FROM FARMS TO INCUBATORS

A debut agriculture book offers an introduction to women changing the field.

In this volume, a companion to her 2016 documentary, Wu profiles women working in agriculture who are revolutionizing the industry. Twelve women are the subjects of their own chapters, and there are 11 shorter profiles in the book’s final chapter.The author presents women from a variety of sociocultural and educational backgrounds who work in different aspects of the industry, including as farm managers, data scientists, biologists, and software engineers. The women are primarily based in the United States, but Wu also includes several from other countries. The profiles explore the women’s personal and professional backgrounds, the insights that led to their discoveries and innovations, and how they see their roles in the companies they run. Although many of the women are involved in highly specialized research and technical work, the author makes their activities both intriguing and comprehensible to readers with no knowledge of the agriculture sector (Thuy-Le Vuong “developed an extraction method that retains the nutrients from the redmelon fruit while avoiding the use of organic solvents”). Readers who are more interested in the business side of agriculture will also find plenty of noteworthy tidbits, as the profiles examine the companies themselves, from finding startup funding and leasing lab space to managing and mentoring. Wu does an excellent job of delivering many different aspects of the agriculture industry and explaining how the women featured in the book fit into the broader context of the field. The text is generally well crafted and engrossing, and even readers who have never before considered how the temperature of a beehive is a representation of its overall health or calculated how many days of fodder are available in a given pasture are likely to be both captivated and informed by it. A wealth of photographs taken by Wu and contributed by the book’s subjects give readers a clear picture of who these women are and what they do.

A well-written and engaging look at leaders in agriculture.