..........Me in my Lotsa-Cedars Dairy T-shirt..........

My name is Hilary, and I'm a junior majoring in Women's Studies & minoring in Anthropology at Hollins University.  I was really excited about the opportunity to do this project because I've recently become very interested in agriculture.  Last semester I studied abroad in Thailand where we learned about sustainable agriculture and spent time working on farms.  Since then, I've wanted to learn more about what it's like to be a small-scale farmer in the United States, particularly in this era of the rule of agribusiness. 

I do indeed have biases and I would like to state them here: I am an advocate for small-scale farming.  I believe that large-scale agribusinesses are damaging both to the earth and to individual people: the farmers that have to grow the food and the people that have to eat the pesticide-dependent, genetically-modified foods.  My interviews with Anita were shaped in part by this bias.

I have enjoyed taking this opportunity not only to learn about the process of doing life history interviews, but also to become an advocate for small-scale farmers in general, and Anita in particular.