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Berrien Springs, Michigan
A Better Life: Gonsalo Rangel reflects on his path to becoming an immigrant farm manager
At 17, Rangel left the farm in 1985 and traveled to the United States “looking for a better life.” He trekked first to California, where he worked a few weeks before heading east, crossing the country in an unheated van to find work in Virginia before joining brothers who were working in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Rangel is one of 12 siblings, eight brothers and four sisters, and at one time all but two lived in Berrien Springs. When he arrived in the United States, Rangel spoke no English and relied on family members to speak for him, while he concentrated on work and saving money.
Rangel spent about five years following the crops, spending winters in Florida or Texas picking citrus and working spring to fall in Berrien Springs. He speaks fondly of this time, noting that even though the work was hard, traveling and working with the same group of people was fun.
Farm manager Gonsalo Rangel likes to talk to young farm workers about the importance of knowing how to grow food. “Where do you think food comes from? It’s definitely not the store,” he adds with a laugh. “You’ve got to learn at least how to grow a tomato plant or something. What if something happens? Are you going to starve? You’ve got to learn how to do things!”
An apt perspective from a lifelong farmer who grew up working on his family’s farm near Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, where they grew corn and beans and raised cattle. Rangel explains the family did not sell much of what they raised, farming instead to provide what they would eat throughout the year.
Hard work, ethics and attitude
Rangel decided to find permanent work in Berrien Springs after meeting his future wife, Elizabeth, who grew up there. He worked first at Bixby Farms, then spent 22 years at Twixwood Nursery, where he continued to hone his skills and advanced to manage one of Twixwood’s farms.
Since 2009, Rangel has managed Earth First Farms, which grows organic apples, blueberries, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables. The farm is housed on five separate Berrien County properties and includes 75 acres of apple orchards, 15 acres of other fruits and vegetables and 25 acres of blueberries. In addition to managing the farm, Rangel co-owns one of the properties.
Rangel says owner Tom Rosenfeld offered him the job at Earth First Farms because he needed someone who knew how to trim apple trees. Rangel had helped with some projects at the farm while still working at Twixwood, and Rosenfeld was impressed with Rangel’s integrity, hard work and knowledge. Rosenfeld knew he needed someone with Rangel’s skills and says, “I knew that he was going to be the key.”
Rangel is responsible for day-to-day operation of the farm, which includes caring for the crops, managing employees, maintaining equipment and planning. He shares growing decisions with Rosenfeld, who says Rangel is “a very good horticulturalist” whose “growing knowledge is excellent.”
Rangel says he learned to manage a farm on the job: “I guess it comes with time, and you’re doing it without even thinking. You know what needs to be done, and you start working on it. And when you have people [to supervise], you tell them what needs to be done.”
Rangel attributes his success to his hard work, ethics and attitude. As a farm manager, he works to convey the importance of those characteristics in the people he supervises. He passes along his knowledge to workers and tells them, “Don’t worry about your neighbor, worry about you, because whatever you are doing is affecting everybody.”
Community connection
Just under 5% of Berrien County’s farmers are Hispanic or Latino, about the same percentage as in the United States. Rubén Martinez, PhD, of the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University, says that Rangel’s experience as a farmer is less common than that of most Hispanic and Latino immigrant farmers, who are often farming part time because their farms don’t provide enough revenue for them to live and raise a family. Martinez says immigrant farmers often “exist on the margins of the industry” and are not connected to the “core institutions and agencies of the agricultural industry.”
This absence of connection to the industry and available resources means that immigrant farmers have no access to the tools needed for success in agriculture: education and training in regulations, certifications in good agricultural practices, recordkeeping and financial management.
While Rangel’s experience may not be typical, Martinez suggests that his success demonstrates the importance of mentoring and what can happen “when we as Americans recognize the humanity of [immigrant farmers] and we integrate them into the work that we’re doing.”
When asked about challenges he might have faced as a person of color working in agriculture, Rangel says, “Everywhere that I work, people treat me right. I move up everywhere I go, so I don’t see discrimination in my personal experience.” Rangel also credits his community, noting that Andrews University draws people from every culture around the world. “Here in Berrien Springs, people are good. It’s a small town, and everywhere you go they know you.”
It has been over three decades since Gonsalo Rangel left Jalisco to make his home in the United States. In that time he married, bought a home, raised a family, became a United States citizen, worked hard to build a successful career in farming and bought land of his own.
Did he find a better life?
Yes, he says—and when ticking off the list of what’s better, he names his wife, his sons and his 7-year-old grandson.
Earth First Farms
8335 Smith Rd.
Berrien Center, MI
269.815.3370
Earthfirstfarms.com
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