ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lisa Kaiman got a nuzzle from one of the Jersey calves on her farm in Chester, Vt. Kaiman is among a growing group of women who are running their own farms.
Isle farmers more often When Lisa Kaiman began pursuing her dream of opening a small dairy farm, she didn't get much encouragement.
are women
A USDA study says women run
nearly 17% of farms hereStar-Bulletin staff and wire
Still, the Princeton, N.J., native who first milked cows as an aspiring veterinarian was determined to make it work. She spent some eight years working on other people's farms, studying what she liked and didn't like. She bought an old farmhouse that had no running water or electricity and started remodeling.
In 1999, she officially opened her solo operation, Jersey Girls Dairy, a farm in Chester, Vt., dedicated to providing her registered Jerseys with a comfortable life.
"I can't even tell you how many people told me it can't be done, you can't do it," said Kaiman, 35, who now milks two dozen Jerseys. "Which actually is really good because I'm stubborn as a mule, and the best way to get me to do something is tell me I can't do it."
Kaiman is one of a growing group of New England women who have been changing a traditional stereotype. Six states in the region are among the top 15 in percentage of female-run farms, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture survey, completed five years ago.
Among those states with a growing percentage of women farmers is Hawaii, which placed at No. 3 in the national rankings of women-owned farms. According to the survey 16.85 percent of Hawaii's farms are run by women, behind Alaska and New Hampshire.
Don Martin, statistician-in-charge of the Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service Branch of the Department of Agriculture, is familiar with the USDA survey.
Martin said the number of women-run farms in Hawaii has grown slightly since an earlier survey on that subject was done by the USDA in 1992. At that time, it showed that about 15 percent of Hawaii's farms were run by women, Martin said.
While there is no data on why more women are moving towards agriculture, Martin speculates that farming now may represent more opportunities for women.
"There may be more opportunities for them and perhaps more women see it as a career choice whereas before they didn't," he said.
The next USDA survey on women-owned farms is scheduled to be conducted at the end of this year with results to be published in February 2004, he said.
Paula Helfrich, president of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board, said she was not surprised to hear about the growing number of women running agricultural operations.
"I think that demographic also holds true across the board for other small businesses. There are far more start-ups coming from women than men," she said.
In addition, more women now have access to capital, Helfrich said.
"There are more programs for small and disadvantaged women-owned business while many farm loans are now slanted towards women and minorities," she said.
Helfrich also notes the growing influence of women in other aspects of agriculture, such as research and marketing as well as in agriculture leadership roles, she said.
Nationally, there are likely a number of reasons why more women are choosing agriculture as a profession and running their own operations.
For instance, getting started in agriculture may be easier for women in New England because the region's farms already tend to be smaller, according to Vivianne Holmes with the Women's Agricultural Network in Lisbon Falls, Maine, which provides workshops and other support services to farmers.
"Our regular traditional farms are small here in New England, and so if women tend to want to stay small, want to stay out of debt, want to be able to handle the whole process themselves ... it's less burdensome, it's less frightening to get into it than it would out West where you're talking thousands of acres," said Holmes, who has her own farm with small livestock, pigs and chickens.
In Hawaii, the same explanation may also hold true.
The small size of isle farms could well be a factor enabling more of the state's women to run their own farms, according to Diane Ley, formerly a farmer and now administrative assistant for the Big Island Farm Bureau.
"When I started out, I did it as a cottage industry growing potted Christmas trees, then later turned to herbs as well. For me as well as other women living in a rural area with some land, it can be a start-up business. You can do it on a small scale to get started," she said.
Ley surmises the farming lifestyle is also attractive to women who are raising small children at home.
"So many women want to stay with their kids and have quality time and this also supplements the family income," she said.
Ley believes accomplishing a wide variety of tasks in a day, something that is a feature of today's diversified agriculture, also comes naturally to most women.
"Multi-tasking is a part of this new entrepreneurial gotta-do-it-all kind of style in diversified agriculture," she said.
There are also a number of women in Hawaii who have taken the small acreage they may have started with years ago and turned it into a successful agricultural concern.
Susan Matsushima began her diversified agriculture operation, called Alluvion Inc., about seven years ago.
The operation on Oahu's north shore grows nursery plants and flowers and creates custom gift baskets. But it also handles the marketing and distribution for about 150 other growers. Customers include Hawaii supermarkets and stores as well as a growing tele-floral business for off-island customers.
Matsushima started with seven employees. Today, she has 34.
Like Ley, Matsushima believes women may be temperamentally suited to the multi-tasking aspect of agriculture.
"In farming you have to do multi-tasks," she said. "In many ways its similar to running a household. It takes a lot of hours and it's not a 9-to-5 job."
Leslie Hill runs Wailea Agricultural Group on the Big Island's Hamakua coast, growing tropical fruits and flowers. To her, the explanation for the growing number of women farmers may be related to women's basic propensity towards nurturing things.
"We are more compelled to nurture and that's what farming is all about -- nurturing nature to produce for us," she said.
Experts also believe the national figures underestimate the role women are playing because they don't account for farms that women run jointly with their husbands.
"Women really are silent partners in a lot of farms where they don't get a lot of credit," said Mary Peabody, director of the Women's Agricultural Network in Berlin, Vt.
They're now stepping out of supporting roles in increasing numbers, Peabody said.
"Women have money now that they haven't had in past generations that they're able to invest in their business," she explained. "They have access to education; more and more young women every year are going through and getting college educations in animal sciences, and plant and soil sciences."
Star-Bulletin reporter Lyn Danninger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
