Field of Dreams

While agriculture has historically been a male-dominated industry, a new crop of farmers is working to make the community more diverse, inclusive, and cool.

- JESSICA GOODMAN

Down a long, flat road in the town of Millerton, New York, about 90 miles from New York City, sits a 12-acre plot of land, the home of Rock Steady Farm.

Depending on the season, visitors will find it filled with rows and rows of candy-colored produce: Ripe, tie-dyed tomatoes hanging from vines. Sunshine yellow patty pan squash protruding from squat leafy plants. Bushy greenery hinting at what may lie beneath the soil: Onions, carrots, parsnips, maybe beets.

This might describe any of the 600-plus farms in Dutchess County, which has long been an agricultural hub in the Northeast any farm, anywhere. But Rock Steady is unlike most of its contemporaries in the country. While 96 percent of farms in the U.S. are family-owned, passed down from generation to generation, Rock Steady takes its origins not from family-forged relationships or land ownership, but from an ethos.

The queer-owned and operated cooperative vegetable farm describes itself as being "rooted in social justice, food access, and farmer training." Agriculture is, traditionally, an industry dominated by white, heterosexual, land-owning men (only 4 percent of farmers in the U.S. are people of color, according to a Congressional Research Service report). But in recent years, queer- and BIPOCowned farms like Rock Steady have popped up around the country, promoting not just representation but also inclusive practices that aim to create more intentional pipelines for queer, trans, Indigenous, and people of color looking to break into the agricultural industry.

This effort aims to push back against the long history of marginalized folks not being welcome or being actively, systematically excluded from American farmwork and ownership, efforts that date back to before the country's founding when most farm workers were enslaved.