We’ve already told you about her Grounded Journals and reposted her funny and adorable Reels on our Facebook and Instagram — now, FarmHER is honored to introduce Mary Pat Sass to our RFD-TV audience for the very first time on the FarmHER Season 6 Mid-Season Finale! On this upcoming episode of FarmHER, we traveled to Woodstock, Illinois to catch a glimpse of Mary Pat’s life offline and get the inside scoop on her life-changing move from selling seeds as a young woman in agribusiness to sewing seeds as a farm wife, mom, and an influential voice for farm life.
FarmHER and Ag Influencer Mary Pat Sass is amassing a growing number of followers online through her work as an ag advocate, or as she likes to say, “agvocate,” as well as with her inspirational book series, Grounded Journals, and her continued willingness to share intimate and inspiring portraits of love, motherhood, and farm life with the world through social media and her blog.
Sass Farms: Love at First Sight
Mary Pat and her husband, Josh, help run his family’s row crop farm in Woodstock, Illinois. She shares their farming lifestyle and has become a relatable figure for thousands of women in the industry. She grew up on a dairy farm and chose a career in agribusiness. She first visited the Sass’ family farm nearly a decade ago in hopes of selling him seeds.
“Actually, thinking about the whole love at first sight thing because it’s been nine years since I walked onto the farm for the first time,” Mary Pat says to Josh through a walkie-talkie while sitting in the cab of their tractor.
“Thought you were going to make a seed sale!” Josh responds in the video posted to social media. Instead, Mary Pat found a husband, a family, and a farm to call her own.
When it came to both Josh and the family operation, she says, it was “love at first sight.” Despite his hesitation, their displays of affection and bond over a love for their land is a hallmark of her social media content that feels intimate and aspirational to the thousands who watch and engage with her content.
When she first took the internet, Mary Pat’s primary goal was to simply show people what farmers do and how they do it.
What is an “Agvocate?”
Never intending to be an influencer, her online presence has led her to become an influential voice for agriculture.
“I knew of influencing, but that was never, like, the goal from the beginning,” she told us. “I just felt a pull to be a voice for agriculture in some way.”
She finds fulfillment in receiving messages from others — whether farmers or consumers — who relate to her experiences and feel positively impacted by her content.
Grounded Journals
As a farmer herself, Mary Pat understands the significance of preserving memories and records of farm life. As her own stories became more and more popular, she’s inspired other farmwives to follow in her footsteps.
So, Mary Pat leaned in, developing her book series, Grounded Journals, a set of yearly journals and memoirs specifically designed for farmers and ranchers. The journals not only serve as practical record-keeping tools but also hold personal stories that make them special.
Mary Pat’s passion for creating these journals stems from her desire to provide a way for farmers to remember and reflect on the past, even if they don’t always return to the family farm or ranch.
In this project, Mary Pat emphasized the importance of customization, creating heirloom products that could be passed down through generations. Her dedication has since bloomed into a thriving side business for her family.
Grandma’s Recipes
Mary Pat has been enjoying recreating her grandma’s famous recipes for her own family for years now, and they always bring back such great memories. Her grandmother probably didn’t expect to one day “go viral” online, but that’s exactly what happened when Mary Pat started sharing some of her cherished recipes with the world on social media (and a few of her own!).
From pumpkin bars and cutout cookies to homemade Crunch Wraps, Mary Pat’s recipes have become a tradition in her family and made their way into the kitchens of many other farm families across America.
Showing others little glimpses of her “dream life” and not being afraid to share those special, intimate moments with her husband, her children, and even her family’s most cherished family recipes is yet another way Mary Pat has fostered deep connections with others farmwives and empower them to do the same — not just to follow her but also to follow in her footsteps.
