This Is What a Farmer Looks Like

[ismnotwasm]

During the 2013 Super Bowl, Marjorie Gayle Alaniz was captivated by a commercial for Dodge Ram trucks that featured portraits of American farmers. She couldn't help but notice, however, that among the many farmers shown, there were only a handful of women. Alaniz, who comes from a family of Iowa farmers, was disappointed. "I wondered, how has this happened, that images of farms don't include women, when practically every farm has a woman working on it?" Indeed, according to the latest USDA Census of Agriculture, 46 percent of American farm operators are women.

Shortly after her Super Bowl revelation, Alaniz quit her job at a crop insurance company and started documenting women farmers in Central Iowa. The result is FarmHer, an online collection of photographs of some 40 lady farmers and counting. "The feedback has been fabulous," says Alaniz. "It's usually coming from women who grew up around agriculture or are currently involved in ag. They say, 'Thank you for showing the rest of the world that we are out here doing this, too.'"

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/women-farmers-farmher

[merrily]

1. I wish all farms looked like those farms, rather than like factory farms.

[Joe Magarac]

2. All about how it looks, right? Too bad it would mean mass starvation world wide. n/t

[merrily]

3. Of course it is not all about how it looks. Healthier food comes out of farms that look like that.

That is the reason I wish all farms look like that, not optics.

And no, factory farming is not the only way to avoid worldwide starvation.

[freedom fighter jh]

4. Can you support that? nt

[timdog44]

11. I would like to see support of world starvation also.

Last edited Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:41 AM - Edit history (2)

40% of corn production in the US goes to ethanol. A third is used to feed livestock. Only 13% is exported. The rest is used to make the unhealthy corn syrup and even worse, high fructose corn syrup. The myth that we feed the world is perpetuated by the large corporate farms. They get subsidies for their crop prices. They buy crop insurance which is subsidized by us and so end up planting substandard ground in crops. And the ethanol industry is mandated and subsidized. So I too would like to see real farmers/farming again. More and healthier food.

[WCLinolVir]

5. It's how we grow that makes the most difference to this world.

And this is one of the corporate lies that people have continued to regurgitate. That we can't grow enough food without commercial farms that practice mass spraying of toxic pesticides and herbicides and mono-culture.
I have not even begun with GMO's.

[timdog44]

12. I totally agree with you.

Books have been written and could still be written on the dangers of GMO crops.
The high cost to the world of the way this kind of farming is done because of GMO is not only the toxic pesticides and the gene splicing that leads to the eventually death of beneficial insects and birds. It is also the intense use of oil to do all this kind of farming. Petroleum is used to make the pesticides, the fertilizers, the amount of gas used to propel these big farming machines. Transporting the crops for miles and the oil used to make dangerous products and to make ethanol which is a cause of engine failure and lower gas mileage. These people are no longer farmers and would not know what to do to be a real farmer. Most of the people who own farm ground don't know the difference between a kernel of corn or a soy bean. All they see is the subsidies they collect.

[They_Live]

6. you're buying into the Monsanto lies.

really.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. I'm old enough to remember Willie Nelson and Farm Aid....

Corporate farming isn't about feeding the world.

It's about concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few.

[efhmc]

9. So right.

[efhmc]

8. What would it means is actually having people who care about the land

growing food and not turning everything over to big business who spray and genetically modify and do anything to make a profit, poisoning people and the earth.

[jwirr]

10. I am old enough to remember when there was no mass farming and a lot less chemicals. Farms

where small family farms that raised a large variety of healthy crops on the same farm. Unfortunately we did not get as many bushels per acre and fortunately the world was not as over populated then. So we did manage to feed the world for the most part. Or it should be said that we had enough food but it did not always get were it was needed.

But it helped that in places like Africa they also still had small family plots that pretty much fed their families. Then along came the commercial farming that raised crops mainly for export to places like the USA. The small families were moved into cities where they could no longer grow to feed their own and that is when the hunger/poverty crisis in the world became critical.

By the way the families on our small farms were also moved to the cities and until the last 30+ years had good jobs - probably better jobs than farming provided. That is changing today.

[ismnotwasm]

13. These are fascinating responses

And I appreciate them, I do, but the topic was the visibility of women in farming.

[timdog44]

14. Sorry about that.

I missed the point. I am just so passionate about the way farming is done that I got off track. I have to say, that the people I have seen doing real farming are women and I do applaud them.

[ismnotwasm]

16. Not a problem

[MuseRider]

15. :-)

I love to see this! I should send a picture since I am the one farming this place (and everything else anymore).

There are lots of women doing small farming around here and many more just ranching but in Kansas a couple of the largest land owners for farming or ranching are women.

[ismnotwasm]

17. That would be awesome!

Such hard work, and such an incredible, indispensable calling

[MuseRider]

19. I adore it.

It is hard work but my farm could be called a Hobby Farm. I do raise a serious crop but at 54 acres it is not a huge deal. It is also a pretty easy crop for me to handle so there is that too. But then you do have to do the work and do it right and I certainly learned that the hard way. I was raised a city girl and I knew nothing. I almost killed 48 acres of brome hay the first 2 years . Still, the bets out here were that I would last for 8 months then quit and sell. It has been almost 20 years. I win!

[raven mad]

20. +2000!!!

I have access only to a small, woodsy area in the backyard and a couple of very small greenhouses, one of which houses the motorcycles in winter. But I grow my herbs and what I can grow goes in the freezer or is canned; some is given away as a "bumper" crop.

I see the women in the Mat-Su and near Delta Junction working farms year round, not just in spring/summer/fall. They are amazing!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. I love this Thread !!

[GeoWilliam750]

21. Thought I might link this. It came well recommended

And from Iowa

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/annie/