| 5/1/2009 10:54:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Helping women grow into new businesses
Tere Dunlap
MONROE - There was a time when rural women often got together to help each other preserve fruit, sew quilts and make soap.
Thursday night, about 20 rural and county-loving people, mostly women, attended the "See Jane Grow" seminar at Kookaburras, a culinary and gourmet food shop locally owned by Laura Winters, on the north side of the Monroe Square.
Dani Gierhart, Brodhead, came to the seminar for more information. She had become unemployed April 4 when Woodbridge Corporation, an auto seat cushion manufacturer in Brodhead, shut down.
"My big dream is to own an Alpaca farm," she said. "All by myself."
The interactive seminar offered support to existing women ecopreneurs and those who hold dreams of launching their own businesses related to food and agriculture. The seminar was presented by Lisa Kivirist, an author, ecopreneur and innkeeper of Inn Serendipity in Browntown. A networking reception followed the seminar, featuring locally-produced foods by area women food artisans.
Women-owned businesses are growing at twice the national rate, and women constitute one of the largest, fastest-growing groups purchasing farms today, Kivirist said.
The number of women in farming is on the rise; 40 percent of farms are owned by women under the age of 55.
Working together is an intuitive nature of women, according to Kivirist. More women today are interested in becoming change agents, blending family and work, mentoring and partnership, and seeking a green lifestyle. Profit is not the only bottom line for these women; the planet and people are just as important, she told her audience.
Gierhart's stepmother, Joylene Reavis, part owner with her husband of Sugar Maple Emus farm, near Brodhead, also attended.
"This is right up our alley," Reavis said of the seminar's purpose of drawing rural women together.
Having never lived less than four miles from town, Reaves said she has enjoyed farming all her life.
"It's been quite a journey," she said.
Having been raised in the county, Gierhart's big dream includes getting back to the country with her children ages, 4, and, 6, and also going back to school for agribusiness courses.
Anita Huffington, continuing education specialist at Blackhawk Technical College, also attended the seminar. The college is interested in providing entrepreneur guidance, she said.
Another reason is because the values of rural living involve food, "getting it, cooking it, raising it, selling," Kivirist said.
Another featured local woman ecopreneur, Kriss Marion, owner of Circle M in Blanchardville, raises diversified produce and meats as well as operates Maid Marion, a fiber and educational enterprise.
Marion started her business out of a passion to craft a livelihood that enabled her to steward the land, raise healthy food for her community, express her creative side and share the venture with her family.
Kivirist said the number of women getting involved in farming is growing because more women are seeking better sense of control in a sometimes uncertain life.
"It is the idea of having control over our lives," she said. "Women ecopreneurs see their business as a tool to transform local communities through changing the food system, emphasizing cooperation over competition, land stewardship and meaning over simply earning a living, and often, integrating their children and family into their livelihood."
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