A few experiences left her enraged: the banker who insinuated something lewd about the relationship she had with her farm manager; the insurance salesman who convinced her to buy a new policy, neglecting to tell her she wouldn’t be covered if her barn collapsed from the weight of ice and snow (which it did); the bankers who gave her a runaround when she needed a loan to cover the $200,000 it would cost to build a new barn.“It’s really tough for women, and particularly for widows,” she told me.

It was hard for her to keep track of everything she was expected to do. When she got home from the hospital after her husband died, she remembered that he had mentioned he needed to buy pumpkin seeds, so she sorted through his files until she found out where he’d bought them and how much he’d purchased in the past. But for other tasks, there weren’t clues:She didn’t know that she was supposed to be taking a soil sample every year to test it, or that she was supposed to work with her soil in different ways every year, for example.

Sink isn’t the only one who struggled to get up to speed. Now, the American Farmland Trust is holding “learning circles” across the country to educate women who are new farm owners about how to handle things like soil sampling and conservation practices. It is also trying to help women who decide to lease out land understand how to negotiate rates and write leases. There are certain clauses owners can put in their leases to govern how their land is farmed, requiring farms to use practices that conserve the soil or are better for the environment, for instance, and sometimes tenants push back, Filipiak said.“I’ve met women who have terrific relationships with their farmers, I’ve met women who are being completely ripped off by their farmers,” she said.

Karla Thieman, the chief of staff of Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tom Vilsac, also runs a Women in Ag mentoring network. The department also has the ability to provide specific Farm Service Agency loans for women in agriculture, because women are considered “underserved and socially-disadvantaged” members, according to spokesman Matthew Herrick. Annual lending to underserved producers increased to $827.3 million in 2015, from $379.4 million in 2008.

Susan Sink is now transitioning her farm from a beef farm to an agri-tourism business, a change that requires a lot less work in the fields. Her farm holds an annual harvest festival, pick-your-own-pumpkin patches, horseback-riding tours, and weddings. Schools come to the farms and people hold music festivals there. Still, friends ask her why she doesn’t get out, especially since none of her three children want to take over the farm. She doesn’t want them to, either. She wants them to have a better life. Farming, as Sink well knows, is never easy. “Some people come up to me and say, ‘Why are you doing all this work, why don’t you sell the farm and retire?’” she said. “It’s because my blood, sweat, and tears are on this land, it is my husband’s legacy, my children’s legacy, and truly, it’s my legacy, too.”