Arizona leads nation in female farmers

      Posted On: April 20, 2018

Via Arizona Sonora News:

In Queen Creek, Arizona, you can find a 1.33-acre lot growing oranges, apples, figs, peaches, pears, grapes, sugarcane, lettuce, tomatoes, pepper, eggplant, okra, corn, green beans – and also raising chickens for meat and eggs, sheep for meat and goats for milk.

It is one of 7,835 farms in Arizona run by a woman.

The farm, named Sharing Life’s Abundance, is owned and operated by Donna Bruce. She’s a registered nurse who works at the hospital 40 hours a week. Since her husband died last year, she operates the farm on her own.  She has no hired staff, just friends and neighbors who lend a helping hand when they can.

According to the 2012 U.S. Census of Agriculture, 45 percent of the farmers in Arizona are women, making it the state with the highest proportion of women farmers in the country. Women make up 30 percent of farmers in the United States as a whole, and are at the forefront of change in modern farming. [Keep reading]