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The Hands That Fed the World: Women’s Hidden Agricultural Labor · Old Ways New Days

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Before there were machines, before there were supply chains, supermarkets, and labels, there were hands.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hands that planted, hands that harvest, hands that spun, stitched, stirred, and preserved.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hands that knew the land not from a distance but intimately.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And more often than not, those hands belong to women.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not always named, rarely recorded, almost never cited.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: But always present.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're pulling back the veil on the hidden labor that sustained entire communities, the work of seed keepers, midwives, dairy workers, and textile makers.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Work that was essential but made invisible.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, witches, pagans, heathens, spiritualists, and anyone interested in living sustainably.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is Old Ways, New Days, where the old ways meet the good dirt.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Kayla.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Nel.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And each week we explore the sacred art of living close to the land.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: From compost to covens, chickens to charms, we're reclaiming self-sufficiency, seasonal living, and ancestral wisdom.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're stirring your cauldron or your soup pot, this is a space for wild-hearted folk walking the homesteading path with intention, magic, and muddy boots.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you're still with us.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so tired.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is what number four?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I lost call.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: How many more do we have?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think two.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh and then that'll put us through next week.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that should put us through to at least middle of May.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we're not recording them in the order that they're gonna be posted either.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: So Right.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: So when we when we come back after all is said and done and we're settled back in our, you know.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully I moved.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'll be back from New Jersey, and then we'll go over and welcome, you know, all of our listeners from the gym all around the world.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Again.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because hopefully we have some more.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully we have um our our listeners from Asia back.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, um have you figured out what you were gonna do for that giveaway?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's right, the giveaway.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: I had not.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I guess that's something that um I can think about what you can think about in New Jersey.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'll I'll send the rules and the prize to our admin on Facebook to post it there.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should do a poll and see what people want.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I know um as nice as a dehydrator is, not everybody has the space.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if people want seeds.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think seeds would be good because then they can it's a good way to start to win their own.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's a little late to start them inside, but but you can always save them for next year.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's one good thing about seeds is that they really never go bad.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean they they can age out and and they can and the older they are the the weaker the genetic material inside them becomes.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So they can expire, but if you if you house them properly, they won't as expire as fast.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: So cool dark locations for storage.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Cool, dark, dry locations.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: You forgot the dry.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: I did forget the dry.
• 4:20
  unknown: Okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, so I know things! Uh you do know things.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: You're learning a lot with me.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you knew stuff before, but yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm learning more.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we're we're gonna talk about women today, because Mother's Day is coming up.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it is, it is.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean this won't be posted on Mother's Day, but you know, to recognize all the work that women do.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it wasn't for women, you won't be here.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, guys.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: If it wasn't for your mama and her mama and their mama before that, yeah, we would not be here making this podcast.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, when we think of agriculture, the image is often masculine.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Fields, plateaus, large-scale labor.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But historically, women have always been central to food systems.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Across cultures and continents, women are responsible for selecting and saving seeds, growing household gardens, processing and preserving food, managing small livestock, producing textiles and household goods.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: This wasn't quote unquote extra work, it was foundational.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Without it, communities would not have survived.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, much of this labor was categorized as domestic, informal, unskilled, which meant it was often excluded from records, wages, and recognition.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And still is today.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So before industrial agriculture, seeds were not bought, they were saved.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Season after season, women carefully selected seeds from the strongest plants, the ones that survived drought, the ones that produced the most food, the ones that adapted to local conditions.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: This was knowledge passed down through generations, not written in textbooks, but carried in memory and practice.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Seed keeping is not just about plants, it's about biodiversity, food sovereignty, cultural continuity.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: When seeds are lost, so are stories, so are flavor, so are ways of life.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And for centuries, women were the ones protecting that community.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Agriculture is not only about growing food, it is also about sustaining life.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Midwives played a critical role in rural and agricultural communities.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: They assisted in childbirth, provided herbal knowledge, supported reproductive health, acted as community healers.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Their work was deeply tied to land-based knowledge.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: They understood which plants could ease pain, which could support recovery, which needed to be respected or avoided.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: But over time, midwifery was pushed aside by institutional medicine, and with that shift, much of this knowledge was dismissed or lost.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Which was once essential became marginalized.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Milk doesn't store itself, butter doesn't churn itself, cheese doesn't age on its own.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: In many traditional households, dairy work fell to women.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: This was daily, repetitive, skilled labor.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Milking animals, processing milk, making butter, cheese, yogurt, managing preservation.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: It required precision, timing, cleanliness, and deep familiarity with the animals.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it happened every single day.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: No breaks, no off season.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Dairy work is a perfect example of labor that is constant and often unseen.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Clothing did not come from stores, it was made from the ground up.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Women were responsible for growing or sourcing fiber, flax, wool, or cotton, spinning thread, weaving fabric, sewing garments, repairing and repurposing materials.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: This process could take weeks or months for a single piece, and yet it was considered part of the normal daily life.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Textile work connects agricultural of everyday survival, because staying warm, staying covered, was just as important as being fed.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So why don't we hear more about this?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because much of women's labor existed in spaces that were private, domestic, communal rather than commercial.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: History tends to record ownership, profit, public achievements, not maintenance, care, daily survival work.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: But these invisible tasks are what held everything together.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Without them, there would be no surplus, no trade, no growth.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Today there is a growing movement to reclaim these practices.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: People are saving seats again, learning traditional skills, returning to small-scale food production, valuing handmade goods, not as nostalgia, but as recognition.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Recognition that these skills are valuable, sustainable, worth preserving, and that the people who carried them, often women, deserve acknowledgement.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: History doesn't always tell the full story.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the land remembers, in every seed saved, in every loaf of bread, in every piece of cloth, there is lineage of hands that came before.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hands that worked quietly, consistently, without recognition, but not without impact.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: So as we move forward, whether through homesteading, gardening, or simply becoming more aware, we carry that legacy with us.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not just in what we grow, but in how we value the work that sustains life.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because the truth is the world was not built only by those who were seen.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was sustained by those who were not.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: And whether you are a mother to a human or a mother to a four-legged child.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: For a baby.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Happy Mother's Day.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: From us.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Love ya.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Subscribe.