Minnesota’s first ‘Ag for All’ conference provides resources for LGBTQ+ farmers

NINA MOINI: We've talked a lot on this show about the ups and downs of farm life here in Minnesota. Farmers know that the pressures of making it through unpredictable weather, crop or livestock disease, and rural life make the job tough. LGBTQ farmers say they face additional struggles, like isolation from fellow agricultural workers.

Some LGBTQ farmers are coming together to talk about it and connect with each other. This Saturday, the State Agriculture Department and the University of Minnesota are hosting a conference called Ag for All in Saint Cloud. It's the first conference of its kind in Minnesota. Emily Krekelberg is an organizer with the U. Emily, thanks for being with us this afternoon.

EMILY KREKELBERG: Thanks so much for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: And we're also very happy to have Michael Romanski, who will be in Saint Cloud this weekend too. He's the owner of a chicken and sheep farm in Monticello. Michael, thanks for being on the show.

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Yes, thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: Well, Emily, I'll start with you. We mentioned at the top there just some of the challenges that people face in the agricultural industry overall. This is the first time you all are having this Ag for All conference. Why did it feel like now was a good time to start having this conference?

EMILY KREKELBERG: Well, Nina, this has been a conference that has been well over a year in the making. So it's something we've talked about for quite some time. And we started to really in earnest pick this day and start to plan the conference about a year ago.

And certainly a lot of things have changed in Minnesota across the agricultural landscape since last year at this time. But a lot of things are also the same. These farmers still want to learn. They still have needs. They still want and desire community. And so we just really wanted to create a conference that can join the other suite of extension conferences that help serve various audiences across Minnesota's agricultural landscape.

NINA MOINI: OK, and so, Michael, you run Heart and Sole farm with your partner in Monticello. Tell me a little bit about your farm and how you got into agriculture.

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Yeah, so we have a small farm. We have sheep and chickens, and then we have a few cows too. We mostly produce food for ourselves, and then we sell a couple animals privately.

We also sell breeding stock. We got involved with it just by trying to produce food for ourselves because of all the changing rules and regulations and everything like that. Just knowing where your food is coming from really got us involved with wanting to produce our own food.

NINA MOINI: Cool. So, Michael, your experience as a farmer in the LGBTQ community in Monticello, how is your support system? And how have you been feeling throughout the time that you've been doing all this in terms of just having other people to talk to?

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Yeah, so I continue trying to build the support system. I've been pretty fortunate that we've been able to build a good support system through showing our sheep. We have been able to show our sheep and build a really good support system through that.

But otherwise, not having other LGBTQIA+ individuals can be challenging or different or unique. We all have different experiences, and I think that's where I'm really excited about this conference, is that we'll be able to connect with different folks that we normally don't always interact with to be able to have common experiences of life as a farmer.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and something we have covered a lot on this show is just farmer mental health, the challenges of all of the uncertainty, like we were talking about earlier, and the different financial struggles and the unpredictability of the weather. How does your identity fit into that? When you say you have a built community with some people, but has it been difficult to navigate it? Have you ever felt like you couldn't share all of who you are with people?

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Yeah, I would say that. I think with farming, I think a lot of people are more conservative, and so some of that lends to just trying to be more hidden in your full identity because you don't want to offend someone. Or you don't want to create a barrier or a riff or something like that. So you don't always share some of that personal information.

Or when you do actually find someone, I feel like the people I connect most to are people that don't necessarily have the heteronormative norms that people traditionally have. So when I'm talking to people, the people I connect to most are probably people with like fertility issues, surprisingly, because, with LGBTQIA+, you can have children, but it's definitely not the easiest. And there's lots of different struggles.

So I think just looking at farming in general in Minnesota, farming is very family oriented. A lot of the farmers that you do talk to, they come from big families. And it's cool when you go to the fair that you see all these people and their families, that it's not really the fair for them. It's more of a family reunion.

But when you're LGBTQIA+ and you go to the fair, usually it's just yourself because, with my partner and I, we don't have family in the area. We're both moved here from out of state. So that, I think, makes it a little bit more unique on building those different relationships and how does your identity play with that and building and relating to common bonds and common experiences on creating more of those relationships.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Emily, can you tell me a little bit more about some of the specific challenges farmers in the LGBTQ community face? So we just talked about sizes of families and interacting with others. But what are some of the challenges that you've identified that you might be tackling in this conference?

EMILY KREKELBERG: Yeah, Nina, I've worked in the farmer mental health space for five or six years now. And so that was how this conference came together is my interest and work in farmer mental health, the fact that I myself belong to the LGBTQIA community.

And so I know a lot about the stresses farmers face. And like you've mentioned, the show has done a great job of really diving into what a lot of those are. So now imagine that you have all those normal farming stressors, but then you're adding in all these LGBTQ stressors, right? And you have them all compounding on one another.

And that is really what we see with stress in general. A little bit of stress is OK, but when it's all these compounding factors is when it can be really overwhelming and when it can feel really isolating. So specifically with a conference, a main idea behind a conference is to create community, to create space for people.

And we have found and research shows that specifically LGBTQ+ plus farmers are more likely to experience stress related to isolation and discrimination. And so by creating these spaces, we can help address that problem. We can build some of that community. And of course, we are Extension, and our number one priority is education. And that is what this conference is all about, is providing education for this audience.

NINA MOINI: And, Emily, I'm curious how you are finding people to participate. I'm assuming there isn't a database. And I'm just wondering if you know the numbers, if you have an estimate or how you are getting people involved and making sure they know about it.

EMILY KREKELBERG: Yeah. That has been a unique challenge of doing this conference for the first time. I've been involved in many conferences in my career. But yeah, how do you find the audience?

And so we've really tried to just focus on grassroots, organic advertising, talking about it on social media, coming on the radio. And I will say my co-chair, Joe Rand, who's also with Extension, him and his partner are a part of the farming community as well in Minnesota. And so they've helped connect us to people, folks like Michael, the other members of our advisory committee.

It's just really been about using our networks. And let's all try to email five people about this. And so we are planning to have about 90 people there on Saturday. So we're really exciting, and if people listening are wondering, you can still register if you'd like to join us.

NINA MOINI: Oh, I'm glad you said. Good. And so, Michael, hearing about that, what are you looking forward to at the conference this weekend?

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Yeah, I'm very excited to build community with different farmers and learn more about their experiences and what's worked for them and their different challenges and how they've overcome that. I think that will be really helpful for us to be able to go into the next steps of our farming career and how do we get better. And I think by building community that this conference will create I think will really help us go into the next steps on, how do we get better as being a farmers?

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and, Emily, I'll throw the last question to you here. What do you hope or what do you think the future of farming for LGBTQ farmers looks like in Minnesota?

EMILY KREKELBERG: Well, I'm hopeful that it's bright. I feel like this conference we're doing is going to just be the beginning. We're already talking about more programs we can do. We're already talking about next year's conference.

And that's what this is all about. So as farmers in Minnesota and across the country age, as we need a new generation of farmers to come in, this is a group that is poised to help do that and to help support our food system in Minnesota and beyond. And so we're really excited about this and really are happy that we can provide a space for people who want to learn about agriculture and learn about queer identity in agriculture as well.

NINA MOINI: Emily and Michael, I hope you have a great time. Congratulations on the conference, and thanks for stopping by to tell us about it.

EMILY KREKELBERG: Thanks for having us, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Thank you.

MICHAEL ROMANSKI: Thank you for having us.

NINA MOINI: Sure thing. That was Emily Krekelberg with the University of Minnesota Extension, and Michael Romanski, the owner of Heart and Sole Farm in Monticello.