WFAN Advisory Board
2012
The WFAN Advisory Board is made up of volunteer directors who serve up to two consecutive three-year terms to guide the organization in strategic planning, fundraising, programming and outreach.
Our advisory board currently includes the following women:
Originally from Wilmington, DE, I have traveled to gain experience with different forms of agriculture, from interning on an organic farm and animal sanctuary in 
Maine and conducting farmer interviews in Kenya for my senior honors thesis, to teaching agroforestry techniques in Ghana while serving in the Peace Corps and immersing myself in Iowa’s rich agriculture. Here in Iowa, I have worked for an organization dedicated to sustainable ag., raised my own pastured poultry and a grass-fed black angus, managed a brand new and diverse farm interview, and have grown and learned to preserve my own food.
Through all of this, I have developed a deep passion for local, natural, organic/beyond/organic foods and seek to use my passion to help others gain access to these same foods. I am beginning my own vegetable farm in eastern Iowa, and plan to raise chickens and bees.
I hope to have a lot to offer WFAN, as it has already offered me so much in terms of networking and knowledge.
A fifth-generation Iowan, I moved back to Iowa in 2010 from Austin, TX, where composting was easier but gardening was not. I have an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and my writing explores rural landscapes and our food system’s impact upon them. I’m currently pursuing a master’s degree and, eventually, a PhD in Sociology and Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Travelling, cooking, gardening, camping, reading, writing, and teaching writing are hobbies of mine. Through my work with WFAN, I look forward to learning from and empowering women working in agriculture. It is a great honor to be back in Iowa as we revise and renew our connection with food, those who raise it, and the land from which it grows.
I grew up on the east coast and moved to Iowa in 1993 to work at Scattergood Friends School near Mt. Vernon. I’m currently the Scattergood Farm’s Livestock Manager, which means that I work with highschool students to look after our cattle and sheep, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, as well as helping in the garden and
orchards. I love to work outdoors with young people, engaging their sense of wonder, their knowledge of the ecosystems around them, their practical skills, and their ingenuity. I also work indoors: in the classroom as an art teacher and liaison between the farm and science teachers; and in the kitchen as a cook.
I grew up in Sigourney, Iowa, the daughter of farming parents who raised feeder pigs and corn and beans (besides six kids, that is.) My training and experience include the worlds of food and wine, education, and horticultural communications, set on a foundation of entrepreneurship and community service. I began my work as a garden communicator by editing and publishing IowaGardener.com, and The Iowa Gardener’s Guide. I then moved on to The Des Moines Register, and then the Meredith Corporation, where I was a senior associate editor for garden and outdoor living at Better Homes and Gardens magazine. In 2009, I made the move back to freelancing and other creative pursuits that allow me to make connections between food, land, and community. My husband and I live in Winterset, Iowa.
2012 Board Chair
Steph Larsen is currently the Rural Policy Organizer for the Center for Rural Affairs in northeast Nebraska and works on issues related to health care reform in rural areas. Previously she spent three years in Washington, D.C., working on food security and nutrition issues with Community Food Security Coalition. She holds an MS in geography from her home state of Wisconsin. Steph grows as much of her own food as she can, and recently purchased a farm with her partner.
Hannah Lewis, MS Sustainable and Sociology (Iowa State University), works for the National Center for Appropriate Technology as the Midwest Regional Office Director. She specializes in local food systems, beginning farmer entrepreneurship, and outreach to underrepresented communities.
Hannah enjoys bike-commuting, pot-lucking, composting, and dancing.
I grew up in Carrington, North Dakota, where my parents still farm. It’s a small to medium size farm (for North Dakota) – about 1,500 acres of spring wheat, durum wheat, sunflowers, soybeans and smaller specialty crops. We never had any animals, so I don’t know how to milk a cow or anything like that. I did have the enthralling fun of pulling weeds from 10 acres of trees for several summers after my dad planted a shelterbelt. My siblings and I always had an inordinately large garden with sweet corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peas, squash, zucchini, etc. that we had to plant, water, weed, harvest and then sell to the neighbors. A little known fact: August is the only month of the year that North Dakotans lock their cars – otherwise you come back from shopping and find your back seat filled with zucchini.
I am an attorney with a background in policy and public interest work. Most recently, I worked as a staff attorney for Plains Justice, a non-profit environmental law center that provides legal services on environmental issues to non-profits and community groups in the upper Plains (Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Montana).
What I like best about WFAN is its dual focus on women and sustainable local food systems. I think the agricultural economy in the United States needs to undergo a complete transformation for the sake of farmers, rural communities, our food supply and our environment. Women, who own a lot of the land and provide a lot of the labor in the agricultural system, have tended to be marginalized in farm policy discussions. Women’s role as relative outsiders in this process actually creates an excellent receptivity to the non-traditional approach to agriculture that is so vital right now.
The connection between food and agriculture seems pretty obvious but in a world where most of the crops being grown go to making gasoline additives or plastics, food and agriculture can be pretty farm removed. It is my belief that those who grow and raise food have a valuable and necessary contribution to society. Those people that grow fruits and vegetables and those who raise free range beef, chicken, and pork contribute an edible product into the food chain, with little to no processing. This type of agriculture produces immediately edible products that are, more healthy nutritionally and socially. On the other hand, industrial agriculture creates food products as well but not immediately useful ones. Field corn can be made into high fructose corn syrup, and soybeans can be made into cooking oils, but they have many other layers of industry to pass through before they come out as a Twinkie. I would much rather have sweet corn over a Twinkie any day.
The connection between women and food seems evident as well. Traditionally, women are the main food buyers and preparers. Women are the primary decision makers when it comes to purchasing food. We have important incite into why people buy, what people buy, and where people buy. This puts us in a position to make progressive change in the food system. If women choose to buy local, trends will reflect it.
The connection between women and agriculture may not be as evident, but it is there none the less. Women are very much involved in agriculture. If they are not the sole proprietor in a farming operation they are generally part of a farming partnership. Even conventional farming, most likely includes a wife, a mother, or a sister in some way or another; and the number of women who own and work their own land is growing every year. Women play an equally important role in the agricultural system and deserve to be equally involved in the language. What pops in your head when you think ‘farmer’? I bet it’s an old man in greasy bib overalls, standing in his field of corn, and that’s not always the case. That’s the perspective I would like to change. Women are farmers, not farmwives. It’s important that women and men alike know that and understand what it means.
Women, Food, and Agriculture seems like an obvious cluster of issues to me and that’s why I am involved in this network. There are some key changes that need to be made in agriculture and food systems and women have a unique role in that change. We are our own experts whether we know it or not and being in network together helps us share and solicit that knowledge. I am here to teach and mostly to learn. Being a board member for this organization will help me grow and in turn I can help other women to grow in their ideas and principles. I’m so happy and excited to be a part of this group with so many dedicated, progressive, and interesting people.
In her personal life, Siobhan and her husband are slowly restoring a 100-year-old schoolhouse. Siobhan swims, cycles, is a contemporary art enthusiast and part-time farmer, and recently welcomed a baby daughter.
Betty is professor of sociology at Iowa State University, where she is part of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture. She was one of the original members of WFAN, and lives near Ames, IA.
WFAN/PO Box 611/Ames, IA 50010/515.460.2477
