As my research question has developed and become finalized into, “What do today’s American farmers and ranchers report to be the greatest challenge that they face in regard to their livelihood?” I wanted to focus my research on one of the six categories of challenges that I proposed in my concept paper. This time I looked at the social challenges that farmers and ranchers are facing today. Specifically, queer farmers and farmers who are part of the LBGTQ community. This is a challenge that I had originally though little about but Isaac Leslie’s article, “Queer Farmers: Sexuality and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture” in Rural Sociology volume 82, issue 4, from 2017 brought it to my attention. Leslie poses the question, “How do queer farmers’ lived experiences illuminate the role of sexuality in the transition to sustainable agriculture?” (Leslie, 2017).

Leslie focuses on the sustainable agriculture movement and how queer farmers are struggling to be integrated into the lifestyle’s community. Leslie describes sustainable farming as being very relationship-based which is hard when some queer farmers are not welcomed into the community. Utilizing participant observation, Leslie interviewed 30 sustainable farmers (19 queer and 11 heterosexual) from New England. The members of the sample were obtained through farming events, markets, and snowball sampling. He conducted his interviews while being given a tour of the farm, while preforming manual labor with the individual, or in a normal sit-down interview setting. This was to ensure that the interviewee felt comfortable and provided candid answers to Leslie’s open-ended questions. Leslie assigned pseudonyms to each individual and made sure he had their consent before recording their conversations. He did so in order to maintain confidentiality and remain ethical throughout his study. After obtaining his 30 interviews he utilized ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software and grounded theory to analyze the responses.

Through doing these interviews, Leslie found that many queer farmers struggle to create and maintain personal relationships with other sustainable farmers. At the same time, though, he found that many of these same farmers were surprised with how accepting heterosexual farmers were. It is a common assumption that people who live in rural areas might not be as accepting to homosexual lifestyles as those who live in urban areas. When interviewing the 19 queer farmers, Leslie found that many of them were pleasantly surprised with how accepting their neighbors and business partners were with their homosexuality. But this should not disregard the challenges that these specific farmers face. When it comes to a customer-base, many people expect their food to come from family run farms where common family values are present. Another issue arises when customers are not comfortable with the fact that their food is coming from a queer-run farm where the producer does not share the same values as they do. I find this to be ridiculous and a reason that I had not thought of as an issue to begin with, but maybe I am naive.

This article was eye-opening to me any very interesting. I had not thought of this specific issue and challenge before and it only broadened my understanding of what many farmers and ranchers are struggling with today. This specific topic would fall under the ‘social’ challenges that farmers and ranchers are facing today. This article helped me to think about how I would collect a sample group for my own study and how I might analyze my own in-depth interviews. Before, I planned to do a survey for my research study, but after reading this article I am considering doing in-depth interviews instead.

Leslie, Isaac. 2017. “Queer Farmers: Sexuality and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture.” Rural Sociology82(4): 747-771. Retrieved March 11, 2018. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.redlands.edu/doi/10.1111/ruso.12153/full