The key to the future of food

[Music]

eight years ago i was shopping at my

local farmers market

when i stopped and took a step back out

of the busy corridor

that was just bursting with fresh

produce i wanted to take it all in

this beautiful but temporary art gallery

that just springs up in the middle of a

street

every week as i watch people buzz around

from stand to stand

i notice something behind every single

farm table

was a woman now i knew women farmed

many of them were my friends and

neighbors but there was something

different about that day

about that moment i’ve replayed it over

and over

why had they suddenly become visible to

me

had women farmers just recently shown up

on the scene

or had they always been there so i went

to the library to figure it out

and what i learned is that women farmers

are missing from the narrative

from the data from the picture

it wasn’t until the 1978 census of

agriculture

that the usda even began to track gender

so up until 40 years ago women farmers

were not even

counted and when i did find women in

books or magazine articles they were

farmers wives

or daughters often without a story of

their own

i began to ask what happens when women

go uncounted

when they’re left out of the story when

they’re not even in the picture

that began my journey

i borrowed a camera from a friend she

showed me how to use it

and i set out to learn to how to take

pictures

but i didn’t want to just take portraits

i wanted to capture what i couldn’t find

at the library

female farmers farming

i have photographed and visited hundreds

of female farmers across the country

as they’ve driven tractors mucked stalls

and tented seedlings i hoped my

photographs would make them feel

seen but i also wanted everyone else

little girls consumers

even policy makers to really see these

farmers

to put their lives and realities and

challenges back in the picture

so why photos we can look at pie charts

all day long but until we see the faces

and hands of these farmers

the story of american agriculture is

incomplete

we all know this guy right he’s the

stereotype of the american farmer

he’s part of the americana lore of red

barns and green tractors

but anastasia looks different from that

guy

and she farms differently too she lives

alone on a ranch in southern arizona

where she raises goats and grows garlic

i visited on a june day when the

temperatures reached 110 degrees

that desert terrain is tough but so is

she

down the road from anastasia lived joe

thirty years ago she and her husband

george opened a butcher shop

and it became the go-to facility for

neighboring farmers

after george passed away joe closed the

shop

but when she met anastasia they began to

dream about reopening together

however on the very day i visited

joe’s well went dry for the first time

ever

and without funding to drill a deeper

well

these two women were forced to abandon

their plans

for joe and anastasia that loss was

personal

their story illustrates the fact that

women have a harder time

obtaining loans and credit for the

community this loss reverberates

fewer meat processing options another

local business

lost and a missed opportunity

to transfer all of that skill and

knowledge

from one generation to the next

idzai immigrated from her native

zimbabwe in 2002

with her husband and four daughters her

first order of business was to find land

to farm and

a good school for her girls she got

started on a 30 by 40 foot garden plot

and now she leases the backyards of four

different homes in downtown san diego

she turns these urban yards into lush

productive life-giving spaces

it’s eyes days begin at four a.m when

she works an eight-hour shift

as an airport shuttle driver and then

she works the rest of the day on the

farm

her dream is to farm full-time but for

now she relies on the steady income of

the shuttle job

and she’s not alone two-thirds of

america’s female farmers

have a full-time job in addition to

their farm

and not just for the extra income but

for health care benefits

the challenges that female farmers face

will feel familiar to many of us

siri is a vegetable farmer here in

washington state

14 years ago she left a salary job in

public administration

to start farming a decision she doesn’t

regret

she says that farming is a good life

but the profit margins are thin and the

hours erratic

i took this photograph of siri years ago

when she was pregnant with her second

child

and now with two young children lack of

access to child care

remains a major hurdle to building up

her farm business

in fact child care comes up repeatedly

as i speak to women farmers

a 2015 study in the university of

vermont

told us that over 60 percent of all

farmers

surveyed reported child care problems

and it should come as no surprise that

women lead farms

were most impacted

siri cobbles together several part-time

fixes to the child care problem

but it isn’t enough and she yearns for

the time to focus

on business development and to advocate

for informed

farm policy all of that

gets lost in the scramble

i said earlier that i had a hard time

finding

the stories of women farmers in my

research at the library

and so i’ve had to dig deeper to unearth

their stories

i’ve been poring over the journals of a

farm woman who lived in ohio

in the early 1900s her name was lucy cox

her journals were sent to me by her

great-granddaughter

who transcribed lucy’s days during the

pandemic of 1918.

