Women are Changing the Face of Farming

 Green Panda Farms in Siler City, NC is not your typical farm. In fact, it is an urban farm housed in an 1800 square foot warehouse, owned and operated by Navy Veteran Tenita Solanto. Tenita branched into the farming world after attending the Minority Landowners Conference and hearing that the “art of farming is going away with the upcoming generations.” Inspired to keep the tradition alive, she went home and started teaching herself the ins and outs of gardening, until settling on microgreens. Today, she uses her background in Information Technology to incorporate breakthrough technologies into her farming endeavor.  

 

Farmer Tenita Solanto, of Green panda Farms

Kim Harry and her husband Brian opened Minka Farm in Efland, NC in 2007. Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, Kim moved to NC and earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from NC State University. Her love for animals made livestock farming an easy decision. She raises cows, pigs, chickens, goats, and birds all on pasture. Not to mention, her collection of seasonal fruits ripe for picking, including blueberries, apples, pears, grapes, dates, and persimmons.

 

Short video about the collaborative partnership between Farmer Kim and Chef Vimala from Curryblossom Cafe

 

Jennifer Johnson grew up frolicking about the outdoors and exploring her grandparents victory garden. After outgrowing her first career in commercial photography, she started taking classes in sustainable agriculture at Central Carolina. In 2016, her love for the outdoors blossomed into owning and operating Chickadee Farms, a sustainable vegetable farm in Clayton, NC. 

 

Tami Purdue worked in corporate America for 23 years before stepping into the urban farming community. After listening to renowned urban farmer Will Allen speak about the power of growing food within the city limits, she had an epiphany. Within 10 days she was growing microgreens in the sunroom of her home, eventually expanding into a retrofitted shipping container. Today, her business, Sweet Peas Urban Gardens, is housed on the property of The Well Fed Garden, a 1.5 acre community garden producing organic crops in the heart of Raleigh.  

 

Farmer Tami with her Seet Peas team

 

Women farmers are a growing demographic and comprise nearly 40 percent of US farmers. In the last decade, women have taken the sustainable farming industry by storm. As more women assume the helm of farms, they continue to favor less conventional methods of agriculture. For instance, female farming operations take place on a smaller scale, employ regenerative and organic practices, produce food for human consumption, and incorporate technological innovations. The organic and local foods movement is in vogue yet again, and women farmers are at the forefront of its supply. 

Tenita at Green Panda Farms has taken farming to new heights, quite literally. Her entirely indoor farming operation produces over 20 varieties of microgreens with vertical plane technology and aquaponics, allowing her to scale upwards instead of outwards. In doing so, she minimizes water usage, maximizes ground space, and reduces the chance of environmental contamination. Similarly, Tami from Sweet Peas Urban Gardens was among the first few urban ag pioneers to grow food in a CropBox, a repurposed shipping container designed for a hydroponic growing system. Within a 320 square foot space, she grows a colorful assortment of microgreens with “one-tenth of the water utilized in traditional farming, smart lighting systems, and a 100 percent compostable cotton burlap medium.”

Farmer Jenn has always valued the principles of sustainability. Over time, her appreciation evolved into full-fledged environment stewardship on Chickadee Farms. The importance of soil health is often overlooked by industrial agribusiness for the sake of productivity and efficiency, but Jenn knows that soil is the key to fruitful harvests. As a result, she spends her time safeguarding and enhancing the soil microbiome by using row crops, low-till systems, cover cropping, and organic animal-based amendments. Additionally, Chickadee Farms is Certified Naturally Grown, a peer-review certification ensuring the farm avoids synthetic inputs and abides by organic standards.

 Farmer Jenn, tending to her greens

Sometimes, consumers underestimate women farmers and view life on the farm as a happy-go-lucky primitive respite from mundanity, but don’t be deceived, for it is not always sunshine and butterflies. Farming is tiresome, laborious, and requires 24/7 attention. Kim puts it best, “farmers don’t just farm, we also have to do sales, marketing, website building, taxes, bookkeeping, and on top of that, familial and household duties.”

