connecting to the land: shanelle donaldson
An excerpt with unpublished images from a feature about The Female Farmer Project, originally published in Seattle Magazine by Cynthia Nims
Meet the New Wave of Female Farmers
Women have been hidden players on the nation’s farms,
but local storyteller Audra Mulkern is out to change that
By Cynthia Nims, Photos by Audra Mulkern
Shanelle Donaldson
The farm: Percussion Farms, with locations in Seattle’s Central District and in Auburn, totaling about .25 acre
The products: This is Donaldson’s first growing season. She anticipates lettuces, leafy greens, herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, root vegetables, beans and peas, split between the two locations, available this year via a CSA.
Years farming: Donaldson, who is 38, has been gardening for about 10 years, including as a volunteer for Seattle’s P-Patch program. “I really got into gardening through that, and got into farming as a means for service and food justice.”
The mission: “To reconnect people of color to the land and to the right to healthy lives.… Knowing that people of color have particularly high rates of heart disease and diabetes, I truly believe that access to fresh food could change that.”
Why farming? In the black community, “There’s a stigma around growing food; they ask me ‘Why do that kind of thing?’ or they’re really nostalgic about it, ‘Oh, my parents were farmers, my grandma had a great garden,’ but otherwise are disconnected from it. I find that having my hands in the dirt, having to be patient, the satisfaction of growing and serving food, it’s so healing in so many ways, I want to share that however I can.”
Biggest challenge: “Being taken seriously, in all aspects, people not sure if we can do the business part of farming, or even the physical part of it. Assumptions that it’s really more of a hobby.”
Greatest satisfaction: “Seeing people have a connection with food being grown, even if just fleeting, even if it doesn’t make them want to grow their own food…seeing them realize you don’t have to get this produce at the grocery store, hearing ‘Oh, so that’s what that looks like when it’s growing!’”
