Hi there! I came accross your blog while doing a bit of research on queer urban farming, and really liked the article and also the question posed in response to how “queer” farming is a different form of radicalization than for cis gendered farmers. I have recently published an article about being a queer urban farmer in the November 2011 issue of Curve magazine. In this article, I talked about the modern realities of queers finding more community in city centres than in rural areas. This is due to a lot of different reasons, but has created a diasporic culture for many queers in the city, who have left their rural upbringings to try and find their place in urban centres where they can find community and acceptance not offered in their small towns. Many of these people (including myself), I would argue, perhaps do not even desire to live in an urban centre, but are nearly forcibly pushed out of small rural communities due to lack of support and queer-positive community. Therefore, I see urban farming as an interim resolution to the disconnect from the small-town life that some of us desire, which includes a focus on farming, a connection to the land, and a slower-paced lifestyle not often offered in the city.
By creating farming and gardening spaces in an urban setting, queers are not just resisting the patriarchal systems which have denied us knowledge and access to the basic fundamentals of life, Food, but also we as queers are attempting to find a way to reclaim a more rurally-oriented lifestyle, while still being surrounded by the community offered to us in city centres. I would like to see more queer communities popping up outside of urban spaces, and they are, but it is a slow process, and often more isolated than connected to the surrounding community. For now urban farming provides a great balance for queers looking to balance between two worlds.