermont.

Vanessa: 00:38:43

They are like, I need, we need to normalize this.

Vanessa: 00:38:46

We need to regular regularize the status, the way we, we need reform.

Vanessa: 00:38:51

Because they understand the challenges, they understand the supply chain

Vanessa: 00:38:54

issues, they understand labor shortages they understand the economics of it.

Vanessa: 00:38:58

And at the same time they, they're really passionate about agriculture

Vanessa: 00:39:02

and they're passionate about working.

Vanessa: 00:39:03

We, our immigrant.

Vanessa: 00:39:05

Communities and partners as partners for food production to keep our families fed.

Vanessa: 00:39:11

But as you said, it's really challenging when so many people, I

Vanessa: 00:39:16

still have this idea what an American farmer guess is and gets to be.

Vanessa: 00:39:21

And obviously a lot of that time we like power dynamics and branding.

Vanessa: 00:39:24

A lot of this big farm groups have perpetuated who this

Vanessa: 00:39:27

idea who gets to be a farmer.

Vanessa: 00:39:29

And I think that's why I appreciate so much what my team does that is always

Vanessa: 00:39:33

having these beautiful graphics or farmers because we need to be challenging people

Vanessa: 00:39:38

and elected officials on how does a farmer look like and how does a farm look like?

Vanessa: 00:39:43

Because we do know a lot of farm workers still keep a farm on the side and do

Vanessa: 00:39:47

like really extensive gardening, even when they're working as farm workers.

Vanessa: 00:39:51

But we do not consider the agriculture sometimes.

Vanessa: 00:39:54

So we need to be pushing those narratives on who is a farmer and who gets.

Vanessa: 00:39:59

What does a farm look like in your cognitive brain?

Vanessa: 00:40:03

And give a lot of dissonance and discomfort to people.

Vanessa: 00:40:06

And a lot of what I do is that in DC I literally go to members

Vanessa: 00:40:09

of congress office and be like, this is what my farmer looks like.

Vanessa: 00:40:12

They're growing 30 different crops.

Vanessa: 00:40:13

They're first iteration Latino, Mexican, Mexican-American and

Vanessa: 00:40:18

they're selling other farmers market.

Vanessa: 00:40:19

And they go what?

Vanessa: 00:40:20

They're not growing corn.

Vanessa: 00:40:21

And they have not been farming here for six generations.

Vanessa: 00:40:23

Yeah, I know.

Vanessa: 00:40:25

So it's a lot of, we need to be challenging ourselves too.

Vanessa: 00:40:30

Dismantle this idea.

Vanessa: 00:40:31

And also a lot of what I do is actually just taking a lot

Vanessa: 00:40:34

of pictures of me at work.

Vanessa: 00:40:35

Like a lot of people don't believe that I get to do what I do and I say,

Vanessa: 00:40:38

yeah, this is what a policy director or a forming organization looks like.

Vanessa: 00:40:41

It's me.

Vanessa: 00:40:42

I'm brown.

Vanessa: 00:40:42

With currently hair and a young immigrant, you get to see a,

Vanessa: 00:40:46

I'm in the host of Congress.

Vanessa: 00:40:48

We need to be, we need to be doing the really aggressive PR campaign,

Vanessa: 00:40:53

but also this narrative change that immigrants feed us and immigrants

Vanessa: 00:40:58

are needed in our food supply chain, across our food system in every step

Vanessa: 00:41:02

from production, from processing, for distribution, from supermarkets to,

Vanessa: 00:41:06

and waste management is everywhere.

Vanessa: 00:41:09

We are everywhere and we need to do better completely.

Vanessa: 00:41:14

We need to do better.

Vanessa: 00:41:14

And last year we can close.

Vanessa: 00:41:16

Last year we, in United States, we had a farm worker organization head.

Vanessa: 00:41:20

That has been tried to get passed for 12, 14 years now.

Vanessa: 00:41:23

And last year we came really close.

Vanessa: 00:41:25

Like negotiations were really high.

Vanessa: 00:41:27

We were making a lot of progress, but unfortunately felt true.

Vanessa: 00:41:30

And the proposal will create pretty better working conditions for a lot of workers.

Vanessa: 00:41:36

Increased gas visa enables actually provide a path to citizenship

Vanessa: 00:41:40

for many undocumented farmed workers in the United States.

Vanessa: 00:41:43

But unfortunately it felt true.

Vanessa: 00:41:45

But now we have a new Congress so we can start all over

Vanessa: 00:41:47

again cuz that's what we do.

Vanessa: 00:41:49

Boom.

Vanessa: 00:41:49

Again, all of that can take forever.

Vanessa: 00:41:52

I obviously wish we could do an amnesty tomorrow.

Vanessa: 00:41:57

And we can normalize all those individuals are contributing

Vanessa: 00:42:00

so much to our food system.

Vanessa: 00:42:02

But we can need to keep pushing those narratives.

Vanessa: 00:42:04

We need to keep reminding people that immigrants feed us and

Vanessa: 00:42:07

immigrants are important for food and agriculture and for our national

Vanessa: 00:42:10

security for the future of America.

Vanessa: 00:42:14

Cuz we know from research that if we farm workers are allowed to become citizens

Vanessa: 00:42:20

or residents, they're al they're also likely to also become farm owners.

Vanessa: 00:42:24

And when we have so many white men in our roles in sixties about to retire,

Vanessa: 00:42:28

we need to be creating a pipeline of the next generation of farmers,

Vanessa: 00:42:32

farm workers who wanna take over our

Caite: 00:42:34

farms.

