Follow Along on Ponytail Ag Campaign’s Four-Month Tour of NC

The Ponytail Ag tour will be travelling through North Carolina’s six regions—Western, Greater Charlotte, Piedmont Triad, Research Triangle Park, Eastern and Southeastern—to highlight influential women in the agriculture industry. Throughout the campaign, which was created by N.C. Biotechnology Center’s Ag Sector Development team, N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, N.C. Farm Bureau and Feed the Dialogue N.C., we will be interviewing these women to showcase their inspiring innovations and all the ways in which females can get involved in the industry. 

We encourage both local and national audiences to follow along with the campaign using #PonytailAg on all platforms, and on Facebook @PonytailAg, where we will be sharing live videos, interviews and photos to spark an important conversation around how women are an integral part of the future of agriculture.

The tour will kick off August 26 in Eastern NC. Stops and dates include: 

Aug. 26, 2019

Lorenda Overman of Overman Farms (Goldsboro, NC): Lorenda and her husband Harrell run Overman Farms with his mother and father, where they grow corn, wheat and soybeans.

Marlowe Ivey Vaughan (Lagrange, NC): Marlowe is the Executive Director of the Feed the Dialogue NC Foundation, which educates consumers about agriculture and where their food comes from. She also helps maintain a pork finishing farm with her brother.

YamCo (Snow Hill, NC): YamCo, in collaboration with North Carolina State University and the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Food Science Research unit, offers aseptically packaged sweet potato, spinach, pumpkin, butternut squash and carrot purees using patented microwave technology.

Aug. 27, 2019

Jill Sink of Songbird Farm (one of Braswell Family Farms’ partner growers) and Lisa Prince of the NC Egg Association (Denton, NC): At Songbird Farm, Jill and her husband and son maintain three cage free hen houses that produce eggs for Braswell Family Farms. As the recently appointed Assistant Director of the NC Egg Association, Lisa promotes eggs and egg products to the public.

Aug. 28, 2019

Odile Huchette of NC A&T State University (Greensboro, NC): A horticulture professor at A&T, Odile has taught several classes on plant nutrition and propagation, environmental sustainability, vegetation for small scale production and more. 

Dr. Crystal Kyle of NC Agromedicine Institute (Greensboro, NC): Dr. Crystal Kyle is the NC Agromedicine Institute Campus Coordinator and North Carolina AgrAbility Program Director, in which her emphasis is to develop, implement, sustain and evaluate a comprehensive research-based educational program agenda that meets the needs of limited-resource and socially-disadvantaged, small farmers.

Dr. Andrea Gentry Apple of the NC A&T Animal Research Unit (Greensboro, NC): Dr. Andrea Gentry is in charge of the goats at NC A&T’s Animal Research Unit, and an assistant professor in the animal sciences department at North Carolina A&T State University.

Renee McPherson of McPherson Farm (Mebane, NC): Renee McPherson is a member of Alamance County Farm Bureau Women’s Committee. 

Sept. 10, 2019

Leigh-Kathryn Bonner of Bee Downtown (Research Triangle Park, NC): Leigh-Kathryn is a fourth generation beekeeper who founded Bee Downtown in order to team up with companies to place hives in urban locations. She’s established more than 250 hives across the Southeast!

Michelle Grainger, Managing Director of the Executive Farm Management Program (Raleigh, NC): The Executive Farm Management Program at NC State University features 12 days of content and curriculum taught across 3 sessions in 3 states over the course of 6 weeks. The program is designed to increase the management competencies and profitability of specialty farms across the Southeast by utilizing a holistic operation-focused curriculum.

Mary-Dell Chilton of Syngenta (retired) (Research Triangle Park, NC): Mary-Dell Chilton led a team of university researchers in producing the first transgenic plant, where her research established the groundwork for significant contributions to plant biotechnology, resulting in the discovery of novel methods to improve a plant’s ability to control pests and manage extreme environmental conditions. 

Sept. 11, 2019

Karen LeVert of Ag TechInventures (Research Triangle Park, NC): Karen co-founded Ag TechInventures (AgTI) to focus on technology innovation in agriculture. She is also interested in advancing early stage technologies into the commercial marketplace and serves as a Board member for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, North Carolina School of Science and Math, NC IDEA Foundation, and LCBA Life Insurance company. 

Diana Jones of Jones Von Drehle (Thurmond, NC): Diana and Chuck Jones and Ronnie and Raymond von Drehle are in-laws who started Jones von Drehle Vineyards and Winery in 2007, where they produce estate wines from the thirty acres of vines they grow on their property.

