Arizona leads nation in proportion of female farmers

PHOENIX — The peach trees are in full bloom at Janna Anderson’s farm nestled at the base of South Mountain in Laveen, just south of Phoenix.

“Everything that you see here, except for the date palms, was planted by me over the last seven years,” Anderson said. “It’s been my heart and soul put into this property.”

Growing on her seven-acres of land are more than 1,000 fruit trees, including varying citrus and rare Maktoom date palms brought from Iraq more than a century ago. She also has two other sites in Waddell where she grows a variety of vegetables and heritage grains.

Anderson owns 57 acres of farm land in total, and they all make up Pinnacle Farms. She is part of the growing number of women farmers in Arizona.

The latest numbers by U.S. Department of Agriculture showed 45 percent of farms in the state are owned by women. Nationally, that same statistic was 30 percent, making Arizona the state with the highest proportion of farms owned by women.

Julie Murphree, outreach director for the Arizona Farm Bureau, said those numbers are mainly being driven by what’s happening on tribal lands in Arizona. She said in the Navajo and Hopi tribes, for example, women are listed as primary owners of farms because of their matriarchal culture.

“They’re basically farming for their family or they might be growing some, for example, ceremonial corn,” she said.

Another reason is more women are venturing into urban farming, though Murphree said she only has anecdotal evidence that it’s happening.

Anderson said she became interested in farming when she was about to finish nursing school. She went to a farmer’s market and that’s where her interest for farming blossomed.

“I saw that there was a huge need for growers at the time, and I thought, ‘You know what? That could be kind of fun,’” she said.

The seven acres near South Mountain was the first plot of land she bought.

“When I first bought it was so hideous,” she said. “There was nothing on it. There was nothing but desert scrub.”

She spent the first year cleaning it up, grading the land, and figuring out how to set up an irrigation system. The property also had an adobe house that needed repairs.

A year later, she was finally able to begin planting. She said one of her biggest challenges was not coming from a farming family and having to learn everything on her own.

“You just can’t go out and ask other farmers, ‘Well, what’s the best recipe for the care of whatever they’re growing,’” she said. “You have to pull all your resources together and just give it a shot, and that’s what I’ve done.”

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