Julia Gaskin, UGA Cooperative Extension land application specialist in biological and agricultural engineering, was recently named CAES Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator to provide leadership to college activities in sustainable and organic agriculture.
Love of science led to love of agriculture
For Julia Gaskin, the journey into agriculture began in the biology of the mind and ended in the biology of the soil.
"I feel like I've made a full, full circle," she said.
Gaskin, a University of Georgia Cooperative Extension land application specialist in biological and agricultural engineering in Athens, graduated from Duke University with a degree in biological psychology. "I was fascinated by what the brain did to work the mind," she said. "After a year in a neuro lab, I knew I didn't want to spend my life in a lab slicing open squirrel brains to trace the optical nerves."
She headed off to live on her grandmother's farm and spent two summers trying to grow enough vegetables to make a living selling them to local restaurants. "I realized I didn't have enough to make it," she said. "We'd be below the poverty level for the rest of our lives if I'd kept that up."
Her next job, in a U.S. Forest Service hydraulic lab studying acid rain, led her to UGA's Warnell School of Forest Resources. When the Extension job came open, she took it, and it's been a good fit for the past nine years. In that time, Gaskin has seen some changes.
"I must say that women still don't have to wait in line for the bathroom in any agriculture meetings," she laughed. "But there are more women, though, especially in the area of sustainable agriculture. I don't know why that is, but women in ag seem to be a little more open to different and new ways of looking at things. If you look at the leaders in that area in this state and probably in many other states, you're going to find more women."
Longevity and hard work have brought a greater sense of respect for women in agriculture, Gaskin said. "I might not be the most skilled person," she said, "but people know you're willing to get out there and do some hard work and not just stand back and look pretty. You learn a lot that way."
The big circle is coming back around for Gaskin. In 2003, she began coordinating the U.S. Department of Agriculture state Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education professional development program.
"I've been interested in it for such a long time that working with that program feels like coming home," she said. "Helping small to medium farmers and large farmers that are more environmentally friendly is just what I was struggling with when I was trying to make a living growing those vegetables."