Caite: 00:42:36

It seems like too, so much of that plays into talking about a food system rather

Caite: 00:42:42

than just farm ownership because it's, it doesn't matter how many chickens I

Caite: 00:42:50

raise if I can't get them processed.

Caite: 00:42:52

And I don't.

Caite: 00:42:55

I'm going to assume it's that we just don't challenge people to

Caite: 00:42:58

think about how crops get harvested.

Caite: 00:43:01

And I know there's a lot, I don't know about how all sorts of crops

Caite: 00:43:06

get raised because I live in Iowa and we don't grow that stuff.

Caite: 00:43:10

But it's not like celery flies out of the fields and just like transports

Caite: 00:43:16

to the grocery store by itself.

Caite: 00:43:17

There are all these people here and I feel not to get too Woo about it, but when we

Caite: 00:43:22

say that the American dream is that you come here and you work really hard and you

Caite: 00:43:29

have a family and you work hard some more and your kids are doing better than you

Caite: 00:43:36

are and maybe you open a business and you settle down and you buy a house, whatever,

Caite: 00:43:40

that, that is the American dream.

Caite: 00:43:42

And to have people coming here and doing all of that and then

Caite: 00:43:45

saying, no, you still can't.

Caite: 00:43:48

Be citizens and there is no way for you to become citizens is

Caite: 00:43:53

really obnoxious and offensive.

Caite: 00:43:56

And if people are good enough to come here and bust their asses to feed us,

Caite: 00:44:00

it seems like they should be good enough to be allowed to stay here without

Caite: 00:44:04

being afraid of what will happen.

Caite: 00:44:08

Living the town that I live closest to now was subject to a huge ice

Caite: 00:44:14

raid almost 20 years ago now.

Caite: 00:44:17

And seeing what it did to this community is terrifying.

Caite: 00:44:23

And, they came and raid to meet plant while kids were at school.

Caite: 00:44:25

So kids came home and their parents had been arrested and

Caite: 00:44:28

just what that was like and.

Caite: 00:44:34

I find it offensive on a personal level to think that people work

Caite: 00:44:38

this hard to feed us and we're just like, meh, we can replace you.

Caite: 00:44:43

That's not who I want to be, and that's not who I wanna raise my children to be.

Caite: 00:44:48

So as a, I think especially as a parent, it is really hit home to me about

Caite: 00:44:55

what we're raising our kids to see.

Caite: 00:44:56

Farms and food systems.

Caite: 00:44:59

As, so

Vanessa: 00:45:02

unfortunately, most of us as eaters and as consumers in the American

Vanessa: 00:45:07

food will complicit Oh, perpetrating this.

Vanessa: 00:45:12

But at the same time, we, many of us have the tools to advocate for it to change.

Vanessa: 00:45:17

And obviously it all depends.

Vanessa: 00:45:22

I find citizen to be a really triggering word because who gets to be a citizen

Vanessa: 00:45:25

is Police, and it has changed so much over the history of America.

Vanessa: 00:45:30

But at the same time, it's also a reminder it comes with privileges that others do

Vanessa: 00:45:35

not have in our society that is really hierarchical about immigration status.

Vanessa: 00:45:40

And we know that depending on your language and your immigration status

Vanessa: 00:45:44

and in your gender, the things that you have access to do and to

Vanessa: 00:45:47

become in American agriculture, I completely stratify differently.

Vanessa: 00:45:51

So I think we need to remember that we, a lot of that guilt also comes

Vanessa: 00:45:56

a lot of privilege and we need to use it to change and transform.

Vanessa: 00:45:59

Our food system is asking the farms that we work with.

Vanessa: 00:46:03

What are your hiring practices?

Vanessa: 00:46:04

What are your labor practices?

Vanessa: 00:46:06

Are you advocating for H two O reform?

Vanessa: 00:46:09

Are you advocating for immigration reform?

Vanessa: 00:46:11

Because we do have a responsibility to our community members.

Vanessa: 00:46:15

To say that you belong here, you are feeding us.

Vanessa: 00:46:18

And when things need to change, we cannot set this as the norm.

Vanessa: 00:46:21

But in America's just so easy, even in America, this is part of the global food

Vanessa: 00:46:25

system because Mexican farm workers are feeding Canadians, trans trans student,

Vanessa: 00:46:31

and many other things around the world.

Vanessa: 00:46:33

The world I think we just need to, work every day to build a food system that

Vanessa: 00:46:37

we want to and challenge it exactly as you're saying, not take that guilt

Vanessa: 00:46:42

towards action and challenge it.

Arlene: 00:46:48

We're all taking a big sigh here.

Arlene: 00:46:51

So when I was looking into your work a little bit, you ha you were

Arlene: 00:46:54

on your website, you, there was a section about a workshop that you

Arlene: 00:46:58

run called Food is Never Just Food.

Arlene: 00:47:00

And I feel like we've already talked about that issue, that food isn't just food.

Arlene: 00:47:04

But can you tell us a little bit more about that workshop?

Arlene: 00:47:06

Workshop and what.

Arlene: 00:47:08

What, who are you're communicating that to and what your message is.

Vanessa: 00:47:13

Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa: 00:47:14

So I had done that workshop now for almost six years, more or less.

Vanessa: 00:47:17

Oh yeah.

Vanessa: 00:47:18

And that's when I was studying like food and agriculture and undergrad.

Vanessa: 00:47:21

And it was really, it's, the premises is really easy.

