For 56-year-old Tammy Burnell, who lost everything she owned in the 2008 Iowa floods, it’s the freedom to stand in the verdant fields of Burnell Farms in Royston, Ga., and call out to the heavens — and know no one can hear her. 
 
 Hannah Breckbill, 25, walked from a career as a mathematician and settled in Elgin, Minn., planting Humble Hands Harvest “to work in something real and be the change I want to see happen in this world.” 
 
 Forty-one-year-old Pilar Rebar quit her job as a pesticide applicator when she realized she had been told lies about the chemicals she was spraying on crops. Vowing to only grow “clean and healthy food,” she started up Sunnyside Organic Seedlings in Richmond, Calif. 
 
 Meet three of America’s female farmers, the most rapidly growing segment of the nation’s changing agricultural landscape. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service reported last month that the number of woman-operated farms more than doubled between 1982 and 2007. Add primary and secondary operators, and there are nearly 1 million women in farming, accounting for 30 percent of U.S. farmers. 
 
 So hot is ag life that novels about farming are replacing chick lit, offering an unexpected twist to the notion of dirty romance. 
 
 Unlike the Farmettes and Women’s Land Army that took over while men fought in World War II, women today see farming as both a mission and a passion. Some want to provide healthy food for the masses. Others are looking to build community or live a life of deeper meaning. 
 
 “Women want to be outside, they want to be near family. There’s lots of interest in where our food comes from, how it was grown,” says Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We are seeing more beginning farmers coming in and I think the trend is going to continue. Women are [already] outnumbering men in owning smaller farms.” 
 
 They arrive on farms — urban and rural, large and small — from two opposite worlds. Many are 40 and older, leaving behind office jobs and careers for the opportunity to get their hands dirty and create something tangible. At the other end of the spectrum are younger women who are coming out of agricultural and environmental science programs with a dedication to food justice, education, and reminding a nation led astray by fast food and TV dinners where its sustenance really comes from. There is also an older generation of women who have outlived their husbands and now own vast amounts of farm and ranchland. 
 
 Combined, they are making new inroads for women who are determined to build a life around farming. 
 
 Tammy Steele, director of the Oklahoma-based National Women In Agriculture Association, says female farmers have gained the respect not only of the USDA but also of the national farming community. That was missing, Steele explains, during the ’60s back-to-the-land movement, when women were more concerned with breaking the glass ceiling in corporate America than they were in tilling the earth. 
 
 What’s more, female farmers have shattered the old stereotypes. St. Paul, Minn.’s Der Thou grows flowers. Teresa Brockman of Eureka, Ill., grows 25 varieties of fruit on her Sunny Lane Farm. Debby Zygielbaum, in her 30s, raises sheep and grows organic grapes, olives, and fruits for Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa Valley, Calif. These women are a garden of variety. 
 
 Women do face some unique challenges in this business. Since women’s farms tend to be smaller, many need assistance with business plans and financing. Access to equipment can be limited. Many seek advice on marketing and how to get their goods to the public. As a result, we’ve seen the emergence of organizations such as the National Women In Agriculture Association and the Women, Food and Agriculture Network, both of which are seeing their memberships soar, as well as other, less formal networks. 
 
 Not everyone needs help, of course. Haylene Green, 68, farms alone on a single acre in Atlanta’s tough West End, raising organic Caribbean vegetables, among them her famous “huge fatty bum-bum” tropical pumpkins. But others set up businesses with friends, sisters, brothers, same-sex partners, fathers, mothers. They’ve created sisterhoods, networks for sharing livestock and tractors, seeds, labor, financial assistance, and know-how. 
 
 Many of these networks are still unrecognized by the mainstream, but some are breaking into the open. Soil Sisters offers tours of organic farms in south-central Wisconsin as part of MOSES, the Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service. The MOSES Rural Women’s Project is led by 46-year-old Lisa Kivirist of Browntown, Wis., who with her husband left a career in advertising at Chicago’s Leo Burnett 17 years ago to start the Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B. Annie’s Project, which offers assistance with everything from risk management to business plans to marketing, has expanded nationally. 
 
