"Farmers’ markets, direct marketing and organic production are some of the fastest growing opportunities for farmers in Michigan, and provide a unique chance for women farmers to get involved in the production aspects of farming." - Sieglinde Snapp, Ph.D., Associate Professor of vegetable integrated crop management at Michigan State University

Interview with Sieglinde Snapp

Sieg grew up in Washington state, attending a one-room school house and helping her 'back-to-the-land' family with homesteading on an isolated island. She attended Washington State University to obtain her BS in Agronomy, and got an MS in Agronomy at the University of Minnesota, where she researched sustainable farming systems, including alfalfa. Her PhD in Plant Nutrition at the University of California prepared her for an international scientist job in southern Africa, working with local universities and crop advisors to help farm families. Farming with limited resources in southern Africa requires the involvement, and hard work, of the whole family, including the women, men, and older children. As a soil and crop scientist working for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), an international agricultural research center, she developed a program that targeted the concerns of women farmers, particularly widows and women with absent husbands. Women farmers she worked with were particularly interested in low-cost soil fertility technologies, such as peanut rotations, that also provided nutritious food for their children.

She is deeply committed to developing new outreach methods and improving communication among researchers, farmers, crop advisors, and extension. She developed a novel farmer participatory research method, the 'mother/baby trial.' This on-farm trial design provides a voice for farmers. It helps researchers assess technologies, working together with women and men farmers. This research method is now used on a wide scale, by scientists from 15 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Historically, women in American farm families have often been responsible primarily for the bookkeeping, child-raising, and marketing aspects of the operation. Farmers' markets, direct marketing, and organic production are some of the fastest growing opportunities for farmers in Michigan, and provide a unique chance for women farmers to get involved in the production aspects of farming. Sieg is working with Michigan farmers, including women farmers, to try new vegetable varieties through participatory on-farm testing. Cover crop and compost are other options farmers are experimenting with to develop more sustainable soil and farm management practices. New varieties can help smaller sized farm families, including women farmers, to address new market niches and to explore new forms of farming, such as community supported agriculture.