New Orleans is full of so much character and personality that it’s surprising it took seven seasons for the Netflix show “Queer Eye” to make its way to the Big Easy. Finally, in May 2023, the Fab 5 debuted the New Orleans season with seven episodes highlighting some of our best personalities – or “heroes.” One of these heroes was Michael Richard, a native New Orleanian and farm director of local non-profit Recirculating Farms. Richard has spent many years promoting urban farming, teaching the community vital skills and helping to grow the farm to what it is today. This month, Richard shares his story and insight into his time on the show.
Q: How did you get involved in farming? I definitely did not expect to be doing this. If you told 21-year-old me, “you’re going to be farming,” I would have laughed at you. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Until you start to look into the world, you don’t picture urban farms. I didn’t even know that people really did that at a productive scale. I thought that was more of just like a hobby type of thing. My original goal was to do law. That was always my goal growing up to try to create change by changing the rules that we play by. I was doing criminal justice up at Southeastern, and I really didn’t like the way the curriculum was going. So I switched over to sociology, which was one of the best things that I could have ever done. In that track, that is when I was introduced to urban farming through one of my teachers. I took a few sociology classes and we took field trips down to the city to see different urban farms and food access programs. That was really my introduction into this world of addressing lots of different issues such as climate change, economic inequality, environmental injustice.
Q: What was your first job working with urban farming? I was looking for a place where I could maybe apprentice. I came across a job at Second Harvest Food Bank. It was a child nutrition education, and aquaponics position. I had no experience, but I went in there gave a great interview. And they hired me. I really got a good taste of what real holistic food programming can look like. That just really got me hooked. Once that one-year position was over, I met Marianne while I was at Second Harvest, who is my my nominator for “Queer Eye” and my current boss.
Q: How did you get involved with Recirculating Farms? Marianne liked my work ethic. She liked my passion. I was already really impressed with Recirculating Farms anyway, because of the research I did with them before we decided to partner with them at Second Harvest. So yeah, I jumped into that, man. I’ve been with Recirculating Farms ever since. I was originally a just a part-time farmer. And then I became the outreach coordinator. And I am now the farm director. I’ve been basically managing the farm for the past four or five years.
Q: What was the experience of Queer Eye like? It was very surreal. Because I am a big fan of the show, we’ve rewatched so many episodes. When you’re watching, we always kind of thought, “Wouldn’t it be so crazy if I got on it?” And then it happened. I remember the moment I turned around, and then they were on the farm. Just to see them in person was like, wow, this is a dream. But it was super cool. They were all very, very nice. What you see on the show is exactly what you get from them. They’re super authentic. Filming was an interesting process. Our days were very long. I had a driver. I was like a movie star for a week. Part of it was a little stressful, just because I’m a very hands-on person, with my farm especially. It’s very hard for me to let go of control. But that was also kind of part of the process, you know. They were like, you’ll get more out of this if you just kind of lean into it and be vulnerable and just kind of just trust us. They do a good job of getting you in a comfortable place to be vulnerable, to really lean into the process. It’s weird to be so vulnerable in front of so many people. They made all of that go away, the film crew, and everyone really became like your friends by the end of it. Looking back, seeing the show, there was a lot of therapeutic cathartic moments and things that aren’t shown. And so that made me feel pretty good too.
Q: What are some take-aways looking back? I journaled a lot. That was one of the things Karamo had me do. I will go back and read that sometimes and remember how I felt in those moments, and how it wasn’t just a performative thing. I’m a very passionate person. I go all in when I do things. If I’m going to do this, I’m gonna do it. And so that’s what I did. It could have been a very dark episode. But they told my story in a very passionate way and authentic way, but also showed a lot of joy that is created in my life by doing the work that I do. Ultimately, you see this at the end of the episode. They made me realize, I’ve done a lot. I’ve accomplished a lot to get where I am. And to me, it’s just everyday life, you know, I just grind and grind and grind. My life is hard. It is what it is. But to take a moment and step back and really appreciate the work that you’ve done for yourself was something I hadn’t really done.
Q: Was there a standout moment? There’s two moments that really stuck with me, that I think about pretty often. One is with Bobby, which they didn’t use on the show. He has a very nontraditional past as well. He doesn’t have a degree and he has to fight imposter syndrome and stuff like that. We had a moment where we really got into the details about that type of stuff. That was a very touching moment. Even though we all know that there’s other people going through lots of hard things, it always feels like you’re the only one in that situation. So to have a person of his stature tell me, it’s okay to feel this way. It’s normal, but you don’t have to let that hold you back. You don’t have to let these things define you, you can still find success. And then even when you find success, that doesn’t mean that you’re automatically going to stop feeling like an imposter. It was just reassuring to have that and really connect with him on that level. The other moments, not to diminish any of them, which I have with all the other people, and there are tons of amazing ones, but Jonathan was hilarious. So funny. We were cracking up the whole time. We were just having a great time.
New Orleans is full of so much character and personality that it’s surprising it took seven seasons for the Netflix show “Queer Eye” to make its way to the Big Easy. Finally, in May 2023, the Fab 5 debuted the New Orleans season with seven episodes highlighting some of our best personalities - or “heroes.” One of these heroes was Michael Richard, a native New Orleanian and farm director of local non-profit Recirculating Farms. Richard has spent many years promoting urban farming, teaching the community vital skills and helping to grow the farm to what it is today. This month, Richard shares his story and insight into his time on the show.