“A Record of My Labor” Series: 18 years as an ecological farmer
By Yiwan
Published July 29, 2025
Translated by Marilyn Hook
I was born and raised in Seoul. As a child, my
favorite spots were the sandbox and the mineral water fountain on the hill
behind my house. Even in the heart of the city, I would wander in search of
little pieces of nature. Yet, in a city where fluorescent lights are more
common than sunlight, and concrete is more common than soil, I found it
difficult to put down roots. Enjoying a leisurely, drifting life, I developed a
sense of connection with diverse people, but I also became accustomed to the
anxiety of a life that could collapse at any moment. In the city, a time and
place would be created in an instant and then vanish without a trace, like a
movie set.
Although I had no ties to the countryside, the
mere thought of leaving the city, where it was so easy to become alienated and
impoverished, thrilled me. A life of work that translated directly to food
instead of passing through money first. I longed for farming, a life that would
feed me and feed others, too. It was a survival instinct, perhaps one coming
from a very old bodily memory.
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| In midsummer, harvesting jack beans that I planted next to my soybean field. (Photo credit: Yiwan) |
I had to work hard, but luck was on my side. Eventually, I was able to rent a house and a field. When the sun rose, I planted crops and pulled weeds, and when it rained, I rested. Sometimes, I even carried my child on my back while I worked the fields. Some have called this life "unstable," but within it, I’ve learned about the growth patterns of plants according to the seasons, the angle of sunlight, and the texture of the soil, and have gradually rebuilt myself. And so, 18 years have passed since I became a small-scale farmer, a female farmer, and an organic farmer.
Why field owners won't provide a written lease
agreement
My hands are unusually small, and my bones are
thin. I worried, "Will this body be able to handle field work?" But
hoeing and tilling was strangely exhilarating. It was tiring, but during the
moments spent working in the fields I felt undeniably alive. The labor was
deeply etched into my fingertips, shoulders, and joints, and my body felt like
a diary recording the seasons that had passed.
Time was honest. One year, my right hand
occasionally refused to obey me. There were more and more days when I couldn't grip
the hoe or open my palm all the way. My knees and shoulders also sent distress
signals. The doctor advised me to rest for a while, but for a farmer during the
busy farming season, resting means your crops won't survive. The fields didn't
wait for me, and I had to endure the pain and hurry to plant before the
seedlings grew too much. For a farmer, a breakdown in your body doesn’t just
mean a sick day or leave of absence; it means getting the ecological timing
wrong and so putting your very livelihood at risk.
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| In the cycle of harvesting seeds and sprouting them again. (Photo credit: Yiwan) |
At first, working the fields felt like something outside of capitalism. For years, I barely earned or spent any money, and I had complete freedom in managing my time. I covered my living expenses by working as a "hand" in a friend’s field, and I also learned about the farming practices of my neighbors. I liked how, in the fields, it felt like my time and body existed in themselves, not as something to be converted into money.
I was grateful to the people who had lent me
their land at my friend’s reference, without ever meeting me. But I later
realized why we had an unofficial agreement instead of a lease contract: I
couldn't prove I was eligible for the subsidies that farmers could receive [and
instead, the land’s owners were likely receiving these and other benefits]. Because
I couldn't prove that I owned or rented farmland, I faced the reality of being
excluded from the system. In addition, I spent years plowing and clearing old
fields for planting, only to suddenly be told, "You have to vacate
now." The ecological foundations and traces of my labor were easily
erased. The structure is one that recognizes as farmers only people who own farmland
according to paperwork and registrations, and excludes the people who are
actually engaging in farming.
Moreover, the system has long ignored female
farmers, labeling them "family workers." A female farmer in her 60s
told me, "I've farmed my entire life, but I don't have any land or a pension
in my name. These days, I find myself wondering: What’s left for me?"
Rural communities also didn't share these
women’s stories. Perhaps that's why I found it difficult to find women farmers
I wanted to emulate. While there certainly were admirable figures, most worked
"behind the scenes," "unofficially," and "at a step
back." There was no language to honor their labor or to imagine my future
as a woman farmer.