Vanessa: 00:47:25

Some of us use food to understand society and citizen of power oppression.

Vanessa: 00:47:31

And when I think about an apple or breakfast or any meal, I think about

Vanessa: 00:47:37

it, who gets to eat the food and why?

Vanessa: 00:47:39

And what has led to that food to be this way?

Vanessa: 00:47:42

What are the policies that have enabled this?

Vanessa: 00:47:44

What are the social contrasts that have enabled this?

Vanessa: 00:47:46

What are the stereotypes that have enabled this idea?

Vanessa: 00:47:50

So a lot of what I do in that workshop is just to teach people to

Vanessa: 00:47:53

think critically about food and to write their experiences, especially

Vanessa: 00:47:56

for immigrants and young people.

Vanessa: 00:47:59

And especially the emotional part, I think.

Vanessa: 00:48:01

It's so easy to talk to about food.

Vanessa: 00:48:03

Like what do you have for breakfast?

Vanessa: 00:48:04

What do you have for dinner?

Vanessa: 00:48:05

What is your favorite food?

Vanessa: 00:48:07

Sometimes we forget to attach the meanings, the emotions, the history,

Vanessa: 00:48:12

the stories, and the history that come when we talk about food.

Vanessa: 00:48:16

So a lot of what I do in that workshop is just to push people to write.

Vanessa: 00:48:19

I'm gonna give you an apple.

Vanessa: 00:48:22

Tell me anything you want about the apple, any memories you have about

Vanessa: 00:48:25

the apple, and then I'm gonna tell you about how specialty crop production

Vanessa: 00:48:29

enables so much apple production in certain parts of the country.

Vanessa: 00:48:33

So it's as this idea or doing almost like a stu speech about your

Vanessa: 00:48:37

connection to food and to encourage you to see food as an opportunity for

Vanessa: 00:48:42

your, for you to engage civically.

Vanessa: 00:48:44

Because I do not believe, maybe, I'm not sure that I will be as an

Vanessa: 00:48:48

engaged civically and politically if I haven't found a home in

Vanessa: 00:48:52

food and agriculture advocacy.

Vanessa: 00:48:54

So this is my way to encourage other people to be passionate about food, but

Vanessa: 00:48:58

also passionate about food advocacy.

Caite: 00:49:08

I'm going to, I'm gonna add a question here because

Caite: 00:49:10

I just thought about it.

Caite: 00:49:12

Anyone who's involved in community building and advocacy and the

Caite: 00:49:17

sort of work, as you mentioned, goes to a lot of potlucks.

Caite: 00:49:21

I'm wondering what your go-to potluck dish is talking about the importance,

Caite: 00:49:25

the emotional importance of food.

Caite: 00:49:27

Because going to a potluck where everything is terrible is the

Caite: 00:49:30

worst, like solidly the worst.

Caite: 00:49:35

So I'm wondering if you can give us some new ideas for stuff to take to potlucks.

Caite: 00:49:40

Oh my

Vanessa: 00:49:41

God.

Caite: 00:49:41

Plus, I dunno if it's different in Rhode Island, it seems like maybe

Caite: 00:49:44

less jello salad than there is.

Caite: 00:49:46

Oh yeah.

Caite: 00:49:46

What is

Vanessa: 00:49:47

yours?

Vanessa: 00:49:47

Jello salad.

Caite: 00:49:48

Food advocacy in Iowa doesn't get jello salad, but a

Caite: 00:49:51

lot of other community events do.

Caite: 00:49:53

I

Vanessa: 00:49:53

just have to say farmer pubs I the best food I ever ate in my life.

Vanessa: 00:49:58

A farmer's pubs, they're like salads.

Vanessa: 00:50:00

They live for free in my mind and in my memory that I ate a young

Vanessa: 00:50:03

farmer's potlucks five years ago.

Vanessa: 00:50:05

So farmers are amazing cooks.

Vanessa: 00:50:07

That's all I'm gonna say.

Vanessa: 00:50:09

I don't think I can give you my go-to because I think it's

Vanessa: 00:50:12

all depends on the season.

Vanessa: 00:50:14

It depends on what I have in reading.

Vanessa: 00:50:15

It depends what is what I have in the kitchen.

Vanessa: 00:50:18

And also I realize, I feel I, I host a lot of people for dinner,

Vanessa: 00:50:21

but I don't go to a lot of potlucks.

Vanessa: 00:50:23

For example, the last party that I drew, it was a brunch and I made Manu.

Vanessa: 00:50:28

That is Dominican mash plantains, we onions and butter.

Vanessa: 00:50:32

And it was winter, so I could get away with that.

Vanessa: 00:50:35

But if we have in summer, we're on something else.

Vanessa: 00:50:38

Like I dressed strawberry party once because it was a strawberry season.

Vanessa: 00:50:42

So That

Caite: 00:50:43

sounds amazing.

Caite: 00:50:45

Yeah, I have to say too, when you said that about salads living free in your

Caite: 00:50:49

brain, I still have fond memories of a beat and quinoa salad that I had

Caite: 00:50:56

at a beginning Farmer's conference like eight years ago probably.

Caite: 00:51:01

And I still think about it on a fairly regular basis because it was really good.

Caite: 00:51:07

Okay, so aside from that, back to what's actually, on our list, what

Caite: 00:51:11

are you working on right now and what are your goals going forward, both

Caite: 00:51:16

shorter term and what's the big goal?

Caite: 00:51:18

What's the, you'll die happy if they put this on your tombstone sort of a.

