What a "Zigzag" Career Can Teach Us | Women Farmers in the Spotlight |Incoming El Niño So Extreme, It's Unnamed |
Compilation of news from industry sources (October 6, 2026)
I attended the 2026 Women in Agribusiness Summit in New Orleans with two things in mind: reconnecting with people across the industry and listening for the conversations that matter most to leaders and the organizations they serve.
One of the most meaningful parts of the Summit was the opportunity to moderate the Executive Profiles Panel. I was joined by three remarkable women – Heather Anfang, EVP & President, Dairy Foods at Land O’Lakes; Abbey Perkins, EVP at StoneX Group, Inc.; and Jaine Chisholm Caunt OBE, Director General at Gafta – whose paths to leadership could hardly have been more different. As we talked, a common theme emerged: careers make a lot more sense looking backward.
The designation of 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization was celebrated at this year’s Women in Agribusiness Summit, held in New Orleans in September.
Svitlana Synkovska, portfolio director for Women in Agribusiness, moderated a panel on the state of women in agriculture alongside Jessica Cabrera, managing director of member engagement for American Farm Bureau; Payal Pathak, a director at Athena Tradewinds, a commodities trading company in India; and Patrícia Arantes de Paiva Medeiros, executive director of the Brazilian Rural Society farm organization. “We need to recognize women’s contributions and speak about them loudly, remove the current barriers, and accelerate action,” Synkovska said.
As a record breaking El Niño continues to grow in the Eastern Pacific, climate scientist Daniel Swain explains what may be in store for the next year as we brace for an El Niño “so far above anything we've previously seen, it doesn't even fit on the same axis.”
