Being half Korean significantly impacted Julia’s decision to farm and her motivations. Growing up in Atlanta, she experienced her mom’s strong Korean immigrant community as a support system and cultural conduit. The family would go to church on Sunday, and afterward, the community would come together for fellowship around food. Julia and her brother were immersed in this experience as children, families coming together around a transplanted culture and its cuisine. She describes it as feeling like a pocket of Korea in a large city like Atlanta.
In college, Julia studied environmental science and public health, where she delved into sustainability endeavors on her campus. Her passion grew for earth systems and how the environment significantly impacts human health. During those years, she focused on her studies of environmental health but didn’t realize that her growing love for environmental health and the culture and food she grew up with would merge one day.
After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles, managing hazardous waste from refineries and manufacturing facilities. Her work was impactful, but she wanted to reevaluate how she wanted to influence human health differently. During that reevaluation period, she visited a couple of regenerative farms in California and felt a deep draw towards them. It was an environment that overlapped earth systems, human health, and cultural diversity.
Meanwhile, her best friends from college was living in NWA, and she and her husband visited them for vacation and mountain bike excursions. They wanted to relocate to the area. So when a job at Cobblestone Farms opened up, she applied and became the Outreach and Marketing Coordinator there. Although her position didn’t involve farming, she tried to learn everything about it. After Cobblestone Farms, she took a break to focus on being a mom and raising her daughter. But then she saw an ad for the CAFF Farm School and realized she wanted to learn more about farming and food.
In the CAFF program, students are challenged to think about their future farm and prepare a business plan. Her ideal scenario would be to grow organic produce for specialty stores like international markets. In these local stores, she finds many items grown out of the country that could be grown here. She’s interested in providing organic, locally-grown options. She can relate to the patrons of these markets who are trying to prepare a piece of home close to their hearts. She says they deserve healthy organic options for those unique cultural crops that are difficult to find. “Being able to provide that kind of produce would serve a purpose for me and others. I want that. I see a need there that would bring all of my passions together.” Julia adds that this is one of the benefits of the CAFF Farm School. “Things that seemed separate in the beginning coalesce into new ideas about how you could bring all of your passions together around food. It’s central to all cultures and communities.“
Julia and her husband don’t have family here, so she is building her community. Being a new mom and pursuing an education and career path is challenging. It’s easier with a village, like the one she grew up in. But that isn’t always easy to find. Sometimes you have to work on building a community with the people around you. In sharing her dream with others, Julia finds they are often supportive and want to help. She has learned to ask for help when she needs it and to accept help when it’s offered. She says letting others into your home and life is how our support systems are developed. It’s something we need to rediscover.
CAFF didn’t disappoint when Julia brought her desire to learn to the program. “It has been like drinking out of a firehose – a lot of information at one time, but it’s like Kool-Aid instead of water!” she laughs. Her most important eureka moment so far is learning to do a lot with a little. She shares, “We learn to work on various farm sizes in class. We use intensive market garden methods in the ½ acre plot and then tractor-based methods in plots that are 3 to 5 acres. You realize how much you can grow on these sizes, and suddenly it becomes tangible and doable, even in an urban area that’s booming like Northwest Arkansas. Realizing that you can grow a lot in a suburban backyard, seeing how practical even a sixth of an acre can be, is empowering. It gives you a starting point while you search for more land. CAFF gives you a thousand puzzle pieces, and each student can assemble their own puzzle. You can start right where you are now with the knowledge you’ve gained.”
Julia’s community extends to social media as well. She is documenting her experiences in the CAFF Farm School. You can follow her journey on Instagram at @farm_jewels.
You can learn more about the CAFF Farm School and apply at UAFarmSchool.org.
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