Women in Agriculture (WAgN)

Today I pulled up my potato plants after seeing a tiny spot of blight on one plant. I'm sad of course but I'll be even more sad to lose my tomato plants. At least the potatoes yielded a harvest of sorts-- small but tasty. The tomatoes, if and when they succumb will take the harvest with them. I can't imagine a year without BLTs. And I'll certainly miss seeing tomatoes lining the window sills in my kitchen just waiting for inspiration.

Of course I feel worse for the commercial farmers in my region who rely on the tomato harvest as a significant portion of their income.

The irony is that at least part of this problem is the result of the number of new people planting gardens. Not knowing any better they purchased contaminated plants from retailers. Now, unless we can get the word out fast I'm afraid that problem will be compounded by improper disposal of the infected plants. These same folks will just toss the infected plants into their compost bins or onto the brush heap at the edge of their property and the spores will simply wait until next year and the cycle will begin again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?_r=1

If you are raising meat birds for the first time and you don't have a lot of skill in the kitchen here is a link to a really helpful video on how to cut up a whole chicken: How to cut up a chicken. Same principles apply to all poultry so you can use this same technique with your turkeys as well.

If you are selling chicken you might want to get this link into the hands of your customers. People will be much more willing to buy your birds if they aren't intimidated by the thought of what to do with a whole bird. But be sure to tell them to invest in a quality boning knife to make the job easier.

If you want to be successful in direct marketing you will have to make consumer education a core component of your marketing plan.

August 26 of each year is designated in the United States as Women's Equality Day. Instituted by Rep. Bella Abzug and first established in 1971, the date commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920.

When you get discouraged about the pace of change keep in mind that it took almost a century for women to win the right to vote in the United States. If you are a woman of voting age please honor the work of the suffragists and exercise your right to vote at every opportunity.

Early last spring President Obama announced the formation of a White House Council on Women & Girls. The mission of the White House Council on Women and Girls is to ensure that every part of the federal government takes into account the needs of women and girls in the policies we draft, the programs we create, the legislation we support.

Be sure to bookmark the website http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/ and check in on their work.

One thing I've been wondering about proposing to this new Council... Given the increasing numbers of women farmers why doesn't USDA open an office of women's affairs to help monitor the needs of women farmers and modify USDA programs to be more user-friendly to this group of deserving women.

What will you propose?