 It makes perfect sense, says Merrigan, the former USDA chief: “Women are agriculturalists globally. The U.S. is trying to catch up.” 
 
 What is most apparent, though, is how content these women are with their agrarian lives. “Women make the food choices, they make the choices on what to feed their family, so their movement into farming is very natural,” says Temra Costa, author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat and the force behind the website Farmer Jane. Costa lives outside of Oakland, Calif., where she homesteads with chickens and a small vegetable plot. 
 
 Tammy Burnell, for her part, says she’s known she wanted to be a farmer since she was 6 years old. Throughout the years she kept having a dream, even though she lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that she was growing vegetables in Georgia, near a pond. “Then the flood came and we lost everything,” Burnell says. What next? She typed “Georgia Organics” into Google and up came an 85-acre farm for rent. “So we loaded our ’57 red Chevy truck bearing a water ring from the flood and took off.” 
 
 Burnell uses a plot of the farm she rents to teach young women to farm. She calls them “the blooms.” “What do I love about farming? Teaching. And being able to say I want a fresh salad and walking 20 feet and picking lettuce or a sweet pea for me and a customer,” Burnell says. “Like all the women farming and wanting to farm, I know this: We all want to lift our hands and praise the food, trees, and birds, and scream on the top of our lungs how great it is. And no one hears, not a soul.” ||||| In the four years I’ve served as Deputy Secretary, I’ve talked with thousands of women in agriculture – from young women thinking about entering farming to older women who have been tilling the soil for decades. Each of their stories is powerful on its own. But taken together, they have been an inspiration to the entire country. And today, we know that there are nearly one million of these stories around the country – nearly one million women farming and ranching on America’s working lands. 
 
 A study released today by USDA’s Economic Research Service, Characteristics of Women Farm Operators and Their Farms found that the number of women-operated farms more than doubled between 1982 and 2007. When all women involved with farming are added up – including primary and secondary operators – they are nearly one million strong and account for 30% of U.S. farmers. 
 
 The study also found that the number of women-operated farms increased in all sales classes, suggesting that size does not matter when it comes to agricultural opportunity for women. 
 
 This puts real numbers to a trend that many of us have seen firsthand: there is serious momentum behind women in agriculture. This is personally gratifying for me – supporting women in agriculture has long been one of my passions. And it is a sign of the growing importance of USDA efforts to reach women farmers and ranchers. 
 
 While at USDA, I’ve made this a priority. For instance, in the last four years, USDA’s Farm Service Agency has made significant modifications to its County committee structure to ensure fair representation of minority and women producers. 
 
 We are also highlighting the accomplishments of women in agriculture, even as we work to ensure that USDA programs serve them better. Through the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, we’ve seen how women are driving the development of local and regional food systems across the country. Last fall, I penned an op-ed with another women leader in agriculture, New Hampshire Agricultural Commissioner Lorraine Stuart Merrill, about the contributions women are making in the Granite State’s economy through local food. 
 
 The ERS study also finds that women are leaders in livestock production. Nearly half of our country’s women-operated farms—those for which a woman is primarily responsible for making the business decisions—specialize in livestock. During a White House Google+ Hangout about women in agriculture, I talked with Cory Carman, a fourth-generation rancher from eastern Oregon who left farming for another career only to follow her heart back to Carman Ranch to raise cattle. Now she is the operator of a thriving direct-marketing beef business. 
 
 For me, one of the most exciting findings of the ERS report is that younger women are entering farming faster than older women are leaving. Women also have a higher land ownership rate than their male counterparts, with 85% of women owning all of the land they farm, compared to 66% of their male counterparts. 
 
 But women farmers and ranchers still have a ways to go. More women than men rely on off-farm income, suggesting that farming cannot support them full-time. Only 5% of women-operated farms have sales of $100,000 or more. 
 