Caite: 00:51:26

Yeah, what's the big one?

Caite: 00:51:29

I know you're ready for this.

Caite: 00:51:30

It's,

Vanessa: 00:51:31

I have been trying to write a book about Maya guy in my advice for young

Vanessa: 00:51:37

people how to get involved in food system.

Vanessa: 00:51:38

It's really hard but it's something I'm working on and I, hopefully

Vanessa: 00:51:43

it'll be done by the time I turn 30.

Vanessa: 00:51:45

That's my personal goal.

Vanessa: 00:51:47

In a more immediate short go, short goal, my goal is to get a marker valve

Vanessa: 00:51:51

introduced in the next two months so we can get a program that focuses

Vanessa: 00:51:56

on lung access for young farmers.

Vanessa: 00:51:58

That's my priority for the next two months and for the rest of

Vanessa: 00:52:00

this year, and a farm bill year.

Vanessa: 00:52:02

So I think those two things can go in my tostone.

Vanessa: 00:52:05

Let's see which one will will make it.

Caite: 00:52:08

I like the idea of an advice book that also had recipes.

Caite: 00:52:11

For things like having people over and potlucks and maybe a regional

Caite: 00:52:17

potluck directory of things that will go over well in different places

Caite: 00:52:21

in case you end up, maybe that's your book, Katie Jealous Salad.

Caite: 00:52:24

I think that's your book.

Caite: 00:52:26

I will, twist my arm, undertake the research necessary to travel the world.

Caite: 00:52:32

Going to potlucks and seeing what people eat different places.

Caite: 00:52:35

Yes.

Caite: 00:52:35

You volunteer

Arlene: 00:52:36

for that?

Vanessa: 00:52:37

Yes.

Vanessa: 00:52:37

Yeah.

Vanessa: 00:52:38

Can only be a farmer potluck.

Arlene: 00:52:39

That's the, yeah, just, yeah, just farmer ones.

Arlene: 00:52:41

Yeah, for sure.

Arlene: 00:52:43

So I guess that leads well into, we are a parenting podcast and so what, not to take

Arlene: 00:52:49

the whole plot of your book obviously, but what tips do you have for young people

Arlene: 00:52:53

if we have, we've got kids, our listeners have kids who, you know, even if they're

Arlene: 00:52:58

not involved in production agriculture, I think a lot of us hope that our kids will

Arlene: 00:53:02

take what they've learned on the farm and bring it into their careers in some way.

Arlene: 00:53:06

So what advice would you have for people, for young people who are

Arlene: 00:53:09

thinking about getting involved in ag in a, in different parts of the system?

Vanessa: 00:53:15

Yeah.

Vanessa: 00:53:15

The first one is volunteer.

Vanessa: 00:53:17

Find your community, find your corner.

Vanessa: 00:53:19

There's always people doing amazing stuff and you don't have to replicate the wheel.

Vanessa: 00:53:24

Just have to join the movement and the momentum and find your niche at it.

Vanessa: 00:53:28

I think for me, it's really gratifying to, I remember five years ago being at

Vanessa: 00:53:32

conferences, being afraid to talk to the speaker because I thought they were

Vanessa: 00:53:37

like someone really famous in food, in agriculture, and now I talk to him every

Vanessa: 00:53:41

day on my dms because we're good friends.

Vanessa: 00:53:43

So it's amazing to me.

Vanessa: 00:53:46

How easy it's to build a community, but you can only build a community for

Vanessa: 00:53:50

your intentional and if you are brave.

Vanessa: 00:53:52

So my advice to all your people is you need to be brave.

Vanessa: 00:53:54

You need to get outta your comfort zone, and you need to

Vanessa: 00:53:56

be willing to public speak.

Vanessa: 00:53:58

You need to be willing to write, you need to be willing to say things

Vanessa: 00:54:00

that make other people uncomfortable.

Vanessa: 00:54:02

I describe my job as making people uncomfortable because I'm always

Vanessa: 00:54:05

asking hard questions like, is that really the best program that

Vanessa: 00:54:08

you can do for young farmers?

Vanessa: 00:54:09

Is that the best outreach that you can do to a farmer of color?

Vanessa: 00:54:13

That's literally the question I ask everyone every single day to

Vanessa: 00:54:16

every elected officials, to everyone at U S D A every single day.

Vanessa: 00:54:19

So you have to get really comfortable using your voice and

Vanessa: 00:54:23

being courageous and being brave.

Arlene: 00:54:27

That's good advice for someone of any age.

Caite: 00:54:30

I really appreciate that you're doing this work.

Caite: 00:54:33

It's we need more people asking if that's really the best you can do,

Caite: 00:54:37

because I think too many people are.

Caite: 00:54:42

Told to quit being pushy and sit down and appreciate what you have.

Caite: 00:54:46

You can appreciate what you have and still ask if that's really the

Caite: 00:54:50

best that someone can do, become a

Vanessa: 00:54:53

lobbyist.

Vanessa: 00:54:53

That's the, that's what I get to do.

Arlene: 00:54:57

So in terms of volunteering, do you have any, your kind of top five

Arlene: 00:55:01

organizations that if someone was, felt like they were wanting to make a

Arlene: 00:55:05

difference but didn't know where to start, what are some organizations that you

Arlene: 00:55:08

feel like people can really get involved in and make a difference if they're

Arlene: 00:55:12

looking to give their time in some way.

Vanessa: 00:55:15

Definitely, I would say always keep a local.

