April 2007: From the editor
The road still
traveled
When they started 38 years ago, they wanted a voice, for
themselves, for their business, and for their way of life. When
a group of Oregon farm wives organized as the Oregon Women for
Agriculture in 1969, they were among the first of their kind;
so far ahead of the pack that this Oregon outpost helped birth
the national American Agri-Women group in 1974.
As with all pioneers, they had to change expectations of who
they were and what they would do. “Early on, we were
expected to be the kitchen group, or were asked to decorate the
tables,” remembers Deanna Dyksterhuis, a past president
who has a family farm in Corvallis. The elegant Dyksterhuis
then remarks softly that they put a swift end to that
nonsense.
Education was their goal, for themselves and the world outside
the farm. In the decades since they started, these women have
lobbied Congress and the state, helped create the Summer
Agricultural Institute to connect teachers to their world, and
started agriculture scholarships for students at Oregon State
University.
It is education with a large dose of sisterhood that draws
them together for their annual convention, which this year was
at the Hotel Oregon in McMinnville. About 40 of the
group’s 350 members attended the early March event, which
mixed talks by experts on branding, new regulations and
alternative energy with wine tasting and trips to a local
nursery and creamery. There also was a panel of founding
members who talked about the long road they had traveled, and
the long road that still stretches ahead.
Farms owned or operated by women are increasing in Oregon. In
its latest figures, the state lists about 7,100 farms where
women are the principal operators, up from about 6,000 in 1997.
Most of these are small farms, earning less than $10,000 a
year. The increase in women-run farms has been attributed to
that small-farm growth, daughters returning to the family farm
to care for aging parents, and more women who keep the farm
after their husbands die or they divorce.
But you can’t rely on statistics to give you the whole
picture. Given that there are 40,000 farms in the state, and
92% of them are family-owned, there are many more women who own
their farms with husbands. They aren’t officially
counted; they remain invisible.
It is that enduring invisibility that past president Marjorie
Ehry sees as OWA’s biggest challenge. That, and
“just surviving.”
“Most of our young women are working off the farm
full-time to make it,” she says, “and they
don’t have time to get involved.”
This generaton wonders if the next generation will replace
them.
“When I first joined we were all full-time farm wives;
you married your husband and that’s what you did,”
says Dyksterhuis. “Our kids looked at how hard we worked
and said, ‘No way.’”
That said, they know they’ve made progress. You only
have to look at the June 1973 OWA newsletter to see that:
There’s a recipe for lunch-box berries along with
coverage of several farm-related bills in the state Legislature
and a call for the membership to get involved. There’s
also a picture of the group’s officers, identified as:
president, Mrs. George (Liz) VanLeeuwen; secretary, Mrs. Grant
(Genevieve) Lindsay; first vice president, Mrs. William (Theda)
Tucker; and treasurer, Mrs. Everett (Phyllis) Falk.
Thirty-four years later, when the formidable past presidents
line up to get their picture taken together, their nametags say
Liz, Loydee, Judy, Deanna, Marjorie, Gerry — the
parentheses long ago having been discarded.
entified as: president, Mrs. George (Liz) VanLeeuwen;
secretary, Mrs. Grant (Genevieve) Lindsay; first vice
president, Mrs. William (Theda) Tucker; and treasurer, Mrs.
Everett (Phyllis) Falk.
Thirty-four years later, when the formidable past presidents
line up to get their picture taken together, their nametags say
Liz, Loydee, Judy, Deanna, Marjorie, Gerry — the
parentheses long ago having been discarded.
— Robin
Doussard
editor@oregonbusiness.com