every day lucy would document the births

and deaths

illnesses and anniversaries in her

community all while preparing the hogs

for sale and

managing farm hands and preserving food

for the winter

but the flu pandemic of that time was

not the only crisis happening

there was a storm of crises as men left

to go fight in world war one

women were recruited to take over their

work

maybe you’ve heard of rosie the riveter

the symbol for the women who worked in

factories during world war

ii but have you heard of the farmerettes

of the women’s land army

in both world wars young women left

everything to live and work on farms

together they fed a nation at war

since then i have found farm women

stepping into leadership and activist

roles

in the 1950s maria moreno a texas-born

farm worker and mother of 12

was the first woman hired to organize

farm workers

she worked on campaigns to raise farm

worker wages

and outlaw child agricultural labor

during the 1980s farm crisis when farm

foreclosures were forcing millions off

their land and farmer suicide rates

were skyrocketing it was farm women like

mona lee brock

who became advocates and not only did

they

rally in washington dc to stop those

farm foreclosures

but they organize regional telephone

networks to answer the calls of farmers

who are on the brink of giving up not

only on the land

but on themselves

something else about female farmers i

noticed that their operations tend to be

a little more poly culture in nature

vegetable maybe some fruit small

livestock

like chickens and goats

they scale up slowly building their

businesses

around direct markets avoiding middlemen

and the export economy

instead of bank loans many rely on

crowdfunding

and community support i wondered why

women seem to be attracted to this type

of agriculture

and then dr pilgrim a researcher at the

university of idaho

suggested to me that i was asking the

wrong

question what if instead of being

attracted to it they were recreating it

what if these women locked out of modern

lending and farm systems

were tapping into something very old

something that echoed the agriculture

of our four mothers while also

innovating

through technology and markets to meet

the current moment

during the spring of 2020 when the food

system at large buckled due to covet 19

creating log jams in meat processing and

harvesting

record numbers of consumers turned to

these small and regional farms for food

while many large farms had to make

devastating decisions

like to dump milk and plow under their

crops

it was smaller farms many of them led by

women

they were able to be more agile pivoting

overnight from restaurant sales

to virtual farm stands i saw women

across the food system

working tirelessly to find solutions

like sophia pasteur who worked to rescue

and redirect over

10 million pounds of crops like potatoes

and onions

from eastern washington farms to western

washington food banks

in the south bronx karen washington

hosted

free farmers markets giving away tons

of fresh produce once again

in a crisis women came together to feed

a nation

but what if instead of turning to women

just in times of crisis we had supported

and funded them long before

what would our communities look like if

anastasia had taken over the butcher

shop

or idzai could quit her shuttle job or

siri had time

to strategize and lead foreign policy

efforts

in hobbling these women we have hobbled

ourselves

globally we face serious agricultural

challenges

how do we feed a growing population on

an increasingly arid planet do we

pandemic-proof our food systems

how do we prevent farmland from being

lost to development

and how do we create a food system that

pays

our farmers fairly for their product

these are gigantic problems and to find

solutions

we need the creativity and leadership of

women

throughout history women show up during

crisis

we feed our communities we pick up

shovels

and picket signs and we go to work

in anastasia it’s i in siri

i see glimmers of lucy on her farm

in ohio maria in california

mona li in oklahoma

and the farmerettes

when woven together their stories create

the quilt

of american agriculture past

and present

you’ve heard of the glass ceiling the

metaphor for the barriers that

women in business and politics face

these barriers exist for women in

agriculture too

i call it the grass ceiling and this

grass ceiling

harms not only women farmers but

all of us who care about the future of

food

in this country

women farmers need enthusiastic loyal

customers

but they also need tireless advocates

they need policies that address the very

real systemic issues

that keep women farmers from accessing

land

and growing their businesses

we need to fund women farmers by

designing more inclusive financial

models

and we need better data women farmers

deserve to be

recognized counted and

seen it has been

quite a journey from that day in the

farmers market to here today

and it’s been my honor to be on the

other side of the camera lens

putting women farmers back in the

picture helping you

to see them too but there is more work

to do

it is time to mow that grass ceiling

down

thank you