Women take the tractor wheel
| Brookline, Mass.
Kate Stillman starts her day at 4 a.m. Four days a week, the third-generation farmer loads up a truck the size of a small U-Haul and drives 75 miles from Hardwick, Mass., to farmers markets across the Boston area. The truck is so weighed down by her cuts of locally raised meat and produce grown by her father and brother that the bumper barely clears the curb. If there is room in the cab, one of her two young boys will ride along with her.
She鈥檚 used to not sleeping much.
鈥淲hen you have animals 鈥� like when you have small children 鈥� it鈥檚 the same thing. You never really sleep soundly. You are constantly trying to listen for if there is a problem,鈥� says Ms. Stillman, who sells grass-fed beef, lamb, pastured poultry, and pork from animals she raises on a farm that she bought in her early 20s. She鈥檚 also a single mother. Midnight is the earliest she turns in.
With her right arm thrust deep inside a glass-topped freezer as she rummages for a customer鈥檚 order at the Brookline Farmers Market, Stillman recounts the time she forgot to pick up her 5-year-old son from day care. Two days before Thanksgiving, she was in the middle of processing hundreds of turkeys when she glanced at the clock. It was 8:30 p.m. A call to her stepmother eased her worries 鈥� he was with her, brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. She feels fortunate to have a large, supportive family.
鈥淲hen I work the farmers market, I wish this was my only job and I could go home at night and cook and eat with my kids and take a normal vacation,鈥� says Stillman. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 OK. I wouldn鈥檛 trade it. I think this is the best lifestyle for me, and my kids think it is kind of magical that they are growing up on the farm. They put up with the schedule and the work.鈥�
Hard work has always defined farming. And many say it鈥檚 only going to get harder as farms are squeezed by rising land and labor prices, falling commodity prices, and an aging demographic 鈥� the average US farmer is 58 years old. Analysts warn of a potential farm crisis not unlike the one seen during the Great Depression.
But small-scale farming, which takes place on 90 percent of the farms in the United States, continues to thrive. These farms are figuring out the formula of diversifying their income streams through farmers markets, agritourism, and cottage industry products, resisting the call to 鈥済et big or get out.鈥� And in some areas of the country, it is a rising number of women like Stillman who are taking the wheel of the tractor.
Nearly 1 million women work on US farms, and nearly 290,000 head up farm operations, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Across New England and the Pacific Northwest, the 2012 Census of Agriculture showed a higher concentration of women farmers than did other regions. In addition, across 16 states the number of female principal operators had increased since 2007.
Some women are coming to farming midlife as a second career. Others are young visionaries equipped with degrees in environmental science and a passion for reimagining the food system. Still others grew up on a family farm but fled 鈥� vowing to never lift another shovel of manure 鈥� only to have a change of heart. Armed with high-speed internet connections, they are marketing rural life with networking potlucks, farm stays in Airstream trailers, and nostalgia-inducing Instagram streams.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the size of the farms; they are more manageable,鈥� says Helen Brody, coauthor of 鈥淣ew Hampshire Women Farmers: Pioneers of the Local Food Movement,鈥� as to why the growth is concentrated in the New England and the Pacific Northwest. 鈥淚 think [women find] it more comfortable to have small farms.... Women are natural nurturers 鈥� and that鈥檚 why they were such good marketers at farmers markets: They like the idea of being able to provide healthy, good food for their families and talk about it.鈥�
More than the 鈥榝arm wife鈥�
While women have been working on American farms since Colonial times, they鈥檝e often been depicted as the 鈥渇arm wife,鈥� the silent partner to the 鈥渇armer鈥� who was credited with tending to the fields and the livestock.
Before 2002, the USDA tracked the gender and age of only principal farmers 鈥� who are predominantly men. As a result, the contribution of women and other minority groups on US farms went underreported.
鈥淲omen have been living on farms for centuries in this country and they have been very involved in the farms, but ... their roles have been downplayed,鈥� says Carolyn Sachs, a professor of rural sociology at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences and author of 鈥淭he Rise of Women Farmers and Sustainable Agriculture.鈥�
鈥淎nd it鈥檚 not just by others,鈥� she adds. 鈥淲omen will minimize their own involvement also because the man is the farmer and they don鈥檛 want to take away from his status.鈥�
Denise O鈥橞rien didn鈥檛 grow up on a farm, but she ended up marrying Larry Harris, a man who did. They were young and idealistic in the 1970s, inspired by activism around Earth Day, the Vietnam War, and the women鈥檚 movement. With his parents鈥� blessing, they started organic farming in the 鈥�70s. They鈥檝e been operating Rolling Acres Farm near Atlantic, Iowa, ever since.
When the farm crisis hit Iowa in the 鈥�80s, Ms. O鈥橞rien and her husband joined the community meetings where farmers were sharing ideas about how to survive.
鈥淲omen would come up to me in meetings and say, 鈥榊ou call yourself a farmer?鈥� And I鈥檇 say, 鈥榊es, I do.鈥�... And they鈥檇 say, 鈥榃ell, I鈥檓 a farmer鈥檚 wife.鈥� And so I鈥檇 say, 鈥榃hat do you do?鈥� And they鈥檇 list all the chores and I鈥檇 say, 鈥榃ell, that sounds like a farmer to me.鈥� 鈥�
In 1993, she became president of the National Family Farm Coalition. That same year, she read a study finding that women owned close to 50 percent of the farmland in Iowa.
