Eight hard-working young women spent 8-10 weeks or longer this past summer working on sustainable Iowa farms, gaining invaluable experience in everything from vegetable and livestock production techniques to harvesting, marketing and customer relations from established female farmer mentors, as part of WFAN’s Harvesting Our Potential apprenticeship program.

Funded in part by the Iowa Women’s Foundation and the Iowa State University Women’s Enrichment Fund, the program provided a stipend of up to $1,000 for each apprentice and facilitated matching the young women with the farmers.

“Opportunities for women interested in becoming sustainable farmers to gain on-farm experience are few and far between, especially in a commodity-ag state like Iowa,” said Leigh Adcock, WFAN executive director. “We are proud to have worked with our funders to provide participants with this kind of career experience in such an important field.”

Not all of the young women intend to pursue careers in farming, but all are interested in working in some aspect of sustainable food systems, advocacy or rural development, both domestic and international.

Jessica Brackett, a graduate student in public administration at Drake University in Des Moines, IA, worked to create a sustainable whole-farm plan for the family farm Mary Ellen Miller has inherited near Corydon, IA.

“Understanding all the aspects that go into creating a business plan for a sustainable farm is a much larger task than I expected,” Jessica said. “The complexity of the governmental influences on the farming system added

to the actual growing, harvesting, packaging, marketing, sales, budgets, etc., has been a bit overwhelming. I’ve been wading through information that is practically a whole new language to me, but it has really been rewarding. I definitely know a lot more about farming than I did

when I started.”

For her part, Mary Ellen said, “Awesome program! Women are definitely in the forefront of challenging our corporate/large scale food production model and moving us toward more local foods.”

Other participants included: Maria Carr, who worked with Perry-O and David Sliwa at Sliwa Meadow Farm near Decorah; Gwen Varley, who worked with Denise O’Brien and Larry Harris at Rolling Acres Farm near Atlantic; Mary Tiedeman, who worked with Alice McGary at Mustard Seed Community Farm near Ames; Svetlana Priscari, who worked with Julie and Scott Wilber at Wilber’s Produce, Boone; Sonja Kendrick, who worked with Susan Jutz at ZJ Farms near Solon; and Jessica Soulis and Kate Solko, who worked with the Iowa State University student organic farm.