conceive of you just inherit the family farm : 1,000 acre of maize and soybeans . perhaps you ’ve been out of touch with farming most of your life . Maybe you are not such a vernal sprout yourself . possibly you are the spouse of a granger who died , and you ’re not indisputable how to take the reins of the operation . How would you transition a conventional , large - scale farm into a human - scale of measurement , manageable , sustainable , organic , diversified farm ? First , find a friend . A friend with all the right tools , know - how , and fourth dimension to adjudge your script and walk you through this worthy endeavor . Does that voice like an imaginary friend ? Such admirer exist , most likely in the form of a collaborative internet , such as Women , Food and Agriculture internet , also jazz as WFAN . The organization aims to engage woman in work up an bionomic and just food and farming organisation through private and residential area power .
Leigh Adcock , former executive music director of WFAN and current communications medical specialist at Iowa State University ’s Extension and Outreach Local Foods Program , addresses the way WFAN provide resources . These include landowner outreach , on - farm apprenticeships and leadership training that devise women to become advocates for the local food organization . The cleaning woman - only radical that WFAN emcee provide a dependable , nonjudgmental space for interrogative sentence to be answered . ( One of its booklets help womenmanage wildlife and huntingon their land , for model . ) Sustainability is a broad construct that think different thing to different the great unwashed . WFAN provides admittance to the right agencies , tools and expert to help each landowner take step toward their individual sustainability goal .
Acceptance by neighbor who have experienced only ceremonious agriculture practice during their lifetimes requires a cultural shift , perhaps a generational reimagining of a time before large - scale Agriculture Department . While granger as a group are generally slow to change , Leigh has respect a slip .
“ I ’m 57 , and I ’ve lived here most of my life , ” she say . “ I would say that the banker’s acceptance layer among aboriginal Iowans for small - scurf , diversified farming has raise immensely in that time . partially , it ’s seeing that trend across the nation , and realise that the basis for that is sustainability — that we require to be able to stay on to feast ourselves on this earth , we need to keep the shit from pollute the Gulf of Mexico — people are hearing that content . ”
Leigh read many conventional Fannie Farmer are start to add one or two food crop to their operations as a small pace toward moving beyond corn whisky and soybeans . Some have add sweet corn or peas , still on a large - scale production and selling to canneries . Others have pass great ag and entered a niche market , such as nursery - grown tomatoes .
“ These are n’t the hipster kids amount from the city , wanting to come out and farm on a couple of acres — we have those too , ” she says . “ But these are sort of dyed - in - the - woollen Iowa farmers who farm up with this corn and soy all around them and thought , ‘ There ’s probably a good manner to do this . There are other thing that I can do . ’ ”
Leigh shares WFAN ’s credit for these change with virtual Farmers of Iowa , a workshop - based organization whose field days fetch together growers of all sizes and backgrounds . The common finish that unites such a various radical of Fannie Farmer ? search to nature as a model of sustainable agriculture . Leigh explains that Practical Farmers of Iowa has partnered with the university to betroth local farmers in enquiry projects . In this style , it brings diversity and opportunity for education to the masses doing the work , and the enquiry findings do good the integral husbandry residential area .
“ The persuasiveness is that it ’s farmer - moderate , ” Leigh says of WFAN ’s sister group . “ Because they ’re fighting in almost every county in the state of Iowa , more Fannie Merritt Farmer have see their neighbors trying thing , and that ’s what it take . ”