Navigating a traditionally male-dominated industry occasionally lends itself to stereotypes and sexism. Kim from Minka Farm recounted a story about her first bull purchase. At the end of the day she was able to buy the bull she wanted for a fair price, but not without having to overcome an unfriendly environment and condescending remarks from her male peers.

Generally, conference and networking settings are inviting towards farmers of varying ages, genders, and with different degrees of experience, but financial spaces and hardware businesses can be unwelcoming towards women. Tami recounted an instance at a bank where “the banker kept looking at and speaking to the husband in the room, when he was simply sitting there on his phone.” Similarly, Jenn said, “sometimes it feels like you have to prove yourself a lot, and that can be exhausting.” This type of gender-based exclusion perpetuates sexual discrimination, generating barriers for novice women farmers and a lack of societal support.  

Gender microaggressions take on many different shapes in the farming sector, but as women achieve greater representation and visibility, deeply engrained gender norms will be challenged.  In a parallel to some of the gender dynamics observed in the larger US society, women farmers indicate that they have sought ways to persist in the face of pervasive sexism. They have found ways to survive or even thrive in this unfavorable environment; they remain optimistic about the future of alternative agriculture, and as Tami remarks, “I’ve encountered a few minor inconveniences, but nothing has stopped me.”  

When it comes to the local farming community, Tenita claims networking and connection building is crucial for success. Chatham County’s agriculture realm is booming, and generally everyone is willing to extend a helping hand. In turn, Kim indicates that part of the reason she has been successful is the support and guidance she has received from an increasing number of women in Extension and research offices in her area. While this is promising, women farmers still remain few and far between. In Jenn’s experience, most female farmers live one to two hours away, making it difficult to maintain close relationships and form a supportive network of women farmers.

How have these women established a space for themselves in the marketplace?

Tenita’s mission is twofold: give back to the community by increasing food security while educating the next generation about the farming trade. She actively welcomes educational tours for students to learn about farming, hosts veteran farm classes, and partners with NC State University to promote farm curriculum.

The Well Fed Garden is a collaborative effort between farmers throughout the Greater Raleigh Area. Since Sweet Peas and The Well Fed merged into one, about 80 percent of the produce is sold via CSA and at farmer’s markets, while the remaining 20 percent is donated to the neighborhood and volunteers. The urban farm oasis is open to all and remains a cornerstone of the community, actively increasing access to healthy, locally grown produce while blazing the trail for urban farming initiatives in Raleigh. Pre-pandemic, the decorated space featured garden workshops, farm dinners, date nights, cooking classes, and could even be rented out for social gatherings.

Minka Farm finds success in the marketplace by selling their products at its on-farm store and on Craiglist. Additionally, Kim hosts interactive farm tours for individuals of all ages, featuring barn visits, animal grooming, orchard strolls, and food trucks. Specifically, Minka Farm has been featured in the Piedmont Farm Tour hosted by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. At the end of the day, Kim remains steadfast in her mission to share the farm with the public with the aim of bridging the gap between farm and table.  

In light of the pandemic, Chickadee Farms’ market has fluctuated with the lapse in restaurant business in Raleigh and Cary. The uncertainty of restaurant buyers has forced Jenn to test out new strategies. Thankfully, the farm has established a strong presence at the farmer’s market, and Jenn has used her photographic eye to curate her brand on social media.

Short video about the collaborative partnership between Jenn 

and Chef Caroline Morrison from Fiction Kitchen 

Almost a decade ago, The New York Times writer Kim Severson noted the rise of North Carolina’s local foods sisterhood, but she only focused on a handful of celebrated women chefs and ignored the invisible contribution of the women farmers that supplied their kitchens.  Today, with the dramatic impact of the COVID19 pandemic in our food systems, it is time for our society to celebrate women farmers like Tenita, Tami, Jenn and Kim that persist against mounting challenges to produce healthy, fresh, and environmentally sustainable food.

On March 13^th at 1 pm, People-First Tourism invites you to attend the Triangle Women in Food and Farming virtual tour. In this tour, women will connect from each of their farms to speak about their motivations to become farmers, about the hardships and privileges of their lifestyles, and about all they do to deliver healthy, fresh ingredients for their communities and nearby restaurateurs.  

Written by:  Izzy Norman, Political Science student, UNC Chapel Hill