Vanessa: 00:55:17

There are so many great stuff happening in our communities.

Vanessa: 00:55:20

Like I did a lot of local stuff before.

Vanessa: 00:55:22

Obviously I came to DC in Royal Island.

Vanessa: 00:55:25

My office or my major had a special volunteer program just for kids.

Vanessa: 00:55:29

And I did that for several years.

Vanessa: 00:55:31

And then they asked me to run the farmer's market.

Vanessa: 00:55:33

And then I ran the farmer's market for four years.

Vanessa: 00:55:35

And then after that they asked me to join the Shamrock Commerce Board, and

Vanessa: 00:55:40

then I joined the Food Policy Council.

Vanessa: 00:55:43

So all those things, officer, the major youth programs food

Vanessa: 00:55:47

policy council, farmer's markets, Shamrock Commerce, they're probably

Vanessa: 00:55:51

happening in your community already.

Vanessa: 00:55:52

You have to find them and find opportunities to plug in.

Vanessa: 00:55:55

So I definitely recommend those at the localized level.

Vanessa: 00:55:58

And also when it comes more to food and agriculture space most of

Vanessa: 00:56:02

the more traditional associations.

Vanessa: 00:56:05

We'll have members or we'll have chapters in some states, like National Young

Vanessa: 00:56:08

Farmers Coalition, we have 45 chapters.

Vanessa: 00:56:11

But even if you wanna get involved and there's no chapter in your

Vanessa: 00:56:15

place, you can start a chapter or you can just be a general member.

Vanessa: 00:56:19

So even if there's a place where you don't have that community, you can still

Vanessa: 00:56:22

be plugged into the national community.

Vanessa: 00:56:24

Because at Temple we do a lot of fellowships.

Vanessa: 00:56:26

So we have national fellows.

Vanessa: 00:56:29

They are not together geographically, but they come together once a month

Vanessa: 00:56:33

to talk about different issues.

Vanessa: 00:56:34

And they get trained in public speaking, they get trained in policy.

Vanessa: 00:56:37

They're coming to DC next month to come to their elected officials.

Vanessa: 00:56:41

So don't think geo, think geographically first and community

Vanessa: 00:56:45

first, but don't let that limit you.

Vanessa: 00:56:48

Some of my best friends and my people that I organized the most, we had never

Vanessa: 00:56:52

been in the same geographic area together.

Vanessa: 00:56:55

We are.

Vanessa: 00:56:55

One is New York, one is in the Dominican Republic, one is in Europe.

Vanessa: 00:56:58

But we are organizing together towards the same goals.

Vanessa: 00:57:01

So think geographically, but also think that your community is not

Vanessa: 00:57:04

limited to that geographic area.

Caite: 00:57:08

I can say too, as someone who's been involved in a fair number

Caite: 00:57:11

of community things, that if people are worried about putting themselves

Caite: 00:57:15

out there, I have never yet met a community group that says we have

Caite: 00:57:19

enough people, we have enough members.

Caite: 00:57:21

We are not, we don't need anybody new.

Caite: 00:57:23

Every community group that I've met has loved having new folks come in.

Caite: 00:57:30

It's, yeah.

Caite: 00:57:30

But

Vanessa: 00:57:30

I actually wanna warm about that.

Vanessa: 00:57:32

I have experience, I have experienced gate keeping and it's really hard.

Vanessa: 00:57:36

It's really sad because there were spaces where I wanted to volunteer more.

Vanessa: 00:57:39

I wanted to give more, and they were, they wouldn't let me.

Vanessa: 00:57:42

They were gatekeepers.

Vanessa: 00:57:43

Yeah.

Vanessa: 00:57:44

And no, that's, And especially when you're young with a lot of energy, wanna change

Vanessa: 00:57:49

things, you're gonna find gatekeepers.

Vanessa: 00:57:51

So you have to be ready for that.

Vanessa: 00:57:52

But in that moment you have to decide.

Vanessa: 00:57:54

Do you wanna invest in then, or you wanna maybe, I usually try to avoid telling

Vanessa: 00:58:00

people, go and create your own thing.

Vanessa: 00:58:01

But there are moments you have to go and create your own thing.

Vanessa: 00:58:04

If day gatekeepers won't let you in, just go find another table or

Vanessa: 00:58:07

build that table, because some people will never let you sit at the table.

Vanessa: 00:58:12

But you had to know.

Vanessa: 00:58:12

You had to know you, you had to know.

Vanessa: 00:58:15

And it, there were some spaces that took me out a long time to be

Vanessa: 00:58:18

like, actually, this is not where my time, this is actually really

Vanessa: 00:58:21

draining me on wasting my time.

Vanessa: 00:58:24

And then I change course.

Vanessa: 00:58:26

And I was literally given no sit at the table.

Vanessa: 00:58:29

They were letting me run the meetings.

Vanessa: 00:58:30

So things like that you have to know.

Vanessa: 00:58:33

But you also need to have, you need to have a body check system.

Vanessa: 00:58:35

Is this really the right space for me?

Vanessa: 00:58:37

Oh, can you validate if you also feel like this?

Vanessa: 00:58:39

Are we wasting our time here?

Vanessa: 00:58:41

So you need to also watch out their gatekeepers.

Vanessa: 00:58:44

But you also don't let us stop you.

Caite: 00:58:47

That's a great point because honestly, I have an immense amount

Caite: 00:58:52

of privilege in this space because I'm a middle-aged white lady.

