The movie is complete! See the world premiere at the Frameline San Francisco International Film Festival in June!

We are happy to announce that after 4 years of visioning, traveling, and editing, the queer farmer film project movie is complete. Proudly, the film will be making it's world debut this year in the Frameline San Francisco International Film Festival, which is the longest-running and largest queer film festival in the world. The screening is on June 29th, please see the Frameline website for ticketing information. 

We are still planning our film distribution. This project has always been in the homespun spirit and we'd like to keep it that way for our tours. More information about tours is forthcoming- but if you'd like to host a screening in your area, please get in touch! 

We'd like to extend many, many thanks to everyone who has supported and cared about this project. It truly was only possible because of the strong community support we received during our fundraising efforts years back. Thank you. 

Also, please check out the trailer for the film here!

Article on Grist.org

Hi Dear Followers,

Check out this article on queer farmers and the queer farmer film project on Grist.org! Queer as Farm Folk, by Vanessa Barrington.

Also, we are still editing! It is a time taking process- expect something from us in 2012! Stay tuned!

Updates and Finding the Eco-Queer Movement

We haven't forgotten you dear followers, we are just busy editing editing editing away!

In the meantime, some recent mention of the QFFP:

-an article called "Finding the Eco-Queer Movement," by Joshua Sbicca on Oakland's own Planting Justice website.

-oh, and did we say that we were mentioned in Curve Magazine ("the nation's leading lesbian magazine") back in July/August? you can read the article "Lesbian Localvores" here.

Stay tuned, we love you.

Fruit Loop Acres

Meet Kay Grimm and Sue Spicer of Fruit Loop Acres in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Fruit Loop Acres is a 3/4 acre permaculture fruit farm in the heart of the city. Like many post-industrial midwestern cities, much of this urban center is fledgling, depressed, boarded up and faced with significant challenges to accessing good fresh food.

Amidst blocks of abandoned lots and boarded up homes, we were so lucky to visit with this truly queer farm which was a shining green beacon of hope and good food and an example of something really different and beautiful in an unlikely location.

The amazing fruits and nuts (which include many Indiana natives) grown at Fruit Loop Acres is available to people in several ways- they have a u-pick by appointment service, they sell produce to local restaurants, and they also have a delivery service called Basic Roots Community Foods which has been around for 5 years and in collaboration with other sustainable farms delivers fresh produce to customers in Indianapolis.

Kay and Sue told us that the name for Fruit Loop Acres comes from several double entendres- fruit because they are a fruit farm growing many delicious heirloom varieties of cane fruit and stone fruit, the word fruit as synonym for queer, loop because the farm is located near the loop of interstate highways running through the city and because in line with permaculture principles and practice the farm is a closed loop system always recycling and reusing what they have on hand rather than brining in outside inputs.

compost

The gayest looking bee hive I've ever seen!

In addition to tending a permaculture food forest in her backyard, Kay (also proudly known as Krazy Kay, which she told us is a name people have given her and she is OK with being called as long as the "krazy" is with a K...) is an installation artist of sorts. Using recycled and scavenged materials Kay uses her farm as a space for her installations, here are some photos from around the farm:

Fruit Loop Acres' beautiful back fence made from recycled doors. Check out the babe in the window...

look closely...

When we asked Kay and Sue what their definition of a farmer was, they gave one of the best answers we have heard so far, "Someone who grows something bigger than themself." What a perfect way to sum it up.

Our southern and midwest trip has come to a close. Thanks for following our tour. We are almost done with production and have just a few California interviews to do this Fall. We are going to start editing soon and are applying for Frameline's completion fund. Stay tuned...

Homestead Ranch

Meet the Skeebas- Marek, Courtney, and Denise- the farmers of Homestead Ranch in Lecompton, Kansas.

Homestead Ranch is a small 3 acre family farm that raises La Mancha and Boer goats. Since Kansas' raw milk laws are strict and allow the sale of unpasturized dairy products only from the site where they are produced and the farm is in a rural area making travel to the farm by customers an unreliable business model- the Skeebas transform their goat milk into soaps and lotions which they sell online and at the Lawrence farmers market.

We met up with Courtney, Denise and Marek for their morning milking. After visiting Alabama and Arkansas, we were of course interested in their experience as queer people living rurally. When we asked them do describe how they identified, the most important way they said was, "...as a family..." This just about melted our hearts. Courtney and Denise said they have felt extremely supported and respected by their neighbors both for being farmers and for being a queer family.

Check out that soap, so beautiful. Courtney and Denise are both self taught caretakers of goats and soap makers. We talked in depth about the long and hard trial period it took for them to get their soap recipes perfected.

Here are some of the kids born this year.

Arkansas: A Safe Space for Unicorns

As we pulled into Arkansas we were excited to continue our journey in the rural south. We were headed for the Natural State's town of Proctor to meet with Brandon Pugh of Delta Sol Farm.

After exiting the interstate the winding country road we followed to Proctor was completely surrounded on all sides by 1,000s of acres as far as the eye could see of fields of rice, cotton, and soybeans. We saw cropdusters flying low and dropping dust clouds onto seemingly endless fields of moncultured food.

