Herstory: Women in Organic Agriculture - CCOF

FEATURE
ARTICLE
CELEBRATING THE
HISTORY OF WOMEN IN
ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
By Sarah Jo Neubauer
RU RIVERS HAS BEEN A FULLtime
partner of Full Belly Farm
since its birth 18 years ago. As Dru
explains, she feels being a woman
farmer is more accepted now than it was
at the founding of Full Belly Farm in 1983.
It’s too easy for people to perceive her as
a mother and a housewife instead of as
a farmer. It takes perseverance to be
recognized as a full-time farmer.
Dru recalls being asked by a visitor
to the farm, “‘Where’s the real farmer?’
This is one example of some of the bizarre
comments I have heard over the years. It’s
still a battle.”
Without recognizing women’s contribution
to the history of organic agriculture,
the history would be incomplete. Women
have been fueling the organic generator
for decades through farming, education,
marketing, organizational development,
policymaking, science, research and more.
This is a historical and cultural perspective
that combines many women’s
experiences, insights, reflections, and
passions behind why
they have chosen a
livelihood in organic
agriculture. It would
be impossible to
introduce all of the
ways in which women
have impacted and
developed CCOF and
the organic movement,
but we hope to
illustrate several here.
Zea Sonnabend, Farm Inspector
RISKY BUSINESS
There are risks that women have taken to
help California’s organic agriculture
progress, because women have not always
been as accepted in agriculture as they are
today. But with determination, commitment,
and a lot of hard work, women
continue to break down traditional maledominated
sectors of the labor force, like
agriculture. Women have strategically
refrained from being seen as the housewife,
or the farmer’s wife, because women are
also farmers.
Dru Rivers of Full Belly Farm
Photo courtesy of J. Redmond
Dru is clearly adamant about driving the
tractor and not just doing sales calls from
the farm’s office. “Stepping out of traditional
roles is not always easy. It’s trying
on everybody,” adds Dru.
Zea Sonnabend is a farm inspector,
among many things, and has been working
with CCOF for 20 years. She recalls times
when men would wince when they saw a
woman step out of the car to do a farm
inspection.
Times were different back then. It wasn’t
like now, where there are actual jobs in
organic agriculture. And, Zea agrees with
Dru, she feels that women are more
accepted in mainstream agriculture today
than ever before.
Dru and Zea expressed
their experiences with the
recruitment of women into
agriculture. Dru recalls discussing
how to get more
women involved in farming
at CAFF (Community
Alliance with Family Farmers)
meetings. She advocated
that it was not about
getting more women farmers
on board, but rather
looking at the big picture
of traditional gender roles and how they
have been constructed.
Zea remembers the pressure women
experienced to attend graduate school in
the 1970’s, and specifically to get involved
in agriculture. While she worked towards
her master’s degree in Plant Breeding at
Cornell University, she recalls, “I was often
introduced as the token woman of the agriculture
department.”
She knew she had to gain credibility for
herself and for women in agribusiness overall
by being committed to organic agriculture
as a career.
As for Janet Brians of Brians Ranch, she
was never made to feel insecure as a farmer.
When asked what struggles she endured
as one of the pioneering women in organic
agriculture thirty years ago, Janet replied, “I
was so happy and passionate about my work
as a farmer and what I was doing that I did
not care what others might think about me.”
Further, she was used to seeing women
in agricultural positions of responsibility.
As a girl, Janet grew up with the role model
of an aunt who farmed in Illinois. Also, she
knew women who had been farming for
decades in San Benito County. “Where I
come from, women were never really seen
as peculiar by the family or the farming
community when they were driving a tractor,
pruning, or doing other farm work.”
WHY FARMING?
For some women, growing up on a farm
was their introduction to agriculture. Others
sought a career in agriculture by earning a
degree in entomology or agronomy. While
an activist in college with the United Farm
Workers Union (UFW), Kate Burroughs
decided to work with organic farming to
help others. She was extremely moved by
stories of farm workers being poisoned, and
she cared about reducing the use of toxic
pesticides and the poisoning of people.
Kate worked for the California
Department of Food and Agriculture
(CDFA) for three years on a control and
eradication project, which was a strange place
for someone with a degree in Biological
Control. As she worked to get the
department to stop using dangerous
chemicals, she became familiar with the
political economics of the “use it or lose it
budget mentality” of the CDFA. As a woman
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