Close your eyes and picture a farmer.

The way John Berry figures it, the image that comes to mind will be that of a man. In fact, he says, stories of successful farmers are usually about men and people who sell supplies to farmers often pay little attention to women.

Winifred Williams-McGee offers up a sobering statistic from the 2002 Census of Agriculture on those notions: The number of women who were principle operators of ag businesses increased by 21 percent to 6,079 from 5,009, in Pennsylvania in the five-year period beginning in 1997. That’s greater than the 13 percent increase across the nation for the same period. (continued)