 Tonight, I will be traveling to LaCrosse, WI to join WomenShare 2013, an event focused on women in the food system. This will be my last official travel as Deputy Secretary of USDA. As I prepare to leave my post as the highest ranking woman at the Department, know that I will continue to work on advancing women’s opportunities in agriculture. One million women is only the beginning. ||||| CLOSE Here is the full audio of Chuck Grassley's answer to a Des Moines Register reporter's question concerning the estate tax. The "booze or women or movies" quote begins at the 4:10 mark. Jason Noble/The Register 
 
 Reporters wait for the arrival of senators for vote on the tax bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 1, 2017. (Photo: MARI MATSURI, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 If the tax reform packages that have now passed the U.S. House and Senate become law, at least one thing appears likely: The federal estate tax will be slashed and perhaps eliminated altogether. 
 
 That will represent a victory for Republicans in Iowa’s congressional delegation, who have consistently opposed the tax and argued it unfairly lumps in the state’s farmers with some of the country’s richest families. 
 
 But a review of federal tax data and nonpartisan research on the subject shows that family farmers and small business owners represent a tiny share of estate tax payers, and that the taxes they owe rarely force them to sell land or quit farming. 
 
 The number of Iowans paying the estate tax actually numbers in the dozens each year, out of roughly 1.4 million who file federal tax returns each year. IRS data from the last five years shows the number of Iowa taxpayers owing estate taxes ranged from 32 in 2012 to 61 in 2015, and that the vast majority of those probably were not farmers or small business owners. 
 
 Buy Photo Protesters gather outside the Neil Smith Federal Building in downtown Des Moines Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, to protest the Republican Tax Reform Plan. (Photo: Rodney White/The Register) 
 
 Despite that evidence, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee in the Senate, has long presented the estate tax as a potentially ruinous burden on farmers and small business owners. 
 
 “The federal estate tax may force family members to liquidate to pay the death tax,” Grassley said in a statement released earlier this year. “It’s harder than ever for families to pass down the family-run farm or business from one generation to the next. The death tax creates financial hardship for family businesses to survive and thrive.” 
 
 The estate tax is a 40 percent tax on wealth assessed when a person dies, and currently is applied to assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples. The House and Senate bills double those exemptions to $11 million and $22 million, and the House version abolishes the tax completely in 2024. 
 
 ““I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”” U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa 
 
 In a statement after the House bill passed, U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa’s ag-heavy 4th District, cheered the changes, arguing the estate tax “often falls hardest on family-owned farms and small businesses.” 
 
 Likewise, U.S. Rep. David Young, a Republican whose district includes the Des Moines metro, has highlighted changes to what Republicans often call the “death tax.” 
 
 In a newsletter sent on Friday, Young called it a "myth" that "repealing the estate tax is a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Americans." 
 
 Rather, he wrote, "The estate tax (sometimes called the death tax) negatively impacts farms and businesses all over the 3rd District. ... Death should not be a taxable event and families should not have to fear the Internal Revenue Service and more taxes making it more difficult and costly to pass on the farm or family business to the next generation." 
 
 That view, in fact, has been a GOP talking point for a generation or more. President George W. Bush made the exact argument in 2001 when pushing tax cuts that raised the estate tax exemption and lowered rates. 
 
 “To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax,” Bush declared back then. 
 
 CLOSE Senate Republicans have approved a massive tax overhaul that provides more than $1 trillion in tax cuts over ten years. USA TODAY 
 
 Few farmers affected 
 
 The arguments from Grassley, Young, King and others, however, don’t match the reality found in federal tax data – particularly for Iowa. 
 
 The estate tax applies to around 5,000 taxpayers across the entire country each year, and very few of them come from Iowa. Of the Iowans subject to the tax, only a fraction are actually farmers, and a vanishingly small number of them face a tax bill requiring them to sell off farmland or other assets. 
 
