Last summer, I worked on a farm in Edgartown, Massachusetts. Edgartown is a town on Martha’s Vineyard, which is a ritzy vacation island that is popular on the East Coast. I had never been to Martha’s Vineyard before I worked there, but I have some friends from home that go on vacation there every year. I heard about this cool farm job, and I love being outside and food, so I thought it sounded like a sweet deal.
The median home value in Edgartown is $785,100 , while the median home value in Detroit is $42,600. Last year, when I worked on the farm starting at 6AM every day and pushing myself very hard physically, I thought that I was doing the most. The most good I could be doing, bringing healthy, fresh fruits and vegetables to people, picking flowers from our flower farm that genuinely made people really happy. Everything the farm kitchen made was delicious, the specialty was a zucchini bread that was way better than the one that Espresso Royale sells. My Instagram was popping with color from all the beautiful vegetables, and I was physically stronger than I have ever been. But I did not preface this with the median home value of these cities for no reason. Martha’s Vineyard, especially those who come to summer there, is extraordinarily rich. And while everyone deserves fruits and vegetables and healthy food, the majority of the people that I was serving with my hours in the fields were people that could have gone without it. If the farm was not there, they probably would buy organic from Stop and Shop (a large supermarket chain on the East Coast). I’m not bashing the customers we got, it is just the truth that my job, while adding an important sense of place to Edgartown, was not really doing much for food security or food justice. There was inherent value in the work I was doing, but sometimes I felt unnecessary.
Each one of the 1,500 urban farms in Detroit does more for food justice than the whole of the forty farms on Martha’s Vineyard put together. Working with FoodLab and Keep Growing Detroit has inspired me to pursue a career with more social and not just environmental impact. This is a great takeaway that I have gotten from the program. Also, to echo some of the other posts, I have such a tremendous amount of respect for the people at my workplace and everyone else’s placements that continue the work that we’re just doing for ten weeks. Detroit is complicated (main thing I’ve learned this summer) but to quote Michigan’s favorite motto – those who stay will be champions – and on that note, there are 30 days ’til football season.
