6.20.12 Panel Discussion | Women in Agriculture

Avis Renshaw | Mom's Apple Pie Bakery

Avis Renshaw is the cofounder and manager of Mom's Apple Pie Bakery. Along with her husband and 2 grown children, Avis works their Loudoun County farm where the family raises fruits and vegetables for the bakery's all natural pies and quiches as well as several restaurants, coops, and farm markets.

Mom's high quality pies have been featured in national and regional publications including Southern Living, NOVA Magazine, Country Living, The Food Channel: Road Tasted, Off The Eaten Path, USA Today, Fox Channel 5, and Flavor Magazine.

Because of her interest in local food, rural affairs, and land stewardship, Ms. Renshaw serves on Loudoun County's Rural Economic Development Council, the Board of the Loudoun County Farm Bureau, and the promotions committee of Leesburg Downtown Business Association. Avis can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or at Mom's Apple Pie in Leesburg.

Pamela Hess | Flavor Magazine

Pamela Hess is the editor of Flavor magazine, a food and wine magazine based in Virginia since 2008 that tells the stories of the sustainable farmers, ranchers, food artisans, vintners, distillers, and brewers between the Blue Ridge and the Chesapeake, and the chefs, restaurants, businesses who support them.

Pam was the intelligence and national security correspondent for the Associated Press and the Pentagon correspondent for United Press International, for which she covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

She studied French cooking in Cannes, France, and was the in-house chef for a law firm in downtown D.C. during college at American University.

Dee Cook | Virginia Farm Bureau

Dee Cook is Virginia Farm Bureau's Membership Development Specialist. She has 20+ years of business development experience that included training and coaching for Non-Profit organizations that serve to improve the quality of life for Americans as well as For-Profit organizations striving for top-line growth by way of service excellence.

Her appreciation for agriculture was reinforced as a child living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and enhanced by a journey to Belize decades later when she became intensely aware of our need to raise the consciousness in America of our local food resources. She continues to return to Belize to study their agriculture model for ensuring the food supply in this third world country.

Her passion for ensuring the future of farming in America, and a stable food supply for generations to follow us, led her to Virginia Farm Bureau more than four years ago. She recognizes the power of the Farm Bureau to protect our local farms and ensure a healthy, abundant, local food supply that will keep us from a growing dependency on foreign foods as well as the increased risk associated with foods from foreign countries and transportation.

She declares her mission for the benefit of her grandchildren and their children. She recognizes America's children are growing up in a fast-paced world that takes food for granted. Also, the U. S. Census Bureau reports that we are soon to be faced with a population explosion while there are fewer farms with each passing year. This an opportunity for our children to be enlightened to embrace agriculture entrepreneurship as a future, profitable career opportunity. Agriculture education is critical at this time.