Cristine Morgan of Soil Health Institute (Morrisville, NC): At the Soil Health Institute, Cristine Morgan leads scientific research and coordinating projects at various institutions that advance soil health science and result in useful and reportable results.

Sept. 12, 2019

Laura Lee of Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC) (Cary, NC): EDPNC’s main focus is to recruit new businesses to the state, support the needs of existing businesses, help small business owners get their start and attract tourists and visitors from all over the world. 

Oct. 7, 2019

Jennifer Dorton-Stryon of Carolina Mariculture Co. (Cedar Island, NC): Jennifer and her husband Jay own and operate Carolina Mariculture Co. oyster farm, where they specialize in off-bottom mariculture techniques (i.e. floating cages) to raise oysters for year-round harvesting.

Oct. 9, 2019

Beth Foster of McLain Farms (Roper, NC): Second generation farmer Beth, along with her father, husband and children, grow corn, wheat, soybeans and cotton on their family farm using revolutionary high-tech methods of farming.

Julia Coltrain and Ginny Paul of Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience (NERSBA) (Jamesville, NC): Julia and Ginny are two agriculture teachers at NERSBA, an early college high school that focuses on STEM education with small class sizes and hands-on learning—the first of its kind in North Carolina.

Hortense Dodo of IngateyGen, LLC (Elizabeth City, NC): Hortense is a food scientist who founded IngateyGen, LLC in order to sell her hypoallergenic peanuts, which she developed after earning her PhD in food biotechnology and molecular biology at Penn State University.

Nov. 7, 2019

Carol Waggener of Bold Missy Brewery (Charlotte, NC): Carol is the founder and owner of Bold Missy Brewery in the NoDa district (also the first female-owned brewery in Charlotte), where she brews up innovative beers named after influential women throughout history. 

Kris Reid of Piedmont Culinary Guild (Charlotte, NC): Kris is the co-founder and Executive Director of Piedmont Culinary Guild, a grassroots program that creates an accessible platform of communication within the food industry in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

Ashley Boyd of 300 East Restaurant (Charlotte, NC): At Charlotte restaurant 300 East, head pastry chef Ashley Boyd works with local farmers to source fresh ingredients in order to curate her beloved desserts.

Nov. 8, 2019

Cindy Calhoun (Kannapolis, NC): Calhoun is a Senior Food Scientist at the NC Food Innovation Lab, a cGMP pilot plant that specializes in plant-based food research, ideation, development and commercialization to help food food companies produce plant-based foods like cereal, baked goods, etc. 

Elizabeth Cooper of NC Research Campus (Kannapolis, NC): Dr. Cooper’s current focus of work is on understanding how sweet varieties of the cereal crop Sorghum evolved their ability to accumulate stalk sugars, and what role structural mutations, such as duplications and rearrangements, have played in this process.

Faythe DiLoreto of Fading D Farm (Salisbury, NC): Fading D Farm is a small family-run farmstead and dairy that sells pasture-raised water buffalo meats and cheeses, which are known to be healthier and more nutritionally sufficient than their cow’s milk-based counterparts. 

Nov. 18, 2019

Margaret Bloomquist of N.C. State Alternative Crops & Organics (Raleigh, NC): Margaret is responsible for medicinal herb, forest farming, Chinese herb, broccoli breeding trials, industrial hemp, and organic and biodynamic studies at the N.C. State Alternative Crops & Organics program. 

Nov. 19, 2019

Christen & Bryson Nix of Apple Wedge Farms (Hendersonville, NC): Christen and Bryson’s family-owned apple packing and distributing farm is the largest in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They sell their apples and apple cider in grocery stores across the state. 

Amy Ager of Hickory Nut Gap Farm (Fairview, NC): Amy is the owner of Hickory Nut Gap Farm, which specializes in pasture-raised pork and chicken and 100% grass-fed beef. They sell their meats at a variety of grocery stores in Southeast NC, as well as at their on-site restaurant.

Melissa Paton of Carolina Land & Lakes and Holly Whiteside of Against the Grain Farm (Zionville, NC): Melissa helped Holly and Against the Grain farm secure a machine to make wood pellets in order to heat up a high tunnel in the winter that grows organic lettuce, spinach and other produce.

Nov. 20, 2019

Carrie McClain of Hart-T-Tree Farm (Grassy Creek, NC):  Hart-T-Tree Farm, started by Carrie’s parents Kathy and John Chefas, has been growing sustainably farmed Fraser Firs in the Blue Ridge Mountains since 1986.