Local farming's feminine side

Donna Gladen, left, picks up a week's worth of fresh produce from Eloyse O’Connor of Garden Delights in Brush Prairie. (Photos by Matt Buxton/The Columbian)

Eloyse O’Connor of Garden Delights harvests the last head of lettuce on a morning her customers pick up their produce. (Photos by Matt Buxton/The Columbian)

Erin Harwood and her son, Kieran visit with Carolyn Hjort while customers pick up their produce shares at Garden Delights farm in Brush Prairie. (Photos by Matt Buxton/The Columbian)

Despite years of growing food for sale, "I never thought of myself as a farmer," Eloyse O'Connor said.

That label made her think of her dad, who dug trenches, drove a tractor and labored on 100 acres in Colorado.

It was O'Connor's daughter, Erin Harwood, who finally convinced her mom that what they do on 5 acres near Brush Prairie is, indeed, farming.

Together they operate Garden Delights. The farm grows herbs for sale at the Battle Ground Farmers Market, as well as vegetables and fruits for 11 families who bought shares in the operation this season.

They are among a growing number of Clark County women running farms. Some of these operations might have been dismissed as "hobby farms" in the past, but they grow food that feeds local families and answers the cry for greater diversity in the food system.

About 500 — or 23 percent — of the county's 2,101 farms counted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2007 were run by women, according to census figures the agency released this year. The number of women farmers in 2007 had grown 41 percent from 2002.

And those figures don't capture the explosion of farming in Clark County over the past two years, said Harwood, 30. She would know. In addition to farming with her mother, she works a day job as coordinator of the small-acreage farm program for WSU Clark County Extension.

The increase in women farmers locally outpaces the national rate. Women are the principal operators of 14 percent of the 2.2 million farms in the United States, a number that grew 19 percent from 2002.

"Nationwide, there are a lot of women who are inheriting farms or their husbands are dying," said Patrice Barrentine of the state Department of Agriculture. "In Western Washington, typically these are women who have started farms."

It's a way for women to work from home, enjoy flexibility, and supplement — or solely provide — the family's income.

On a recent morning, O'Connor picked raspberries, while Harwood pulled her 9-month-old son, Kieran, in a wagon to pick calendula.

"It's what women have always done — be the person who makes sure the family has food to get through the winter," said O'Connor, 64, whose farm income supplements the family's retirement.

The poor economy plays a role, too, Harwood said. As unemployment has surged, many have looked to the land for livelihood.

With the explosion of interest in local food, farmers markets and a rise in the number of people who want to purchase a share of a local farm's yield, "they saw a niche they could plug into," Harwood said.

They do so by making use of smaller chunks of land. In Clark County, total acreage in farms has grown 11 percent from 70,694 acres in 2002 to 78,359 acres in 2007, but the size of the farms has shrunk. The average Clark County farm now is 37 acres, down 16 percent from 44 acres in 2002, according to the USDA census.

As the operations have shrunk, the market value of crops produced per Clark County farm has also dropped — from an average of $34,091 per farm in 2002 to $25,079 in 2007.

As O'Connor put it, "Farming is different in Clark County."