The UC Davis Small Farm Center will celebrate publication of its new book, "Outstanding in Their Fields: California's Women Farmers," Thursday, Dec. 8, during a public gathering honoring the achievements of 10 of the 17 women featured in the book. These women, who are beekeepers and mead producers, winemakers, cheese-makers, farmers and ranchers, will speak about their agricultural experiences, and will display and share their food and fiber products.

The event will be held today from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in UC Davis' Recreation Pool Lodge at the intersection of Hutchison Drive and La Rue Road.

"Outstanding in Their Fields: California's Women Farmers," contains detailed profiles of 17 women farmers and ranchers. It also offers a wealth of facts and statistics about California women in agriculture, as well as sage advice from the women for readers interested in embarking on similar agricultural adventures. Published by the Small Farm Center, the book is edited by center director Desmond Jolly.

Many of the women profiled are career-changers, previously engaged in other fields as diverse as air traffic control, insurance sales and homemaking. They made a radical change to farming, ranching or other specialized agricultural occupations, often embracing risk and tackling steep learning curves to succeed. Others nursed a lifelong dream of farming or ranching and industriously, and often creatively, fulfilled that dream.

Profiled in the book are Pat Meade of Yolo County, who has owned and managed West Valley Alpacas with husband Jon Robbins since 1994; Ann Kormos of Yolo County, who is former harvest manager for Terra Firma Organic Farm in Winters; Ann Beekman of Hughson, who grows lavender and keeps bees to produce honey, mead soaps and candles; Jennifer Greene of Scott Valley, who raises grain, legumes and edible seeds on Windborne Farm with the help of draft horses; and Robin Linde, who raises Jacob sheep to produce wool that she spins, dyes, knits and weaves.

Others featured in the book include Phaedra and Judy LaRocca of Forest Ranch near Chico, who own the 200-acre vineyard and winery of LaRocca Vineyards; Jennifer Bice of Sonoma, who owns and operates the Redwood Hill Farm dairy goat operation; Domitila Martinez of Salinas, who fled El Salvador during the civil war there and has started her own successful farming enterprise; Becky Courchesne of Brentwood, who produces award-winning fruit spreads and pastries; Talibah Al-Rafiq of Calaveras County, who with her husband owns a successful cashmere goat ranch, produces artisanal yarns and runs the only custom cashmere-dehairing operation in the nation; Mary Orr of Calaveras County, who with her husband raises both animals and vegetables; and Barbara Melrose of Modesto, a beekeeper who produces honey and bee-related products.