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KERMAN, Calif .– Simranjit Singh is a second-generation American farmer, but his farming roots go back 900 years.
Before his father left India for California in 1991, before India gained independence from Britain in 1947, before its Sikh culture took root in 1469, the northern civilizations of India used to cultivate various agricultural lands, and Mr. Singh, 28, is part of this unbroken lineage.
On a secluded 100-acre farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley, he and his father tend the family’s raisin and almond orchards, determined to keep their heritage alive.
“Everything that is given to me by my father is so precious that I would be a fool to throw it away,” he said. “Agriculture will always be at the heart of who I am. “
Over the past century, ethnic diasporas around the world have worked in these fields, while people from Armenia, Mexico, Southeast Asia, China and many other countries have built lives and families rooted in the fertile soil of central California. It is a place whose economy and lifeblood are defined by the land and the people who work it. Sikhs in the Punjab are among the most recent migrants to try their luck.
Sran Farm, where Mr. Singh works with his father, Sarbjit Sran, is a small, full-time farm with just two men who take care of most of the day-to-day operations. Mr Singh’s mother, Jaswinder Sran, 55, sometimes joins them in the fields. It is only during the late summer harvest that the family hires contract laborers to harvest the ripe crops.
Mr. Singh and other young Sikh farmers in the area are already a declining group. Economic mobility has pushed recent generations into more traditionally white-collar jobs, even though the remaining farmers feel pressured to continue.
“You don’t have as many Punjabi workers here as you did in the 80s and 90s, because the kids are now doing professional things,” said Simon Sihota, a Sikh Punjabi farmer from the area.
Like the Sran Farm, Mr. Sihota’s business remains largely a family affair. His son Arvin, 22, just graduated from California Polytechnic State University in farm management, and his eldest son Kavin, 24, graduated from Cornell in oenology, the science of wine making. His 20-year-old daughter Jasleen regularly takes part in the administrative tasks of the family business.
The family works together in the same way Mr. Sihota helped his father and grandfather in the fields when he was young. Her father came to California from India in 1961 and eventually saved enough money to buy 40 acres; the farm has since grown to 3,000 acres of almonds, pistachios, wine grapes and peaches.
“I can’t see myself doing anything else,” Kavin Sihota said. “When I was on the East Coast, I always missed the farming lifestyle.
Although young Sikh farmers like Kavin Sihota and Simranjit Singh are increasingly rare in this part of the world, their peers have found different ways to engage in the tradition of Indian agriculture and their Sikh community in general.
Since September 2020, Indian farmers have been protesting against new agricultural laws which they say will devastate small farmers and limit the income their land can generate. The new rules minimize the government’s role in agriculture and remove state protections, which farmers fear will leave them at the mercy of the unhindered free market.
As news of the protests reached the United States, young American Sikhs showed their support on social media and at local rallies.
Anureet Kaur, 16, a sophomore high school student in Selma, Calif., Has posted about the Indian farm protests so frequently that her Instagram account with nearly 6,500 followers has been temporarily restricted.
“I will continue to make my voice heard for farmers,” she said. “After all, I am a farmer’s daughter.
Along with a few friends, Ms Kaur recently volunteered at a mass coronavirus vaccination event at a Sikh temple in Selma, preparing food and directing traffic. The event vaccinated 1,000 people on a single Saturday in March. According to Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a Sikh community building organization, the event was specifically aimed at immunizing local farm families as part of “our dedication to the most marginalized and vulnerable in the region.”
A car at the event was painted with “#FarmersProtest” and “I stand with the Farmers”, a sentiment echoed by many event volunteers and local Sikhs around the valley.
In Madera, Sohan Samran showed his support in a more tangible way. As a farmer and owner of the Bapu Almond Company, he shipped nearly 7,000 pounds of almonds directly to protesters in India.
His company name – Bapu – is a loving term in Punjabi for an older male relative, and the business name is a way to honor the farming tradition of his own family and culture. At Bapu Farms, the word is stamped everywhere, on the stacks of almond containers, on farm equipment and on the company’s branding. The word is a constant reminder that for many Sikhs in the farming world, family and farming go hand in hand.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in Kerman, Simranjit Singh and Sarbjit Sran relaxed at home after working in the fields on their property.
Sitting under a painting of an ancient Sikh gurdwara, or place of worship, Mr. Singh pointed to his father and said with a smile: “This is my bapu, right here.”
One of the fundamental tenets of the Sikh faith is seva, the principle that kindness, humility, and service to others are what makes an honorable life.
For Mr. Singh and his father, their generational history of family farming is an active part of seva, and they believe that growing crops, caring for the land, and providing food to their community are all acts of service.
“My job as a farmer is more than a job,” Singh said. “I feel like it’s a duty, and I’m just trying to do as much seva as possible in the limited time I have here on this planet.”
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