Award recognizes Amy Wu, chronicler of women in ag-tech
Amy Wu, who has documented successful women in ag-tech and founder of From Farms to Incubators, is one of three women receiving the Women in Agribusiness Demeter Award of Excellence.
The award recognizes achievements in agriculture, and the recipients will be honored at the 9th annual Women in Agribusiness Summit, which will be a virtual event this year, Sept. 16-18.
Ponsi Trivisvavet, CEO of Inari Agriculture, and Priscila Vansetti Machado of Corteva Agriscience are also receiving the award.
“We have a saying here at Women in Agribusiness, and it’s ‘lift while you climb’,” Joy O’Shaughnessy, Women in Agribusiness event director and CEO for HighQuest Group, which hosts the summit, said in a news release. “And these three women embody this philosophy, not to mention excel at our goal of building a growing community of trailblazers.”
Wu is founder and chief content director of From Farms to Incubators, a multimedia platform that uses documentary, video, photos and the written word to tell the stories of women leaders and innovators in ag-tech, according to the release.
Wu, who has written for numerous publications, including Time magazine and The New York Times, an assignment brought her to Salinas, Calif., “where she was inspired by the women who were steadily introducing their technological savvy to the deeply male, $9 billion agriculture industry in the Salinas Valley,” according to the release.
Wu wrote “From Farms to Incubators, Telling the Stories of Women Innovators in Agtech” and created a short film that documents the stories of some of the women, “From Farms to Incubators: Telling the Stories of Minority Women Entrepreneurs in the Salinas Valley and Beyond,” which will be shown at the United Nations Association Film Festival in October.
“There’s the hope that by documenting these women’s stories, struggles, and successes, it will inspire and encourage the next generation of young people — especially women — to understand that agriculture is much more than tractors and overalls,” Wu said in the release. “It’s research, data, science, and marketing. It’s AI, drones, blockchain, sensors, and vertical farming.”