鈥淏asically women were not identified with farming and agriculture, only as farmers鈥� wives, yet they were a critical economic piece of the family farm,鈥� says O鈥橞rien. So she started calling them together for informal meetings, eventually getting funding from the USDA.
By 1997, she had founded the Women, Food and Agriculture Network. Today, WFAN claims more than 10,000 women in its network representing all 50 states and parts of Canada.
Despite strong networks and USDA funding for beginning farmers, women continue to face sexism when it comes to being accepted as an agricultural peer.
Stillman, who comes from a farming family and who secured her first loan to buy her farm with her ex-husband before she was 30, still fumes when she remembers trying to get a loan from her local bank to build a slaughterhouse. It was necessary for her survival: The large industrial processing plant she used kept losing her meat.
鈥淸The application] wasn鈥檛 coming together ... and it kept dragging on, and my banker said to me, 鈥榃hy don鈥檛 you just go home and bake some cookies or something?鈥� I was so livid,鈥� recalls Stillman. 鈥淢y brother who is a farmer has never been through that.鈥�
In the end, she got the loan and built the slaughterhouse.
鈥淎ll of us [women farmers] have a million horror stories of people talking to us like we are dummies, especially about equipment,鈥� says Elizabeth Green, a Boston-area farmer in her mid-30s who built Three Sisters Garden Project from the roots up. 鈥淭here is just a lack of understanding that a woman could run a big business and be excellent at it.鈥�
Three Sisters is a vegetable farm in Ipswich, Mass., run as a nonprofit that leases its land from an order of Roman Catholic nuns. Now in its third year, it supplies 130 farm shares to the surrounding area, and offers educational programs and training for new farmers.
Ms. Green chose all the equipment, erected the greenhouse, added a walk-in cooler, and put in a well.
She learned how to drive a tractor from a woman farmer in Belmont, Mass. But she says there are still some farms in New England that won鈥檛 let women on tractors.
鈥淎 lot of us in my generation are looking for meaningful work that connects to our values, and sometimes the long-haul, big-picture advocacy work that I was doing was hard because you don鈥檛 see results for a long, long, time,鈥� says Green, who now oversees three farms for The Trustees of Reservations. 鈥淏ut with [farming], I can put in a day鈥檚 work and I can literally see ... the fruits of my labor, which is an incredible feeling.鈥�
Women farmers have a tendency to reach out to other women farmers, researchers like Professor Sachs have noted.
鈥淲hen I started [farming], it was easy to quickly feel isolated ... but from the get-go, it was the other women farmers and women I met ... who were amazing sources of support,鈥� says Lisa Kivirist, who runs an ecofarm and bed-and-breakfast operation in Wisconsin鈥檚 dairyland with her husband. She鈥檚 also the author of 鈥淪oil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers.鈥� 鈥淎s I moved along in my learning, it has always been a passion of mine to continue that connection and really grow that collaborative spirit we have.鈥�
Workshops in Wisconsin
One of those ways is through a series of workshops and farm tours she helped develop: 鈥淪oil Sisters: A Celebration of Wisconsin Farms & Rural Life.鈥� For the past five years, more than 20 women farmers have collaborated to open their farms with down-home activities such as cheesemaking, fermentation, and workshops on how to start a business out of one鈥檚 kitchen.
On an unusually chilly August morning, attendees of the 鈥淚n Her Boots鈥� workshop perch on hay bales inside the hoop house at Kriss Marion鈥檚 Circle M Farm in Blanchardville, Wis., as a few orange barn cats circle and rub up against their ankles.
Etienne White describes her first Soil Sisters weekend two years ago as 鈥渢hree days of sheer inspiration.鈥� In addition to a wealth of information, she took away an unexpected bonus: a pair of old barn boots that Ms. Marion was getting ready to toss. This year Ms. White, now a fledgling farmer, offered to help with 鈥淚n Her Boots鈥� 鈥� literally wearing Marion鈥檚 boots.
Marion, who runs Circle M Farm with her family, addresses the crowd like a tent revival preacher. Her converted Airstream trailer, which sleeps four and is parked on the side lawn, has been a surprise success. The first guests were from France, she says, and it was fully booked almost immediately.
鈥淲e thought, what are people doing out here in Blanchardville? Why are they here? Well, it turns out they鈥檙e here because of us,鈥� says Marion as the women nod and take notes. 鈥淒on鈥檛 underestimate the importance of just a small green space that you鈥檙e taking care of,鈥� she says. 鈥淧eople want to get in touch with that.鈥�
Marketing farm life may just be the secret sauce that helps small-scale farms survive. Stillman cites a couple of her favorite women farmers on Instagram, such as Floret Flower (with 469,000 followers).
鈥淢y father is so great at driving a tractor, but you are never going to find him [Instagramming],鈥� says Stillman. 鈥淭hese women are the faces of the farms, and they are totally blowing the top off of what farming is and I鈥檓 in awe.... They have completely changed the boundaries of their farms.鈥�
Staff writer Gretel Kauffman contributed to this report from Blanchardville, Wis.
