The Good Earth
A "meaning of life crisis" led Jennie Giammasi away from graduate school
-- and into what's now one of the nation's top organic produce companies
Six years ago, just days away from starting graduate work in performance arts at New York University, Jennie Giammasi had what she deems a "meaning of life crisis."
"I had just seen the movie Forest Gump," says Giammasi, "and I had a revelation. I could become an actress and go for roles where I could pretend to be a person who loved her life -- or I could actually be the person experiencing and loving for myself."
With only a vague idea about wanting to grow food, Giammasi set off for California. Today, at 28, she's sales manager of Jacobs Farm/Del Cabo Organic Farms, one of the country's largest producers of organic herbs, vegetables and edible flowers.
When she first landed in the farm-rich Northern California coast, Giammasi admits she had a somewhat romantic idea about farm labor. "Plus I had two strikes against me," she says, "being a woman and being white." Most farmwork in California, she says, is done by migrant workers; and farm owners are loath to take on people they perceive as dilettantes who don't really grasp the difficulty of the job. The first employer willing to take a chance on Giammasi warned her up front that she was walking into a tough situation; if she had problems with sexual harassment, he warned, she'd never survive.
"I walked into the field," says Giammasi, "and the crew of 50 men turned to stare at me." She was taken aback, but also felt energized: "I was inspired to do what was seen as a man's work, and I knew that I could." The relationships she developed with those early co-workers, she says, turned out to be 99 percent respectful, and mutually admiring.
The first day of work, Giammasi was shoulder-deep in dirt and manure, mixing soil with her hands. "I was filthy and tired and drenched with sweat," she recalls, "and I loved it." With the ocean breeze wafting up the hills and the hot blue sky overhead, Giammasi was hit with the rightness of her decision to go west. "I knew this was a wonderful way to spend time: growing good food." For months, Giammasi worked across the row from a non-English-speaking co-worker. They exchanged language lessons during the 10-hour, six-day work weeks (typical for farming, she says); and today, Giammasi is nearly fluent in Spanish.
After several years, Giammasi knew how to mix soil, pick and plant all kinds of vegetables, and even run a tractor. But the work was back-breaking, literally. Put in charge of a tomato project, she says she spent many days sick to her stomach due to the fumes emanating from the plants: "I'd tie up a plant," she says, "turn around, throw up, and then tie up another." Other days she didn't think her dance-trained body could lift, carry, bend or even straighten up without collapsing. "It was easy to stay fit," she says, "but it gave me a true sense about what physical labor is actually like. Being tired from stress is really different from not knowing if you can literally work another hour."
After taking one winter month off to rest up, Giammasi approached Jacobs Farm about sales work. Here she faced a new set of obstacles: she now knew how to farm, but she didn't have a clue about computers and other office apparatus. (On her first day at her new job, she had to ask how to operate the hole punch.) "Still," she says now, "that was nothing compared to walking into the field for the first time."
More than a year later, Giammasi works at a computer all day (and gets exercise by kickboxing at night). As sales manager for the multi-million-dollar company, she spends hours on the phone orchestrating the delivery of produce to restaurants, groceries and distributors. Her list of wares changes daily: nasturtiums, bachelor's buttons and chive blossoms; chervil, thyme and basil of many varieties; goods sent up from Baja, Mexico,such as tomatoes, artichokes and beets.
The Baja branch of the company, a farming cooperative, has brought autonomy and sustainable income to small, unorganized farmers who previously barely scratched out a living. "In Mexico, we're really changing the economy for small farming families," Giammasi says, "and that's political work I can support. When you know how -- and believe in -- the way products are produced, it's of great help in sales."
Giammasi lives a half hour from the California farm, in a tiny town featuring only a post office, one small store and one bar (though San Francisco is only an hour's drive north). She leaves work late in the afternoon, carrying the fruits -- literally -- of the labors of those around her. "It's easy to be inspired to cook when you're looking at pounds of fresh thyme," she says, "and the smell of oregano is literally wafting over your desk."
"This is a great career," she says. "I leave work reluctantly, tired but happy." Giammasi dreams of having her own small farm: "I don't think about the long hours, and the fact that I wouldn't make a whole lot of money. I consider the quality of life and the chance to be happy -- and dirty! Life is too short to do things you don't love."
"Besides," she says, "Would I rather be getting my teeth polished for a commercial audition, or admiring a perfectly delicious tomato grown with my own hands?"
|
