For Jane Marynik, farming was not a childhood dream.
In fact, farming wasn’t anywhere on her radar. Marynik started college in her 30s with four kids at home to get a physical therapy degree. She had always loved nature, but it wasn’t until she joined the sustainability club and cared for a rain garden that her interest in farming budded. At the same time, her youngest son developed a soy allergy, and in her words, “soy is in everything!” Finding foods in the grocery store her son could eat without fear of contamination became challenging. Combining these worries with her newfound passion for farming, Marynik shifted her major to biology with the goal of becoming a farmer.
Currently, Marynik manages a 240-acre organic farm in Minnesota, 20 miles south of Lake Superior. A couple years ago, she started her own bean operation. Marynik joined me for an interview early on a rainy day on the brink of a snow storm, already bundled in layers under her coveralls. After the interview, she’d be headed out to crawl “through a wet field harvesting beets by hand” before the freeze set in. “It’s going to be great,” she chuckled, before settling into the couch for our interview.
As an organic farmer, Marynik is passionate about environmental stewardship. Making sure her operation fits within the existing ecosystem is the first step. That starts with soil management. Whatever goes into the soil on Marynik’s farm will eventually runoff downstream into Lake Superior. This is where her biology degree comes in handy. Instead of synthetic fertilizers, Marynik uses compost on her crops to attract soil microbes, which are microscopic life forms, such as bacteria, that cycle nutrients and purify pollutants. Microbes keep the soil healthy naturally, without altering the environment and changing local ecology like pesticides.
“On a bigger farm” she asserts, “where they overtill and overspray, it’s just dirt. Soil is a living thing, dirt is just dirt.” The soil on Marynik’s farm is alive. Bugs and worms and critters are everywhere. Even the air is thick with the smell of earth.
Such soil management policies make all the difference in a warming world. Minnesota already has a water problem. As climate change makes droughts more frequent and longer lasting, soil quality can make the difference between turning a profit or taking a loss. Conventional farm soil becomes a hard crust during droughts, leaving farmers to watch as their land washes away when heavy rains come. In contrast, Marynik’s microbe-rich soil retains moisture.
Farmers are taking more and more steps to make sustainable changes, both on their farms and in legislation. Marynik has met a lot more people involved in some sort of sustainable farming, and no one sustainable farmer is the same. In the Minnesota area near Marynik’s own farm, smaller farm operations, like those of Native Americans or the Hmong, focus on food sovereignty and growing culturally important foods. “In farming”, Marynik explains, “there are a lot of opportunities to do things to take care of the environment.” Marynik believes farmers can be leaders in addressing climate change. This is why Marynik likes farming. ”It allows you to work on some of these big issues that are affecting everyone,” she says with a smile. “I’d like to think that amounts to something.”
Smaller farmers’ sustainable soil practices are not just a matter of combining organic farming methods and conventional commodity crops. For one thing, organic farms and commodity farms can’t be in the same area. Commodity farmers grow commodity crops primarily for processing, like corn and soybeans– these are sprayed aggressively with pesticides. Overspray can drift onto neighboring farms. Organic farmers, who primarily grow specialty crops for consumption and can only use pesticides from biological sources, must be separated with a buffer between farms to avoid this drift.
But that’s only the start- there’s “also a bit of a cultural issue,” according to Marynik. Farmers who grow commodity crops often look down on organic farmers, whose operations are comparatively small because of the more rigorous standards concerning pesticides and harvesting. Marynik observes that commodity farmers tend to be older and less open to doing things in a new way. While some commodity farmers get their organic seal, “they spend a lot of time trying to prove it makes financial sense to their neighbors.”
Having a smaller operation allows Marynik to be more intentional with what happens to her product and meaningfully engage with the community. In addition to local stores and restaurants, Marynik sells her product in a local REKO ring (Reko is a Finnish word for “fair consumption”). Each week, farmers post on Facebook what they have available for purchase, and then consumers can contact them directly and arrange a pick up. For many farmers, this arrangement gives them agency. Small farmers may have young kids, so sitting at a farmer’s market all weekend isn’t possible.
However, Marynik is aware of the disadvantages low-income communities in the area face when accessing fresh produce. “I’m growing these small scale beans and I’m charging $7 a pound, which is ridiculous,” she exclaims, “but it’s what it costs.” Organic farming is both labor and time intensive, but Marynik doesn’t believe that should make it inaccessible. Therefore, she participates in a farmers market that helps lower income people access fresh, organic food with SNAP benefits. Essentially, if they put $7 towards a pound of beans, they will receive $7 to put towards more groceries. Her goal, she asserts, is to ensure that “locally-grown organic produce isn’t just available to people that can afford it on their own.”
Marynik hopes to one day buy her own land. But land is expensive. Marynik credits young farmer lobbyists for any progress achieved; they advocate for land to be more affordable and for young farmers to get student loan forgiveness. “Farming is a public service,” says Marynik. Without us, “people wouldn’t be able to eat.” It’s essential to support farmers as we would any other public servant.
Proximity gives you power. Marynik was adamant that “given the choice between choosing organic far away or non-organic local, I’d still choose local.” Seeing the food you eat being grown and forming a relationship with the farmer who grows it is the best way to gain transparency. Farmers with local networks are able to make an impact in their communities.