Taking care of crops in a ‘habitat’ rather than
a ‘farm’, and taking care of myself
Farming hasn’t been simply a means of earning a
living; it’s been a process of learning how to live together with nonhuman
beings. I’ve often chosen not to "clean up" the tracks of roe deer,
the wild grass, and the cluster of mushrooms, leaving them as they were. I’ve wondered
if my actions—plowing the fields, repelling insects, and putting up netting to
keep wild animals out—are yet another form of arrogance.
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| A “bug hotel" that I made with local students during a class in their school garden, using a discarded chest of drawers. (Photo credit: Yiwan) |
From around that time, I began to think of the word "habitat" rather than "farmland." This land isn't mine, but a temporary space where I reside with various species. In the soil I walk on every day, creatures who have lived here longer than I are breathing. The fields became a doorway to my body, mind, and ultimately, the wild.
Farming has also been an act of self-care. While
I’ve been hoeing and tending the crops, my body has also had time to grow and
recover alongside them. My body can produce life, and more than anything, it is
a part of life. We have caressed and remembered care that isn’t concerned with
efficiency, relationships that aren’t concerned with utility, and nameless
traces that have remained. They’ve been the roots that sustained me, the
invisible link that connected me to the fields.
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| The ggotmari [Common Asian trigonotis], which I consider the cutest of all flowers, is smaller than a fingernail! (Photo credit: Yiwan) |
“How long are you going to keep farming?”
Farming follows the seasons—sowing seeds,
bearing fruit, and then returning to the soil. The seasons of life haven't just
unfolded in the fields. Within my body, too, new beginnings and endings
repeated themselves each year. And I’m finding myself faced with a question I
have wanted to avoid: "How long can I keep doing this? If I stop, who will
carry on this work[1]?"
For farmers, there's no closing time, no
retirement, no weekends—because farming is life itself. But the fact that
there’s no guaranteed retirement waiting at the end of all those years is a
grim one.
A female farmer in her seventies I met said,
"Now that I'm this old, I want to rest and be cared for. But no one tells
me to retire or that I’ve done enough." A female farmer in her eighties
said, "I've been farming for 60 years. Even with my bent back and bad
eyes, I still live as a nameless laborer. The right to retire? I’ve never had
that."
If farmers were institutionally guaranteed the
right to retire and were respected for their lifetime of work, young people
wouldn't turn away from farming as they do now. If caring for life is to be
respected, shouldn't the lives of those who cared for that life also be
respected?
People often ask me, "How long will you
keep farming?" But no one actually asks, "What will you do after you
quit?" The retirement of female farmers is absent from statistics or
institutions. Even after working their entire lives, many are still registered
as "so-and-so’s wife," or don't even have a pension in their name. In
a system where a lifetime of labor leads not to retirement but to extinction,
who could possibly say they want to live like that? We female farmers certainly
exist, but our future does not. At the end of a labor that has no retirement
age, all that awaits us is an old age that no one takes responsibility for
supporting.
We’re not just declining bodies
This is what I’ve learned through farming: that
life takes time to grow, that all beginnings are small, and that all
relationships ripen in time. In an era of climate disaster, the lives of women
farmers are volatile, arduous, and unpredictable, yet because of this our sense
of being alive becomes more vivid. The bodies that vividly remembers the land
where seeds are nurtured, the labor built with care, the seasons of life—these
are not beings in decline but rather bridges connecting the earth and humanity.
Female farmers’ lives are precarious, but we are acting, in our small way, to
plant the ‘next world.’
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| Rapeseed flowers that turn the front garden yellow and the bees that hover around them. (Photo provided by Lee Wan) |
“To be ecologically present in the world is to live in a magical universe, where even stones tell stories.”[2]
This is a quote from Freya Mathews, who
criticized capitalism for stripping the world of its magic and making
everything into resources. Yes, the lives of women farmers still remember that
magical order. Stones, blades of grass, sunlight, and my body pass through but
remain as stories. This world is a web of living stories, and I am merely a
rhythm and a sensation walking through it. Our work is not limited to the labor
of tilling the land and harvesting. We are not autonomous individuals, but beings
who constitute one another, and the Earth is not ‘my place to live,’ but ‘a web
we weave together.’
Original Article: https://ildaro.com/10238
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