PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAYNE LAVERDIERE
WORDS BY ELIZABETH CABRAL
While the worlds of fashion and farming may seem like entirely disparate realms, model Tasha Tilberg has always sought solace in mother nature and its bountiful offering. In fact, it’s been an inescapable path.“I think it’s in my DNA because my ancestors were farmers. I feel like there’s been such a connection with the land through my grandparents and great-grandparents.” Tilberg’s paternal grandparents were Swedish and Finnish farmers. “So, I was always drawn to it, even though I grew up in a city. We moved around so much and were mostly in the city, but I always, always felt completely drawn to the natural world and I grew up listening to stories about my mom’s farm and the one my sister was raised on, which I didn’t have the pleasure of being raised on. So, I was always longing for it.”
At fourteen, Tilberg began modeling and at sixteen purchased her first farm. “I was able to purchase a plot and it was such a wonderful feeling to own land, especially being an apartment dweller. It was better than having a house, it was so much more. I could really do something with it. I felt like it was just so special and so pure.” While most sixteen year olds buy cars as a conduit to freedom, for Tilberg, whose ‘day job’ had her persistently flying around the world, buying a farm seemed like a natural antidote for someone who spent more time in the clouds than feet planted on the ground. “I needed a complete grounding, because the modeling industry, it’s won-derful—there are many amazing opportu-nities in fashion, but you have to harness the opportunities. When you fly all over the world and you’re in different cities, for me anyways, felt like I also needed to be able to say, Oh it’s spring time, I’m going to plant a seed and in the summer, I am going to harvest a vegetable. I needed that. I’m sure many people have that urge at urge to get into the earth and have something that they can nurture."
Constructing a timeline associated to physical growth could be perceived as an effort to maintain a semblance of control and slowing down, because as Tilberg will attest, when you’re an in-demand model your schedule is largely out of your hands.
Perhaps also projecting a sense of slowing down “you feel like you miss aspects of the changing of seasons sometimes when you’re flying around, but when you have something constant, even if I flew away for two weeks, the farm would still be there. I wanted to be more of a land steward—having big trees, having gardens and I don’t know, it just felt really real, you know?"
A few years ago, Tilberg pressed pause on full-time modeling to raise her twins with her wife. A family move to remote Powel River, B.C. was as far from the fast lane as one could get. “I really wanted to be there as much as I could for my kids, especially when they were infants. I worked occasionally, but I really needed to be there with them and for them.”
While nurturing her family, Tilberg also cultivated the land around her. “I think being able to provide for your family, and for yourself, having the knowledge that you can improve something, nurture plants, nurture the surroundings and develop something over time. You could see immediate results, but you could also, over time, make something so much better. That in itself is so appealing.”
n the future, Tilberg hopes her children continue to have a close connection to the natural world and farming, but recognizes they are on their own journey. “It’s really hard to know at this point what they’re going to be in to, but, at least I know they have a really good base. They have the start of an appreciation of the natural world and they know how to grow things, they know how to plant seeds, they know how to harvest.”
At a time when many children have a closer connection to screens than nature, it’s inspiring to think her kids have been given the tools to be resourceful, to love and nurture the land, and are taught the idea of empathy. “A really big part of my thing is having respect for animals and our symbiotic relationship with animals. I do instill that in them to make sure they make good choices in their lives.”
When her children went to kindergarten. Tilberg said she felt “freer to work again—a complete freedom to be able to put my effort into more things. Because they’re that much older, and they could handle it.” While her kids are less dependent, the farm and land are still demanding, but perhaps more rewarding now that she has a perspective of stepping away for a bit at a time.
“I am working quite a bit, so it is slightly challenging to be able to go home and create the balance as I would like, although, every time I am home it is so enriching. The other day I was home and could har- vest a bunch of things and enjoy it...go for a lovely walk. But, on the business side it is a bit challenging if I am modeling full- time. It’s always challenging to have work and to strike the balance of how big you want to build something. If I wanted to be selling vegetables full-time, at this point I would really need to hire out so it’s kind of on pause, but I’m still improving the land and I’m still doing all the infrastructure work to be selling vegetables and serving the community. I want to start getting into bees and have a cidery as well as my grapes. I have my hand in a lot of these things and some of them take a few years to develop. It’s a matter of planning, and that’s what’s fun; planning on my computer while I’m away so that I’m still connected.”
While Tilberg’s decades-long connection to the land has been an innate part of her, surprisingly or not, many others are seek-ing their own connection to nature, with a resurgence of smaller community led farms and farm-to-table.“People are aware and can judge the qualityof vegetables and have an awareness oflifestyle and how animals and people aretreated. You can taste the difference andsense the difference. And I think peopleappreciate being a part of a communitythat is looking out for each other.”With reports confirming an even more dire climate crisis than anticipated, it’s natural to wonder how Tilberg, a mother and nature lover, forges ahead without becoming overwhelmed by fear. “I’man extreme optimist so I just feel likewhatever happens, we’ll be okay. But I do believe that we must make a lot of effort tohelp change—or stop what we’ve created and I think that’s going back to the natural world and the farms, that in itself can make a difference. Between fashion and big agro-business, which are the two most dreadful things for our planet, I think choices do matter, your dollar and the choices in what you’re buying can make a difference."
While it’s idealistic to think that we could all just live off the land, Tilberg and her family do try to live as sustainably as possible. “For us anyways, growing as much as we can for ourselves and making choices like buying organic, going to the farmer’s market, being primarily vegetarian. We try to buy second-hand clothing and non-fast fashion. My entire community does basically zero waste, including my children’s school. Every event is zero waste—you have plates and dishwashers and people volunteer to do that. And you don’t have single use plastic."
