OXFORD – Morrisville State College professor Sheila Marshman of Oxford has been invited to speak at the United Nations about the increasing presence of women in agriculture and their role in a global food market.
Marshman will speak during the Women’s Role in Food Security and Sustainable Development: Partnership Between Rural and Urban Women session during the fifty-sixth meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, which will take place at the UN on March 1. Marshman was nominated to speak on behalf of New York Agri-Women, a statewide organization which she serves as secretary in addition to her tenure at the college.
“There is no higher calling than agriculture,” Marshman said in a phone interview last week. “There is nothing more important than getting up every morning and feeding the world.”
This is the valuable message she will take with her to the UN as she addresses growing concerns that surround domestic and international food markets, traceability of food products, food safety and the challenges small farms face with such issues with her primary focusing being on the roles women play in the process.
“What this is all about is empowering women to feed the world and doing so in a sustainable way ... Women involved in agriculture have a unique relationship,” Marshman explained. “Women will continue to emerge as leaders in the food system. We are educators, entrepreneurs, executives, board members, and stewards of the land.”
Marshman is certainly no stranger to the local agriculture industry. In 2010, Commerce Chenango named her Agricultural Advocate of the Year and her husband, John Marshman, operates a sixth-generation dairy farm, which has received numerous local, state and national awards.
According to Marshman, “Chenango County is poised to capture the growing consumer interest in local foods. We must not lose sight of the fact that a healthy rural economy equates to a healthy national economy.”
“We must work together to prepare to feed 9.1 billion people by the year 2050,” she added, noting the challenges that lay ahead in the agricultural industry. According to the US Census Bureau, woman-operated farms in the United States have steadily grown over the last ten years, from 9 percent in 2002 to 30 percent in 2007, she said. She went on to say that continual development is needed to ensure a safe, secure and practical global food market and her mission is to enable women to step up to these challenges to meet the demands for food supply.
After speaking at the United Nations, Marshman will also attend the second annual New York Agri-Women conference on March 2 and 3 in Long Island. There, she will head a panel of female agriculturists from across the state in a discussion of upholding agricultural policy and maintaining an efficient food system.
“Food safety issues will continue to be at the forefront of any local food model,” Marshman wrote in her first draft presentation to the UN. “As I tell my students, it has been proven time and time again that a healthy rural economy equates to a healthy national economy, creating a win-win situation for all women in all countries.”