Research shows that women are increasingly trading in their desk jobs for urban farming in North America. The new trend departs from rural farming, where notably less women own farm property than men. Only 27 percent of women are rural farmers in Canada, and in the United States it’s less than that. However, today’s urban female farmers are challenging the the North American tradition of women as farmer’s wives, bypassing the gendered property barrier by growing micro-greens in their urban homes. Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Hanel’s Calgary based project Micro YYC focuses on basement-farmed greens nourished by grow lights, planted in seed trays and stored on industry shelves. Pea shoots, red cabbage, alfalfa, chervil, mustard greens are just some of the products she harvests and sells at the local urban Calgary Farmer’s Market each week. Photo credit: Imelda Raby