 Buy Photo Paula Egan of Des Moines stands with protesters gathered outside the Neil Smith Federal Building in downtown Des Moines Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, to protest the Republican Tax Reform Plan. (Photo: Rodney White/The Register) 
 
 No data is available breaking down the occupations or asset types held by the Iowans subject to the estate tax. But national data shows farmers and owners of farm assets make up a tiny share of estate tax payers. 
 
 According to IRS data from 2016, just 682 tax filers in the entire country who owed estate taxes owned any farm assets. That represents about 13 percent of the 5,219 estate tax returns in which taxes were owed. 
 
 And even that figure likely overstates the number of primarily farm operations subject to the tax. A 2015 report from the Congressional Research Service projects that just 65 farm estates annually across the U.S. face an estate tax liability. Less than a quarter of these, the congressional report finds, have insufficient cash to pay their tax bills. 
 
 A U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis published earlier this year found a somewhat higher number of farm estates owed the tax in 2016: 0.4 percent, or about 160 nationwide. 
 
 Kristine Tidgren, the assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University, said she’s not aware of any Iowa estates forced to sell land since the estate tax exemption was raised to its current level in 2012. 
 
 Buy Photo Protesters gather outside the Neil Smith Federal Building in downtown Des Moines Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, to protest the Republican Tax Reform Plan. (Photo: Rodney White/The Register) 
 
 “I haven’t come across any examples of an Iowa family that had to sell the farm to pay the estate tax,” Tidgren said. “I don’t think the current estate tax system threatens family farmers.” 
 
 The USDA report puts hard numbers to the tax liability faced by the few farms subject to the estate tax. 
 
 Operations the USDA classifies as small family farms (those with annual income under $350,000) face an average tax bill of about $620,000, or 11 percent of their total value of the estate. For mid-size farms (with annual income between $350,000 and $1 million), the average bill is $3.7 million, or about 24 percent of the estate’s value. 
 
 Tidgren said the farmers facing such a bill are typically diversified — perhaps with an off-farm job or business and liquid assets like stocks and bonds in addition to real estate and equipment. 
 
 “With the price of land, there are some farms in Iowa that definitely have to worry about the estate tax, and they might end up having to pay some,” she said. “But generally those are larger operations and oftentimes they have other assets outside of the farm property.” 
 
 The number of small businesses impacted by the estate tax is similarly small. That same Congressional Research Service report finds about 94 estates annually that hold half or more of their assets in a small business that heirs will continue to operate after the owners die. And fewer than half of these don’t have the cash on hand to pay the tax. 
 
 All this means, in essence, is that lawmakers’ argument for abolishing a tax that generates tens of billions of dollars annually is based on the challenges faced by perhaps a few dozen farm estates and a few dozen more small businesses across the entire country. 
 
 When asked for data supporting Grassley’s view, his Senate office offered a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which showed that rising land values in recent years have increased the number of farms potentially subject to the estate tax. 
 
 That report found Iowa farms with as few as 625 acres — encompassing as much as 30 percent of farms in the state — could be subject to the tax in 2016. 
 
 This analysis overlooks key factors, however. For one, it applies an exemption level of $5 million, which is roughly the exemption for an individual. For married couples, the first $11 million in assets are exempt from the tax. Using the Farm Bureau’s analysis but applying an $11 million exemption suggests only farms with more than about 1,400 acres might face the estate tax. Ten percent or less of Iowa farms are that size. 
 
 The Farm Bureau analysis also does not account for various deductions available that can drive an estate’s taxable value below the $5 million threshold. Of the 120 Iowa taxpayers who filed an estate tax return in 2016, 118 claimed deductions and 44 actually owed taxes. 
 
 Young, King and 1st District U.S. Rep. Rod Blum voted for the House version of tax reform containing the estate tax repeal. Grassley and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst likewise voted for the Senate version, and Grassley this year co-sponsored standalone legislation to permanently abolish the estate tax. 
 
 In a Nov. 29 interview, Grassley was adamant about the need for change, even if farmers and small business owners represent a tiny minority of estate tax payers. The reason, he said, is as much philosophical as practical. 
 
