“What farm do you work at?” is a question I am almost always asked when someone learns that I am a farmer. I often wonder, if I were a man, would the question instead be, “What farm do you operate?” Even in a state that is leading the nation with the number of farmers who are women— Alaska is at 48 percent, compared to about 37 percent nationwide—it feels like it’s sometimes hard for a person to see me, a late-30-something woman, as a farm owner/ operator instead of a farmhand. Historically, worldwide, women were the original farmers. We tended the earth, nurtured plants and animals, harvested crops, saved seeds, and prepared food for storage. In many cultures, women still do the bulk of this labor. The United Nations named 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to honor this legacy and to highlight the essential and often unrecognized role women have across food systems.

Not only am I a woman farmer, but I also run a small, seasonal farmers market in Palmer that I started with two other women farmers. At the inception of the Matanuska Community Farmers Market, we decided to do something radical: prioritize regenerative-style farms that only used “organic” and “beyond-organic” types of practices. I put these words in quotes because organic certification across Alaska is expensive, and therefore rare, so even if a producer goes above and beyond certification standards, they often don’t pay for certification. When our list of vendors was confirmed for the first season, we noticed something. All our vegetable farms were woman-owned and -operated. In fact, all our farms were either run by a woman or co-owned by a woman.

I believe women’s connection to mothering shapes how we farm.

I’m going to take a leap here and suggest this is because women, queer, and nonbinary individuals in agriculture tend to approach feeding their community from holistic perspectives. We often aim to steward the land and follow a model of reciprocity rather than extraction of commodities. Many of us are firstgeneration farmers who were drawn to work closely with the land and to feed our neighbors. Some of us come from an environmental background. This regenerative approach to agriculture (which is in no way new but is instead a return to old ways of farming with new and improved tools) mirrors the caretaking role that women have held from time immemorial. I believe women’s connection to mothering shapes how we farm. My perspective is not meant to diminish the men who also practice regenerative agriculture. My point is merely, if someone comes across a woman farmer—out in the field, toiling in the soil, in rain or sun—chances are, she is approaching agriculture with a mindset that leaves the common U.S. extractive, industrial model in the dust. Because she doesn’t want dust to be all that remains. She wants soil. Soil that has been cared for in a way that promises abundance to the future.

I can only hope that the International Year of the Woman Farmer, while recognizing women’s historical and current contributions to agriculture, will also push agriculture in a new (or dare I say, old) direction. Not in the direction of bigger is better, or in the direction of AI and technological innovation, but in the direction of care, stewardship, and reciprocity. In the direction of feeding our communities, rather than exporting commodities.