Off Campus Activities --> Farm Produce & Interview
The off campus activities for this course are designed to get you to experience first hand the people involved in food-related practices and reflection studied in class. During the second half of the semester, you will visit a farm stand or farmer's market to purchase food for one or more meals, interview the farmer or farm staff, and observe your own communal or solitary eating. (You will sign up for both visits on the course content page in SacCT.) This experience will serve as the foundation for the Food Culture Report.
IMPORTANT:
- You must *choose a farmer's market or stand that sells food grown within 100 miles of your home.*
- I strongly recommend that you go with at least one classmate, family member or friend. Though the people in charge of these sites are always welcoming, you should take the same precautions as in any other public place.
Farm Produce Shopping & Interview
Before going to the farmer's market or farm stand, you may want to print out the appropriate worksheet
Food Culture --> PDF/MS Word
and at least consider what kinds of questions you'll need to ask to fill it out. Plan ahead if you want to do the OPTIONAL farm visit for 25 points of extra credit.
When you go to your chosen farmer's market or farm stand (see "Sites to Visit"):
- ask the market or stand organizers what is grown within 100 miles of where you live. (Some markets sell and stands sell baked items that are probably
not local, and some people may be selling things shipped from southern
California which are still technically "California grown" but not really
local.)
- purchase what you think you will
need to feed about 3-4 people (either this number in one meal, or yourself
for a day).
- aim to get at least half
of the ingredients you plan to eat from a local source, as it will probably be impractical to get every single thing you
need from the market. If you're not sure how to prepare something, ask
the person selling it how they usually prepare it.
NOTE: You may want to plan some meals before you go, but you could also just go and see what's available, what looks good, and then start from there. There's no requirement to use fancy recipes; many fresh vegetables can just be steamed or sauteed with butter, oil &/or salt. If you are looking for locavore recipes, start with Camille Kingsolver's at the end of most chapters in AVM.
Based on conversations with growers from whom you buy your food, **identify at least two people who live or work on the farm** where the food is grown. (If you visit the Sunday V Street market under highway 50, you'll find a contact list to help you under "Sites to Visit.") If there's no one at the farmer's market or farm stand who fits this requirement, ask them to give the contact information for someone who can--ideally the person who owns the farm. If that person has time to talk to you at the market or stand, great! But chances are you will have to arrange an interview at a different time, or with someone else from the farm who is not at the market.
**IMPORTANT: whoever you choose to interview, make sure you have some reliable way to contact them, and that you'll be able to complete the interview at least a few days before the report deadline (see "Timeline").**
In preparing for & conducting the interview, keep in mind the following parameters:
- Your interview should ideally be done in person, and last about 45 minutes to a full hour. If you find it difficult to schedule this much time, try to hold two shorter sessions. If there are serious constraints on you and/or your interviewee's schedules and transportation, you may have to conduct the interview by phone. As with the site visit, remember that you are a representative of the Sac State community. Make sure to introduce yourself and tell your interviewee a little bit about the class. Be courteous in speaking with them; be respectful of the person’s time in the way you set up and especially keeping your appointment.
Your first job in the interview is to generate questions, supported by the prompts and examples on the ORW. But just as the questions you come up with before your visit will likely change while you are there, so too the your interview questions will probably expand and/or change as you proceed. Ideally, your interview will be a two-way conversation (admittedly guided by you) between two willing partners rather than the interrogation of subject by a researcher. Although you should have a clear sense of what you want to know, you should also let the person tell their own story in the way they want to tell it. The following suggestions may help you to pose your questions in a flexible and sensitive way:
* start with personal history: did they grow up farming or get drawn to it at some point, and what have been the highlights of their farming experience?
* in your questions make sure to ask the person about thoughts and feelings they have as they go through their day, and especially any notions of the sacred--whether they call it "God," "some higher power," "nature" or something else-- that keeps them going when things are challenging.
* bring up details about some related details that you've encountered in the class readings and videos, and ask whether they think such accounts either differ from or resemble what they have experienced or heard about.
* work to pick up on and ask about connections between all the details you hear; for example, if a person describes an experience that lead them to farming you might ask about the extent to which that experience continues to influence them, even if they don't consciously think about it.
- As with the worship interview, your other important task will be to record accurately what the person tells you in order to describe the conversation in your write up. If you are able to, you can tape the conversation so you can review the details afterwards. If you can’t get a tape recorder, however--or if you're doing a phone interview and don't have the right set-up to record it--plan to take sketchy notes during the interview and then fill in as many details as you can when it's over. Avoid taking extensive notes during the interview as this will distract from your conversation.
REPEATED CAUTION: Just as in describing your worship interview, record your general moods or judgements (e.g., “Mr. Kumar seemed really bored," "I was turned off by his tone of voice,” etc.) later, in a separate place (e.g., section C of the ORW). In recording interview responses, dwell instead on what you actually saw and heard (e.g., “Mr Kumar’s shoulders were slumped forward and his facial expression quite flat," “I was struck by how emphatically he made his statements, as if he were the final authority”).
OPTIONAL Farm Visit
If you visit a farm stand or are willing to make a trip to visit a grower whom you meet at a farmer's market, you can get an extra 25 points for providing a report of the visit along with your Food Culture Report.
Do this by generating questions and answer using the Worship Visit Worksheet; but instead of reporting about a religious practice, formulate & answer questions about the practice of farming that you observe and hear about.
Then, remember or tell some of the stories from your farm visit as part of your local meal(s); and then attach the worksheet to the Food Culture Worksheet & your final Food Culture Report when you turn it in.