Some people will know Marji Guyler-Alaniz because of her photographs of numerous women involved with agriculture in numerous ways. However, it should also be mentioned that she is the founder of FarmHer, which is an online community that makes it easier for women involved in agriculture to interact with one another while also spreading awareness to young women who might be interested in getting involved with agriculture themselves.
Here are five things that you may or may not have known about Marji Guyler-Alaniz:
Close to Her Home State
Guyler-Alaniz was born and raised in a rural part of Iowa. Later on, she went to school at Grand View University, which is a liberal arts college that can be found in Des Moines, Iowa. Even now, Guyler-Alaniz continues to live in her home state with her family, meaning that it is no exaggeration to say that she has a strong connection to it.
Once Involved with Corporate Agriculture
After she graduated from Grand View University, Guyler-Alaniz took up a position with a company that sold crop insurance, which is insurance sold for the purpose of protecting farmers from losses involving their crop. Sometimes, these losses can come from natural phenomenon such as floods and storms. However, these losses can also come from sudden falls in the price of crops. Regardless, Guyler-Alaniz was personally involved with a part of corporate agriculture that didn’t have a lot of representation from women at the time.
Founder of FarmHer
Since that time, Guyler-Alaniz has gone on to found FarmHer, which is an online community for women who are involved in and otherwise interested in agriculture. Initially, it started out as a place where she would post her photographs of women working in agriculture. However, FarmHer has managed to become something much more, as shown by the sheer number of women who use it as a place to share their experiences as well as learn from one another.
Inspired By a Super Bowl Commercial
Interestingly, Guyler-Alaniz was inspired to found FarmHer by a Super Bowl commercial. To be exact, she saw a Super Bowl commercial for Dodge Ram, which made use of pictures of American agriculture as well as snippets of a speech called “So God Made a Farmer.” However, Guyler-Alaniz realized that the pictures of American agriculture included no more than three women in total, which is why she set out to raise the profile of women who are involved in agriculture like she is.
Hosts FarmHer on RFD-TV
FarmHer has become popular enough for Guyler-Alaniz to have been approached by a number of media companies interested in its potential. However, it wasn’t until she was approached by RFD-TV that she agreed, which made sense because RFD-TV’s focus on rural issues and rural concerns makes it a huge presence for rural Americans. Now, Guyler-Alaniz is the host of FarmHer on RFD-TV, which provides her with a chance to go into much more detail about the stories of the women who she photographs, thus enabling her to reach out to an even wider audience out there.
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