Ag Women Unite

Ag finance agent Shannon Sand recently conducted a regional Women in Ag conference at the Komohana Research and Extension Center. It focused on creating and maintaining healthy farms, cultivating resiliency through learning, and fostering the opportunity for women farmers to connect with one other. A panel of local women farmers from the Big Island—Brittany Anderson, Maddy Smith, and Sarah Freeman—discussed how they got into farming and how they dealt with things in their day-to-day lives and maintained a healthy work–life balance.

This was Hawai‘i’s first year participating in this regional conference, which drew a group of 33 engaged participants. Shannon hopes to present it in more locations on other islands next year. The conference was conducted simultaneously in six states in the region for a total of 680 attendees.

Shannon says, “I think for our first time it was a great success! There was a lot of interest from the women in wanting to continue to meet and learn.”