Educasting Study Guide on Food, Sustainability, and Society
In the Tractor Seat:
Women Farmers Take the Steering Wheel
Introduction: Zenobia Barlow of the Center for Ecoliteracy
Track1: Program Synopsis
Farming in the United States has been shared work for men and women since its earliest days. However, it has not been until very recently that women farmers have been seen as farmers in their own right instead of “farmers’ wives.” Women farmers are actually one of the few growing segments of the farming population. They are also stepping up to fill a new niche in the food market. Women tend to do best on small scale-farms and tend to be good stewards of the land, working in tandem with the earth rather than exploiting it, as many interviewed in this program assert.Host Mark Sommer explores with his guests why women are entering farming, what kind of farming they’re doing, and what special relationships they cultivate through their work on the land. Guests in this program include Angela Jackson Pridie, farmer and advocate with Organic Grass Fed Beef Coalition in South Dakota, Marguerite Pierce, co-owner of Pierce Family Farms in Northern California, Denise O’Brien, farmer and executive director of the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network in Iowa; and Maria Moreira, a Massachusetts dairy farmer and cheese maker as well as new immigrant farmer mentor.
Track 2: Angela Jackson Pridie
Beef farmer and advocate with the Organic Grass Fed Beef Coalition, Vermillion, South Dakota
Guest Bio:
Angela Jackson-Pridie is the executive director of the Organic Grass-fed Beef Coalition, a collaboration of farmers, ranchers, researchers, marketing specialists and educators. She also is a graduate student at the University of South Dakota School of Education with an emphasis in adult learning, online collaboration and information diffusion.
http://www.organicgrassfedbeef.org
Track 3: Marguerite Pierce
Pierce Family Farms, Orleans, California
Guest Bio:
Marguerite Pierce runs Pierce Family Farms with her husband Patrick in Orleans, California. The organic farm not far from the Oregon border produces tomatoes, peppers, carrots, basil, cucumbers, squash, assorted seasonal greens and melons.
www.ccof.org/pdf/apprenticeship_listing.pdf
Track 4: Denise O’Brien
Women Food and Agriculture Network
Guest Bio:
Denise O’Brien is founder and executive director of the non-profit Women Food and Agriculture Network, has served as president of the National Family Farm Coalition and has bee a candidate for Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture. She and her husband, Larry Harris milk cows, maintain 16 acres of fruit and vegetables and raise turkeys and chickens. She was inducted into Iowa’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000.
http://www.foodandsocietyfellows.org/fellows.cfm?id=80335
Track 5: Maria Moreira
Dairy farmer and cheese maker, new immigrant farmer mentor
Guest Bio:
Maria Moreira is a dairy farmer and cheese maker whose family emigrated to the United States from Portugal in the 1960s. She also teaches sustainable pest management to Hmong farmers as part of a program to provide land, skills and access to markets in Massachusetts.
http://www.folklife.si.edu/festival/2005/food/cheese.html