And on This Farm She Found a Future

When I went to college I had several opportunities to obtain internships related to my major. But something kept enticing me back to those fields every summer to work. Maybe it was a way for me to escape the crowded metropolitan area where my parents lived. After all, the farm was an island in the midst of suburban development. Or perhaps it was rewarding to know that I was helping to preserve the American tradition of farming.

The more time I spent on the farm, the more it influenced my life in a positive way. As the plow turned new soil each spring, I cultivated the love of the farm boy I worked with, whom I eventually marriedafter several years of dating. While working on the farm I also became aware of the importance of com-munity-farmer interactions. I gave farm tours to inner-city school groups who were amazed to see how tomatoes, corn and peppers grew.

After college I went to graduate school to study agricultural production. I now combine hard work and brains in my job conducting plant-pathology research on vegetable crops at Rutgers University. Unfortunately, there are still times when I am challenged about my choice to study agriculture. Someone once asked me, "Why would you want to go into agriculture? It's a dying field that's not going anywhere." I told that person that despite cultural, religious, political and economic differences worldwide, people in every country have one thing in common: we eat. It is a dirty job, but somebody has got to help feed them. Before graduate school I was warned that this was not a job for those who expect to get paid a lot of money. So why have I pursued a career in agriculture, considering that I'm on a dirty road less traveled by women where I am at risk from skin cancer, back strains and sweat stains? Maybe it is because I have dedicated myself to a job where I strive to improve agricultural practices for farmers and the natural world. Or maybe it's because along the way I have been told that I clean up nicely.

Brill lives in Cherry Hill, N.J.

© 2007