Caite: 00:58:55

And I still encounter some amount of gatekeeping, so I can only

Caite: 00:58:59

imagine what it's like for anyone who doesn't have the privilege of

Caite: 00:59:02

being a middle-aged white lady.

Caite: 00:59:04

But yeah, there's definitely.

Caite: 00:59:07

If people want to gate keep, you can tell 'em to f off because there are

Caite: 00:59:11

plenty of other groups that would love to have your enthusiasm and

Caite: 00:59:15

your energy and your dedication.

Caite: 00:59:18

And if there aren't, you can start your own, which is also a great point.

Caite: 00:59:21

So yes, thank you for reminding us of that because it is, it's easy not to

Caite: 00:59:26

notice gatekeeping that doesn't apply to you and it's good to be reminded of it.

Vanessa: 00:59:32

Yeah.

Vanessa: 00:59:32

And also I think we also have to remember if you, if you're in a

Vanessa: 00:59:35

position on gatekeeping, you also have a responsibility to open the door.

Vanessa: 00:59:40

I was appointed, I think, to the Shamrock Commerce because the

Vanessa: 00:59:45

director literally called me and fought for me to have a spot.

Vanessa: 00:59:48

I was 18.

Vanessa: 00:59:50

I was not even thinking of serving a non-profit board.

Vanessa: 00:59:54

But you also had to realize you also have a lot of privilege.

Vanessa: 00:59:57

And a lot of access that you can avoid gate keeping by

Vanessa: 01:00:00

actually being an open door.

Vanessa: 01:00:03

I dunno what is the opposite of gatekeeper?

Vanessa: 01:00:05

A door opener.

Arlene: 01:00:07

Someone who's got the key, I don't know.

Arlene: 01:00:08

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:00:09

We get, we understand the metaphor.

Caite: 01:00:12

Yeah.

Caite: 01:00:12

It's the gatekeeper leaves the gate open and then goes out and finds more people

Caite: 01:00:16

and shelves have been through the gate.

Caite: 01:00:17

Hopefully like a friendly, welcoming way and not in a haha sucker,

Caite: 01:00:21

you're on the board now kinda way,

Vanessa: 01:00:23

but it's ok.

Vanessa: 01:00:24

We need that.

Vanessa: 01:00:25

Need that sometimes.

Arlene: 01:00:26

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:00:27

Or take the gate right off the hinges.

Arlene: 01:00:28

Something like that.

Caite: 01:00:30

I like that.

Caite: 01:00:30

We don't need it.

Caite: 01:00:31

The gate dismantler.

Caite: 01:00:33

Be the person who leaves the gate open.

Caite: 01:00:35

It's bad on the farm.

Caite: 01:00:36

It's good in community.

Caite: 01:00:38

Yeah, that's right.

Arlene: 01:00:39

Not if you've got cows.

Caite: 01:00:40

Yeah, I like that one.

Caite: 01:00:43

Open gates bad for cows.

Caite: 01:00:45

Good for people.

Caite: 01:00:46

I like that.

Caite: 01:00:46

There you go.

Caite: 01:00:47

Yeah, that's right.

Caite: 01:00:48

Just pick your, the title of our book, Arlene.

Arlene: 01:00:51

There you go.

Arlene: 01:00:52

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:00:53

So one more parenting related question because I'm always trying to figure out

Arlene: 01:00:56

ways to tie it back to our other aspect of our podcast, which is the parenting piece.

Arlene: 01:01:01

How did your parents and your family help to foster your independence?

Arlene: 01:01:07

If you're on the Chamber of Commerce at 18, that means you've got some big

Arlene: 01:01:10

cheerleaders, I'm guessing, in your house.

Arlene: 01:01:12

So how did your family support you and help create the person that you are?

Arlene: 01:01:16

Because we wanna try and make kids who turn out like you.

Vanessa: 01:01:20

Honestly, I lived by example.

Vanessa: 01:01:22

My dad was part of the rotaries growing up.

Vanessa: 01:01:26

And my dad is such a like service C person, like really always

Vanessa: 01:01:31

doing something for someone else.

Vanessa: 01:01:34

And my mom is the same.

Vanessa: 01:01:35

My mom was an educator in the Dominican Republic and she was always volunteering,

Vanessa: 01:01:39

working on political campaigns helping young people with their problems.

Vanessa: 01:01:47

And then when we moved to the United States, they completely changed my mom,

Vanessa: 01:01:51

especially cuz my dad stayed in the er.

Vanessa: 01:01:54

And I literally reco.

Vanessa: 01:01:56

It took me a few years to recognize, but I literally became

Vanessa: 01:01:58

my parents in the United States.

Vanessa: 01:02:00

And obviously for them, they were like, why are you always in a meeting?

Vanessa: 01:02:03

Why are you always volunteering?

Vanessa: 01:02:05

But at the same time they're really proud of me and they're

Vanessa: 01:02:07

my, and it's not just my parents.

Vanessa: 01:02:08

Like my uncles will drive me to meetings, they will drive me to volunteering.

Vanessa: 01:02:12

So at the end it's just creating a family culture where.

Vanessa: 01:02:16

Service is expected and service is part of what is to be a family.

Vanessa: 01:02:22

And I think for me, that was really obvious growing up.

Vanessa: 01:02:26

So it was just a matter of doing it.

Vanessa: 01:02:27

When I migrated to the do to the United States obviously

Vanessa: 01:02:31

they're immensely proud of me.

Vanessa: 01:02:33

And they used in awe because I grew up really shelter.