 An estate tax effectively and unfairly taxes a person’s earnings twice, he argued: first when they earn it and again when they die. And, he added, it penalizes savers without touching spenders. 
 
 “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” 
 
 The seven-term senator runs an operation in Butler County with his son and grandson and frequently describes himself as a farmer. When asked if his own family farm would be subject to the estate tax, Grassley initially said it would not. 
 
 Then, after mulling it over a moment, he backtracked, noting that if he and his wife died on the same day the estate would be subject to the $5.5 million exemption rather than the $11 million exemption and likely would have to file an estate tax return. 
 
 What the changes might mean 
 
 Should the tax reform package ultimately pass with language doubling the exemption or ending it all together, Tidgren said one likely effect would be simplifying farmers’ financial planning. That’s particularly true for those who end up owing little or nothing, but must take complicated steps to get there. 
 
 U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Dec. 2, 2017 (Photo: David R. Lutman, Special to Courier Journal) 
 
 “There is a lot of expensive planning going on to try to reduce any liability that you have. That’s just smart business,” she said. “So the one thing I would say about the proposals on the table is they would definitely reduce the need for the vast majority of our farmers to worry about it at all.” 
 
 Grassley echoed that point in a statement to the Des Moines Register, citing estate tax-related planning as a major headache for farmers and business owners. 
 
 “Family farmers, small businesspeople and others that may be affected by the estate tax understand that it is law, so many are forced into spending large sums of their hard-earned dollars on lawyers and accountants to avoid its impact instead of reinvesting in their business,” he said. “This means that while many don’t end up paying the tax, it still has a negative effect on the economy.” 
 
 Beyond that, of course, pulling back or eliminating the estate tax would save billions for the richest Americans. Seventy-two percent of estate tax payments come from the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers; 42 percent comes from the top 0.1 percent. 
 
 How the estate tax works 
 
 The estate tax is a 40 percent tax on assets assessed when a person dies. The rate and income levels subject to the tax have bounced around a lot over the last two decades, but under current law it kicks in on assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples. 
 
 How might that play out in real life? Imagine a couple with assets — property, stocks, cash savings, etc. — valued at $21 million. When the surviving spouse dies, the estate would owe $4 million in estate taxes — 40 percent of the $10 million above the $11 million exemption. 
 
 (This is just an example; there are several available deductions that could drive down the tax liability even further.) 
 
 The tax bill that passed the Senate last week doubles the exemption to the tax, so that it’s applied only to an individual’s estate above $11 million or a couple’s estate over $22 million. In the example given above, the couple would no longer be subject to the estate tax at all; their assets are below the $22 million exemption. 
 
 The House’s tax reform package, passed in November, is even more generous: It doubles the exemptions starting in 2018 and then abolishes the tax altogether in 2024. 
 
 The Senate version would reduce government revenues by $83 billion between 2018 and 2027, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The House approach would reduce government revenues $150.7 billion over that time. 
 
 The House and Senate must now reconcile the differences between their bills and send a final version to President Donald Trump. 
 
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– One of the biggest changes in agriculture isn't so much about what type of seeds are being planted as who is planting them: women. Grist expands on a USDA study showing that the number of farms run by women has nearly tripled in the last three decades. Add in secondary operators, and women now account for 30% of American farmers. The trend is accelerating of late, and Grist sees two general groups—women 40 and older who are ditching office jobs and 20-somethings coming out of school with agriculture or environmental science degrees. A few general characteristics: Women's farms are typically on the small side, with only 5% registering sales of $100,000 or more, says a blog post from USDA deputy chief Kathleen Merrigan. Along those lines, more female farmers rely on "off-the-farm" income than their male counterparts. 85% of women own the land they farm, versus 66% of male farmers. Younger women are entering farming at a faster clip than older women are leaving. And finally, "so hot is ag life that novels about farming are replacing chick lit, offering an unexpected twist to the notion of dirty romance," writes Grist's Lori Rotenberk, referring to this story in the Atlantic.