Aubrey Fletcher knew she wanted to work on a dairy farm ever since she was a little girl. So she and her husband's family collaborated to start Edgewood Creamery outside of Springfield, Mo., last August. They recently opened a storefront on the farm selling their milk and cheese.
Between the new business, milkings, feedings and fixing things that need to get fixed, there is a lot to do on the farm. "And very rarely my house gets clean," Fletcher says, laughing. Fletcher is one of thousands of women who have taken on leadership roles in the traditionally male-dominated agriculture industry. Over the past 15 years, the fraction of U.S. farms run by women has nearly tripled to about 15 percent. And nearly one-third of farms in this country are run by couples working together.