...a sense of slowing down “you feel like you miss aspects of the changing of seasons sometimes when you’re flying around, but when you have something constant, even if I flew away for two weeks, the farm would still be there."
As a fashion model, there’s bound to be an ethical conflict for Tilberg, but ever the optimist she says, “a lot of bigger brands are really trying to find solutions because everybody wants to make a living and nobody wants to ruin the world. I do think there are some big thinkers out there trying to figure it out. Because whatever we’re doing is really unsustainble as a society."Perhaps the route to sustainability is justt o want less, and it seems for Tilberg that has come naturally. “I don’t really want foranything. I am way more minimalistic thanI’ve ever been and want to pare down whatI already have. I grew up very poor and Ialways wanted little shiny things. I alwaysloved jewelry and I would look at mymom’s jewelry box, she had a few thingsand I would just be so amazed it made mefeel really connected to my family history.But besides those things, for myself, I don’twant anything.”Why is it when we’re younger there’s apride in acquiring and accumulating andnow there’s pride in really being able tolive and function beautifully with less? “Ilike making things, but I have nowhere toput them. It’s a funny thing to be like—I really enjoy the process of making stuff, but I want to give it away."
"I wanted to be more of a land steward—having big trees, having gardens and I don’t know, it just felt really real, you know?”
THE ALTRUISTIC FARMER
Upstate New York’s idyllic Hudson Valley has been a reprieve forcity dwellers and nature seekers for decades, and now a bur-geoning area for the biodynamic farm movement. If you’ve gonein search of farm-to-table culinary experiences, you’ve likelycome across the work of, or the farmer himself, Zach Wolf. Wolfhas been shaping the area’s farming landscape for years withstints at world renowned Stone Barns for Blue Hill Restaurantand Locusts on Hudson. Now, Wolf is channeling his altru-istic efforts at The Dutchess, the location of our magnificentshoot. With a secret inn, picturesque countryside, and wellness centered program, The Dutchess’ four acre vegetable and fruit gardens and biodynamic farm are operating as an integrated ,biologically symbiotic organism in the land and the community.
Through our insightful dialogue with Wolf, we learn that food not only fuels our bodies and minds, but is a direct reflection of the cultural shifts in our landscape, both figuratively and literally.
What work are you doing at The Dutchess farm?
The farm’s overall mission is education, visitor experience, and building communities. Its main purpose is to talk about good practices of agriculture and give people a hands-on visceral experience. The plant and the soil can give them ways to participate through weeding, feeding, pulling rocks out, whatever needs doing, and then to taste the landscape in the restaurant. Oursecondary focus is to distribute food within the local economy,serving those who unfortunately don’t have access to fresh, local,biodynamic produce. We donate about three quarters of whatwe grow to various local community food pantries through keypartners like mobile markets or storage facilities.Our focus in that space is off-season production. Typically, foodbanks, if they’re working with farmers at all, tend to get most oftheir products in the main season and have a glut of things a fewmonths of the year, and then dwindles down in the winter with-out a lot of fresh items, so our focus is on late season growingand storage crops.
Can you give us a layman’s explanation of biodynamicfarming and how it differs to conventional farming?
A biodynamic farm takes time to come into its own—to formits own identity. Thinking of the farm as a landscape, within acommunity, and how it interacts with the community socially,economically, and fits within the broader cosmos.There are four concepts to bio-dynamic farming: 1) Treat thefarm. A biodynamic farm is intended to be integrated. A combi-nation of crops, livestock and compost are essential components.Cycling nutrients between trees, plants and animals, differentparts of the landscape. Thinking about how water moves on thelandscape, thinking about and protecting wildlife. 2) The foun-
dation must be organic. You first must be certified organic andthen you add more layers. Striving to have a diversified farm andcycling as many nutrients internally as possible. And renew thebiodynamic separation. 3) Concept of cosmic rhythms, which has amuch broader view of the farm that’s sitting within the cosmosthat is driving all processes on the farm. We work with polar-ities—the downward and upward pull—throughout the courseof the season, day, and lunar planetary cycle that guides cropsthrough their development. 4) The use of homeopathic treatment to help heal the land and produce food for human consumption. Homeopathy creates different energies or pulls that work with plant, mineral and animal elements, combining them in different ways and timing. I was trained in academic science and when I began my farming career ten years ago I was skeptical but opened up to it because people I respect use this and as I’ve used it, it changed my experience as a farmer and the quality of the land. There’s a much broader spiritual framework that aligns to create inspiration at work.
How does the educational and altruistic approach build the foundation for a sustainable system?
It’s about holistic thinking. For a farm to be healthy, it’sdependent on the health of the culture and community thatsupports it. The farm can’t exist in isolation. We’re educatingour culture to accept that what’s needed to make agriculturesustainable in this country is a cultural shift and changing theway we think about the cost, seasonality and availability of food.Certainly, consumer choices but also how we think about foodin terms of our day and how we relate to it in terms of familyand community.People ask, “What’s going on with agriculture in this country?Why has the quality of food declined in the last fifty or onehundred years?” Food and farming is at the core of so many ofthe health issues humans are facing. Even if people come tothe farm having never been on a farm before, there are so manyconnections to make with how they grew up eating, their ownhealth or experience with food. The food economy touches thatwork in some way, connecting a lot of those dots through thevisitor experience.At the farm, they go through a longer process than typicallyhappens at a farm-to-table restaurant. It’s a beautiful thing,having this wonderful experience and getting turned on to thepotential of food. But then what happens when you take thatexperience and instead of it happening over four hours, it’s hap-pening over two days and you’re able to go out and participate inthe farm, and then eat from the farm throughout the day? It’s adifferent level. That is core to our mission and we’re very openabout how that should work.
