When he was young, Jack Lieberman ’26 used to visit a farm across the street from his house to buy fruits and vegetables with his family. He appreciated knowing where his food came from and building a connection with the produce he ate. 

This summer, he got a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side of that exchange during an internship at FarmerJawn, an urban farming operation that practices regenerative agriculture and works to fight food waste and food insecurity. At a farm in Elkins Park, outside Philadelphia, he harvested crops that are sent to locations across the city for pick up by subscribers to FarmerJawn’s CSA (community supported agriculture). His internship was supported by the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship.

As a likely math major and potential future teacher without a background in agriculture, Lieberman was drawn to FarmerJawn because the internship offered him a chance to try something new. “Before I came, I envisioned farming as an extremely laborious and physically demanding job,” Lieberman said. “While parts of it are definitely physically demanding, it’s much more versatile and peaceful. There is an art to producing quality crops that I hadn’t appreciated before.”

Lieberman’s work with Farmer Jawn, where he spent eight weeks, was all done in the field, harvesting crops such as kale, broccolini, lettuce, and turnips, as well as mowing, weeding, and planting seeds. He also directed the farm’s volunteers and gave farm tours to visiting elementary school groups.To finish out his summer internship, Lieberman spent two weeks helping out at the Ardmore Victory Gardens near campus. 

His experiences with Farmer Jawn and the Ardmore Victory Gardens, said Lieberman, showed him that he had plenty to learn about vegetables—and himself.

“I had no idea that turnips were red and white, that mustard leaves exist, that plants need so much water, that harvesting is exhaustive yet rewarding, and that I am capable of efficiently directing volunteers,” he said.

What Lieberman was looking for from the summer experience is that it would help him develop some of the skills he would need to run his own farm, including a better understanding of the science behind vegetable growing, such as the difference between bolting and flowering and how that impacts a farm’s harvest season. But there have been other, unexpected, benefits, he said, including learning how to communicate with more authority and shake loose from his introverted nature to build connections with his fellow workers as they all build connections with the land.

— Ben Seal