Vanessa: 01:02:36

Like I was not allowed to go out late or do many things that are

Vanessa: 01:02:41

like normal for American kids.

Vanessa: 01:02:42

I growing a really Catholic, Dominican household and my mom sometimes just

Vanessa: 01:02:47

sits in the couch some days when I send her a picture of me giving a keynote

Vanessa: 01:02:50

being like, how did this happen?

Vanessa: 01:02:53

And I'm like, because you did the, you did, you had the right measure

Vanessa: 01:02:57

of restraining independence.

Vanessa: 01:02:59

We always say for example, my mom didn't want me to go to away to college that

Vanessa: 01:03:04

was 45 minutes away in Rhode Island.

Vanessa: 01:03:06

She wanted me to go to community college and I will always remember my

Vanessa: 01:03:10

being like, You have to let her go.

Vanessa: 01:03:12

She needs to grow.

Vanessa: 01:03:13

It was like that right measure.

Vanessa: 01:03:14

Like I will see my mom every weekend cuz they will come visit me.

Vanessa: 01:03:17

I will come back.

Vanessa: 01:03:18

It was 45 minutes away, but they still trusted me to live far away.

Vanessa: 01:03:21

So is that right?

Vanessa: 01:03:22

Amount of independence and constraint.

Caite: 01:03:26

I think if your kids are rebelling by getting involved

Caite: 01:03:29

in community organizing and lobbying, you're doing a good job.

Caite: 01:03:33

Please tell your parents thank you because I'm impressed by this.

Caite: 01:03:36

The third kid rebelled by getting more involved in the community.

Caite: 01:03:42

Like

Vanessa: 01:03:42

I talked about, again, they said that example, that

Vanessa: 01:03:44

was the only option for me.

Vanessa: 01:03:46

Oh, you want, you wanna, you want me to be serious?

Vanessa: 01:03:48

I wanna do exactly what you do, volunteer a thousand hours a week.

Arlene: 01:03:51

Yeah, that's right.

Arlene: 01:03:53

I don't need you to drive me to parties, but I need you to

Arlene: 01:03:55

drive me to these meetings.

Caite: 01:03:58

So we ask all of our guests, if you were going to dominate a category

Caite: 01:04:02

at the county fair, what would it be?

Caite: 01:04:04

And it can be real or made up.

Vanessa: 01:04:07

One of my passion projects is agno botany.

Vanessa: 01:04:10

So like in her, so I would love a category of doing the best, like

Vanessa: 01:04:17

the best tonic or like the best plan ID or something like that.

Vanessa: 01:04:22

And training to be a certified herbalist.

Vanessa: 01:04:24

So I will have a category of guess the plan, what are the uses, who uses it?

Vanessa: 01:04:29

Something like that.

Vanessa: 01:04:31

I dunno, if's a real category in the county fair.

Arlene: 01:04:34

Hey, you can, yeah, we say you can make it up so you win.

Arlene: 01:04:37

And that sounds like a really good one.

Arlene: 01:04:38

I would not be any good at it, so I wouldn't even compete with you.

Vanessa: 01:04:42

Yeah.

Vanessa: 01:04:42

So really influenced my, not my reading, but how I think of life is

Vanessa: 01:04:47

the work called Table Butler and she always said, you have to be ready.

Vanessa: 01:04:51

If you society were to crumble tomorrow, what skill do you have?

Vanessa: 01:04:55

And obviously as a person who works with farmers, they can all grow food.

Vanessa: 01:04:58

I can't, I am not that good of a grower disclaimer, so I'm always

Vanessa: 01:05:01

like, let me know plans in botany and their uses like Herbo uses.

Vanessa: 01:05:05

So that's my contribution in society.

Vanessa: 01:05:07

Were to crumble tomorrow.

Vanessa: 01:05:09

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:05:11

We all have to play our part, right?

Caite: 01:05:13

You don't have to be self-sufficient, you just have to have a

Caite: 01:05:16

skill that is valuable to other people.

Caite: 01:05:18

Just one.

Caite: 01:05:19

Just one.

Arlene: 01:05:20

All right.

Arlene: 01:05:21

So we will move into our cussing and discussing segment.

Arlene: 01:05:24

We've registered for an online platform called SpeakPipe

Arlene: 01:05:26

where listeners can leave.

Arlene: 01:05:27

They're cussing and discussing entries for us, and we will play them on the show.

Arlene: 01:05:31

So check the show notes for the link.

Arlene: 01:05:33

You can leave us a voice memo there, or you can always send us

Arlene: 01:05:35

an email@barnardlanguagegmail.com and we will read it out for you.

Arlene: 01:05:39

Katie, what are you cussing and discussing this

Caite: 01:05:41

week?

Caite: 01:05:43

I feel like.

Caite: 01:05:45

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in my life with little kids at a farm and

Caite: 01:05:50

a job and living out in the country is the small errands that you cannot

Caite: 01:05:56

outsource or do online or whatever.

Arlene: 01:06:01

And you have to go to one very specific place

Caite: 01:06:03

to get done.

Caite: 01:06:04

Yes, I have to go get my oil changed.

Caite: 01:06:08

It's just it's not a big thing.

Caite: 01:06:10

It's not enough of a thing to put it in my calendar, but it takes an hour longer

Caite: 01:06:14

than the, even the actual oil change does because I have to drive to town and drive

Caite: 01:06:17

home and it's just little shit like that.

Caite: 01:06:20

Like it's not rewarding.

Caite: 01:06:22

It's not like you look at your car and you're like, it's not like

Caite: 01:06:25

getting your car detailed where it looks great after an oil change.