Meet Brandon Pugh and his dog goose. Brandon is a gay farmer growing organic flowers and veggies for market and CSA on 3 acres of his family's land. He grew up in Proctor and comes from a family of conventional farmers. His brother and father farm in the area conventionally, and despite the prevalence of mainstream agriculture there Brandon has resisted using chemicals in his fields, even though he has wanted to- as he told us the Arkansas heat makes the weeds grow incredibly fast.

Delta Sol Farm lies amongst fields of soybeans which you can see beginning in the distance. Brandon told us a story about hand weeding carrots in end of his field which borders with a neighboring soybean farmer and having the cropduster drop fungicide on him.

Much of Proctor looks like this.

Brandon's fridge looks like this. Note the amazing tribute to Cher and Madonna. Brandon was our gracious host for our evening in Proctor and we got to chat about his deep love for Madonna and dancing to her songs in the field. While Brandon did grow up in Proctor, he found his organic farming roots in California- he is a graduate of the well respected Farm and Garden program at the University of Santa Cruz and ran Sol Food farm in Sonoma County before deciding to move back to Arkansas to start Delta Sol. Brandon said that he is out to his family and greater community and has experienced very little discrimination based on being gay. A greater struggle for him seemed to be meeting other like minded gay men in his area.

Brandon sells veggies and flowers at 2 markets in nearby Memphis, Tennessee. Brandon told us about his idea for making t-shirts for Delta Sol farm that instead of the John Deer deer, have a unicorn instead and said that his farm is for sure a "safe space for unicorns..."

His beautiful stand full of produce that is...

c e r t i f i e d f a b u l o u s ! ! !

The Saturday market where Brandon sells is in the parking lot of the First Congregational Church. Check out their flag- bike repair!

Thank you Brandon for giving us a great reason to visit Arkansas.

Sweet Homo Alabama

Our tour unexpectedly took us to visit with 3 queer farmers managing a certified organic CSA and market farm in Northern Alabama. As we drove into the tiny town of Falkville we were bombarded by religious evangelical messaging signs with firey flamey backgrounds reading, “You think its hot here?” Though it has been over 100 degrees and miserably humid everyday, we wondered if Alabama was a safe space for queers. Spending less than 24 hours listening to the stories of the 3 queer farmers we met with we discovered just how welcoming and safe this part of the rural South can be.

Welcome to Falkville, Alabama. Population: 1, 219.

Meet Oliver Flowers- farm manager. A queer and trans tomatopicker extraordinare with amazing farm fashion! Can you say boots and short shorts?

This is Suze Bono, also farm manager. A Pennsylvania native- traveller, farmer, and food processing genius. She's harvesting herbs and beautiful Zinnias. And she can bake delicious bread.

This is Elijah Mountain, chosen brother of Oliver and queer farm volunteer. Raised in Baltimore and once a student of computer science, Eli is getting his hands dirty on a farm for his first time this year. He is a practicing Christian and attends a local church and he thinks garlic is really gay. I bet you will see him talking in the movie about all of that.

The Northern Alabama farm we visited (which will remain nameless for now) spans over 200 acres and farmers Suze, Oliver and Eli with a rotating crew of WWOOF volunteers grow flowers, herbs, veggies and fruit on 3 acres. Suze and Oliver are partners and found the farm by chance while looking for winter farm work last year. They love it so much they plan to stay on for at least another season.

We joined them for their early morning CSA harvest and had the chance to talk with them about their experiences living and farming as queer people in the buckle of the bible belt. We wanted to know if they were out- they said they weren’t necessarily hiding it but weren’t broadcasting their queerness either. Suze talked to us about how people show they are heterosexual through their behavior, the same way some people show queerness through behavior. All 3 farmers we talked to said that they have been welcomed into Falkville with open arms(they are all not from Alabama), despite being viewed as a little wierd. People tend to see their farm as different than others in the area mainly because of their small scale, because they are farming organically and will spend hours going row by row to look for pests and kill them by hand instead of simply spraying chemicals, and because none of them are from the area.

Queerness seemed to be largely irrelevant to the farms relationship to the larger community- as Suze told us it would be inappropriate to talk about it with a farmer friend who comes over to help about sexual preference and identity. Its just not something that comes up in conversation, rather, they connect deeply with farmers and neighbors over farming techniques and advice. Though their farm is viewed as different, and they are certainly viewed as different both because they are outsiders and due to how they present (Suze mentioned she is often read as male and Oliver talked with us about being an effeminate transgender man- AND they are partners often read as a straight couple or as a gay man and dyke in a relationship...) the bottom line seemed to be that people in the community who have gotten to know them respect them because they are hard workers and good farmers and haven't seemed to care about them being queer or not.

The crew checks in...

Peacock!

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

figs from...

this huge 17 year old fig tree!

there were also pecans!

We loved visiting this farm. If you are ever in Alabama, there are a few sweet homos waiting for you there...