Telling Women's Lives

Farmer Jane Reader Response

When reading Farmer Jane, I was intrigued by Severine Von Tscharner Fleming’s life’s work. I was initially compelled because of her reputation of always riding around a foldable bike, but later became fascinated by her passion to create the rhetoric of sustainable agriculture and use it to drive governmental legislation to support farming, Her documentary, The Greenhorns about young farmers connects well with what we are doing in this class because she is giving farmers, people who are usually marginalized and dismissed, a voice. Severine is using film to raise awareness about farming and provide insight into the passions of young people in hopes to encourage more young viewers to support and participate in farming. I thought this was an effective strategy to keep sustainable farming alive because many young people do not get exposed to farming and might not know what it’s all about or why it’s important. Getting today’s youth involved in farming is crucial for the future of our society, and Severine is shedding light to and amplifying the young farmer’s movement that is happening.

I also found Severine’s insight on the work of women in agriculture interesting. She emphasizes the importance of women’s work on farming because of their collaboration skills and non-competitive and non-chauvinistic tendencies. According to Severine, “women take on responsibility and non-glamorous things in ways that boys do not.” Severine uses her experience with her college campus farm as a testament to this and says that she would do the nitty-gritty yet necessary details while the males would take on infrastructure building. Men are typically seen as the ones who are willing to “get their hands dirty,” but in Severine’s experience with farming, it’s actually the women. I am not exactly sure why this would be, but it gives insight into the sustainable farming industry’s reliance on resilient, hard-working women, who may be extremely impactful, but only from behind the scenes.