Caite: 01:06:28

Like it, it looks the same except that's it doesn't blow up, yeah.

Caite: 01:06:31

Like the little

Arlene: 01:06:32

sticker on the dash tells you that you've got a few

Arlene: 01:06:34

more miles to go, but that's it.

Caite: 01:06:37

Wow.

Caite: 01:06:37

How exciting.

Caite: 01:06:38

My car may not blow up from this reason in the next 3000 miles.

Caite: 01:06:44

Yeah, it's lame and I don't wanna do it.

Caite: 01:06:48

And I feel stupid that I don't wanna do it because it's just an oil change.

Caite: 01:06:51

Like it's just part of being an adult, but I don't want to.

Caite: 01:06:53

Yes.

Caite: 01:06:54

Yeah,

Arlene: 01:06:55

but it's one more thing.

Caite: 01:06:56

It's just one more thing.

Caite: 01:06:58

One more thing.

Caite: 01:06:59

Vanessa.

Caite: 01:07:00

What do you have to cuss and discuss today?

Vanessa: 01:07:04

I think just like having too many meetings, I'm like trying

Vanessa: 01:07:07

to be really protective of my time.

Vanessa: 01:07:08

I'm like, please do not schedule anything.

Vanessa: 01:07:10

Please.

Vanessa: 01:07:11

No.

Arlene: 01:07:12

So I know there's a little time slot there, but don't put anything in it.

Arlene: 01:07:16

It's fine.

Arlene: 01:07:17

Literally,

Vanessa: 01:07:17

I'm like, please get high, like 15 more minutes, eat lunch.

Vanessa: 01:07:21

So I think it just went really oh, please gimme a break everyone.

Vanessa: 01:07:24

What?

Vanessa: 01:07:24

My job is to meet with people, but what I try to do is not to take meetings Mondays

Vanessa: 01:07:29

and Fridays sotu Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and a social butterfly,

Vanessa: 01:07:33

and then on Fridays I can recharge.

Arlene: 01:07:36

That's good.

Arlene: 01:07:36

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:07:37

And then give yourself some time to actually do some of the things that

Arlene: 01:07:39

you said you were going to do when you were in all those meetings too.

Caite: 01:07:42

Exactly.

Caite: 01:07:43

Is that the part I'm missing, Arlene?

Caite: 01:07:46

The doing the things, the leaving yourself time to do the things

Caite: 01:07:50

that you said you were going to do.

Caite: 01:07:51

Oh, yes.

Arlene: 01:07:51

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:07:51

You need to slot

Caite: 01:07:52

that in.

Caite: 01:07:53

Yeah.

Caite: 01:07:54

I'll put that on my to-do list then.

Caite: 01:07:56

Yeah,

Arlene: 01:07:57

schedule yourself those.

Caite: 01:07:59

Yeah.

Caite: 01:08:00

Yeah.

Caite: 01:08:00

I do feel like leaving yourself Monday free is genius though, because it

Caite: 01:08:04

feels like a good start to the week to not start off already behind, and by

Caite: 01:08:09

free, without meetings, not actually,

Arlene: 01:08:11

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:08:11

Free.

Arlene: 01:08:12

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:08:12

To do the, do some

Caite: 01:08:13

work.

Caite: 01:08:14

Yeah.

Caite: 01:08:15

So Arlene, what do you have to cuss and discuss today?

Arlene: 01:08:18

So mine is, I'm out of this stage where I know exactly what my kids

Arlene: 01:08:24

are doing at all times, which is fine.

Arlene: 01:08:26

They're getting older.

Arlene: 01:08:27

Mine range from eight to 17 now, Vanessa.

Arlene: 01:08:31

But now I'm at the stage where sometimes I don't actually know where they are.

Arlene: 01:08:37

And like last night, for example, I went to go and let my daughter know

Arlene: 01:08:42

that supper was ready and I'd forgotten that she was going out for supper

Arlene: 01:08:46

with a friend, which is fine, but it's just like I'm barely managing to keep

Arlene: 01:08:50

my own schedule straight in my head.

Arlene: 01:08:52

And now the people in my house, not that they need me to do anything

Arlene: 01:08:57

about it necessarily, but one of these days I'm gonna drop a ball

Arlene: 01:09:00

in terms of the people that need to actually be picked up or dropped off.

Arlene: 01:09:03

And yeah, there's too many additional schedules plus my own schedule

Arlene: 01:09:09

for me to keep straight anymore.

Arlene: 01:09:11

It appear.

Arlene: 01:09:12

It appears they have lives of their own, which is a real pain.

Arlene: 01:09:19

I don't know when that started.

Arlene: 01:09:23

So we wanna thank you so much, Vanessa, for joining us today.

Arlene: 01:09:27

If people want to connect with you online, learn more about what you're

Arlene: 01:09:30

doing, have a chat on a, not on a Monday or a Friday, where should they find you?

Vanessa: 01:09:37

The confinement on Twitter v g p visions they can follow me

Vanessa: 01:09:41

on Instagram to see my, my Congress adventures Vanessa Garcia Polanco and

Vanessa: 01:09:46

they can always follow what I'm doing with policy national Farmers Coalition.

Arlene: 01:09:51

That is Fanta.

Arlene: 01:09:53

Thank you so much.

Arlene: 01:09:54

It was great to talk to you today.

Arlene: 01:09:55

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:09:55

Thank

Vanessa: 01:09:56

you for the invitation.