May-June 2017 Volume 37, Issue 3
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Extending Knowledge and Changing Lives in Linn and Benton Counties May 2014
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Farming Skills Grow in Women’s Farm Network Women are turning to each other for answers to difficult farm questions in a nearly tenyear old organization called Willamette Women’s Farm Network. And they are reaping benefits. “People will ask, ‘How do you do this?’ or ‘How do you do that?’ and we use ourselves, use the group as a resource,” said Scottie Jones, one of the original members of Willamette Women’s Farm Network. “We have a really good listserv,” she said. Membership in the group, one of two such groups operating in Oregon and one of many nationwide, has grown from a dozen in 2008 to 180 today. And the network keeps adding members annually. The network has its origins in a steering committee formed by Oregon State University Extension Small Farms Program agent Melissa Fery. Fery, who serves small farms in Linn, Benton and Lane counties, said she originally pulled together a dozen women farmers in 2008 to find out if a network would be useful. “They said it would,” Fery said. “From there, for the most part, it has just grown through word of mouth.” Fery said the thought of
Photo Provided by Melissa Fery
By Mitch Lies, GrowinG Editor
Willamette Women’s Farm Network members get instructions to expand their knowledge of basic carpentry.
starting the network came out of the realization that the role of women in agriculture has been changing, particularly in the increasingly prominent area of small farms.
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“Farming historically has been a pretty male dominated field,” Fery said. “Women were often seen, and in some ways still are seen, as farm wives to the farmers. They are kind of
underserved when it comes to educational programs. And small farms have a large population of new women farmers. “And there is something to
be said for learning from other women, instead of having a guy come in and teach you what you need to know,” Fery said. “The learning style is very collaborative, very open. They are willing to ask questions. It is a very different energy than some of the other programs I’m involved in.” The network includes almost exclusively small farmers, with 70 percent farming on less than 30 acres, and most of them selling direct to customers, with 82 percent marketing their product consumers through farmers’ markets and similar venues. As unique as she is, Jones is somewhat typical of the network’s membership. While many are young farmers just starting out, many, like Jones, have taken up farming later in life as part of professional and lifestyle transitions. Jones and her husband, Greg Jones, decided to leave behind their professional positions in Phoenix, Arizona, to pursue life on a small farm at the age of 50. Other than some hobby gardening and internet research, the couple knew little about farming when they purchased what was then a 40acre farm near Alsea, Oregon. “It was called being naïve at 50,” Jones said. “That is what it was.”
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Prepare to Preserve! OSU Forage Management series offered. OSU partners with Red Cross to offer Prepare Out Loud event. Through the Garden Gate Albany Garden Tour scheduled for June 17.
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/linn
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