The Female Farmer Project

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

In Washington state alone there are more than 1800 women who own and operate their own farms; nationwide the number of women farm owners is more than a million. Audra Mulkern, while not a farmer, has been a CSA member for the past 17 years, and is now chronicling the rise of women in agriculture around the globe in “The Female Farmer Project”. Mulkern explains that the idea for the project branched off of her photographic essay highlighting farmers and artisans from the Carnation and Duvall farmers markets. 

MULKERN: I started to notice a trend of women interns coming into my local farms, and so I started asking around and in that process I realized many of the farms in my community were owned and operated by women. And I thought, how did I not notice this before? It’s extraordinary how a trend that I noticed in my own community really quickly blew up to be this international project.

The project has taken Mulkern to five different countries so far.

MULKERN: I have photographed a woman farmer in Iceland, Holland, France and England in addition to the United States. During farming I’m busy out there photographing and talking to women. Then I have a fallow season along with them where over the winter - (I’m) trying to write and figure out what this project is, really staying focused on the stories of the women themselves.

Tomorrow Mulkern will talk more about the women farmers she’s had the opportunity to photograph and tell their stories, as well as some of the interesting things she’s discovered about this new generation of women farmers.

That’s Washington Ag Today.

I’m Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.