In honor of Women’s History Month, and in light of the fact that over 70 percent of the world’s farmers are women, we are focusing our Food + Farm Features on WOMEN this week!
While so many of the world’s farmers are women, it turns out that 86 percent of the 2.1 million people responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of farms in the United States are men (U.S. Census of Agriculture). But according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, woman-operated farms more than doubled between 1982 and 2007 and the latest census data also shows that these women tend to employ more sustainable farming practices. Here is a sampling of the New Crop of Women Farmers here in the United States.
Check out The Female Farmer Project for many more compelling photographs and stories of women working in agriculture around the world:
© Audra Mulkern
While more and more women are choosing farming as their life’s work, others are inheriting it. In Iowa, over a third of the state’s land is owned by women over the age of 65. New programs like Women Caring for the Land are empowering women landowners by providing training in resource conservation and soil health.
“I have never felt more like a woman than the day I dug my hands into the soil for the first time.” – Natasha Bowens
Sandra Simone: Mother, widow, jazz singer, and one of Bowens’ Fierce Farming Women.
Bowens, author of The Color of Food will be sharing excerpts from her chapter about Fierce Farming Women on Mother Earth News all month!
Did you miss our last Friday Food + Farm Feature? Check out the video series we shared on women in the dairy industry.
Do you know a woman farmer? Food advocate? Chef? Send a shoutout in a comment below to the Food + Farm women in your life!
A shoutout to the food + farm women I am proud to know:
Karen Trubitt, Nancy Hanson, Danya Teitelbaum, Lydia Sivel-Irons, Abby Getman, Emily Adams, Sarah Coblyn, Caroline Pam, Amanda Barnett, Susanna Harro, Jacqueline Vitale, Sarah Berquist, Rosie Boyko, Cheryl and Kacey Roberts, Julia Costa, Heather Diaz, Alice English, Ana Feldman, Benneth Phelps, Jamie Cruz, Cindy Gill, Devan Proctor, Danielle Smith, Kristen Wilmer, Claire Morenon, Grace Johnston, Tamsin Flanders, Kristen Whitmore, Charlotte Castle, Hannah Slipakoff, Rachel Dutton, Beth Hooker, Ali Gibbs, Sky Loth, and my mom too!
I want to honor my mother, Sarah. While she would not call herself a farmer but a farmer’s wife, she was very bit the farmer my father was and more some. She wasn’t born on a farm but married into the life. She milked the cows, drove the tractors, planted the corn, and during the busy harvest seasons literally weaned her children in the front seat of a silage truck . She got up in the middle of the night when the cows had escaped to the neighbors lawn, made countless runs to the tractor parts store, made sure the checkbook was balanced and the bills paid, and keep everyone fed and clothed with almost no money. She took over full management of the farm when my father was sick for several months–while in the final trimester of her 5th (and last) pregnancy. She did all this while working one or sometimes two off-farm jobs and caring for my elderly grandparents at home. And I call myself a farmer? I am not worthy.
Thank you for all you do! Farms are such a huge part of our lives and well being. It takes hard work and dedication as well as the hours spent performing all the duties included. I love farm fresh goods, and eating locally grown.
Thanks Nancy, for that inspiring tribute! On a similar note: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/11/369902748/womens-work-is-never-done-on-the-farm-and-sometimes-never-counted
I’ve never been happier or more humbled to be included on a list. I give a shout out to my mother, both grandmothers, and my great grandmother. They each loved their land and became the principle farmer after divorce or death of spouse. And each of them took the lead in animal husbandry even before. During the Great Depression, my great grandparents farm continued to be productive and they raised 27 children on the farm, many of them being orphans or caste-offs who were dropped off like kittens at the doorstep. Bless that farm… it still stands.