Cultivating diversity – Wicked Leeks
“We do pronoun checks with anyone that comes onto the farm – it’s important for our trans and non-binary community and just one of the many things that creates a safe space for everyone”
Maggie Cheney, founder and co-owner of Rock Steady Farm and Flowers in upstate New York, the only farm of its kind in the US, says “we’re a mission-based commercial farm, a women- and queer-owned co-op, rooted in social justice, growing specialty cut flowers and sustainable vegetables,” she explains.
But what has sexuality got to do with food? Cheney explains that in the States, 98 per cent of farms are considered family-run businesses: “That’s essentially a white man in power running the farm and a woman inside doing the books – there’s nothing wrong with that but we’re trying to push that assumption.” Growing up as a farmer’s daughter, this stereotype troubled her for 35 years. “I bounced back and forth between urban and rural – sometimes if I tried to be out I felt unsafe in rural spaces but in cities I missed nature.”
