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Communication

While summer is in full swing, the harvest is just beginning to wind up. My role on the farm is shifting this week - I’ll be leading harvest crews until the end of the summer. There are seven crew leaders on the farm, all answering to our harvest manager who orchestrates the movement of ripe crops from the field into the packing shed. This position on the farm is a lot more dynamic than my position as a member of the field crew. As a harvester, you have to hunker down into a task and complete it as quickly as possible. It’s monotonous at times, but satisfying to be able to move quickly and work well for whoever is leading my crew.

Now that I’ll be the person leading the harvest crew, my job will involve teaching my crew and checking in with them throughout the harvest. It’s imperative that I understand what I’m harvesting (this involves many facets of the harvest: where to pick from, what quality to look for, how to tend to the plants so that they continue to produce well), and that I communicate this information to the people on my crew. I’ll also have to communicate with my managers and fellow crew leaders about how the harvest is going.

So far this season, I’m not only learning more about the inner workings of a farm and the production of vegetables, but I’m developing a lot of personal skills. Many of the workers I’ll have to communicate with don’t speak English as their first language so I’m having a unique experience of forming bonds with a group of people whose lives are very different from mine. In doing so, I’m learning new ways to communicate and new ways to relate to people. As a crew leader, I'm reminded of the fact that farming and food are about the environment, and science and politics, and economics but at its heart I think that farming is about the people whose hands each item of food passes through before it's eaten.

The crew resting in the shade during lunch


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