The Award of Honor red carpet at the 2025 WG Annual Meeting.
“The California Pork Producers Association had a management agreement with CWGA, so I was also managing their association during that same period. This was a particularly complex time, as it coincided with Proposition 12 and several other policy issues that significantly impacted the industry.” In the next 12 years, she secured grant funding for research programs, built relationships with universities throughout California and represented the industry through policy engagement and consumer-focused marketing efforts. Then, in 2015, Eidman accepted the role of Director of Producer Resources at Superior Farms. With the aggressiveness and execution that private industry more readily enables, Eidman began pioneering a major strategic initiative: Flock54, the sheep industry’s version of 23andMe. Like her grandparents before her, Eidman identified an area where the sheep industry was lagging behind others: the need to better understand and improve genetics. She knew the expertise and tools existed, and that they had just not yet been deployed on sheep. She set to work gathering a masterful consortium of researchers from Utah State University, the University of Idaho and UC Davis, together with producers from across the industry. Led by Eidman, the think tank identified the genetic traits most important to producers and aligned them with traits that had strong research backing. Today, Flock54 is used globally with a significant industry presence—providing producers with valuable data to make more informed breeding decisions, retain animals with desired genetics,
improve meat quality and ultimately deliver a better eating experience for consumers. By 2020, Eidman had risen to Vice President of Sales at Superior Farms. She worked alongside the sales team to develop relationships with national retailers, food service distributors and international markets; strategies that brought lamb to more consumers’ plates. This further ignited the desire to show consumers what it takes to deliver products to store shelves and to their plates; and to share with those consumers the incredible stories about the people who grow and raise our food. Eidman once again felt the calling to do something bigger and broader for the entire agricultural industry. “I loved every minute of working at the end of the supply chain, but my deepest passion for this industry has always been for the people with boots on the ground who put in the work each day to provide food and fiber for people across the globe. Ultimately, being able to work in a space that touches and elevates every part of the food and agriculture industry is a dream—and that is what truly makes my time at Ag Leadership feel like a homecoming,” Eidman said. February 2026 will mark her one-year anniversary with CALF, and just as a young Eidman moved unit to unit at Fresno State, or continued to refine processes at her grandparents’ shop, the first year reinforced and sharpened her vision of the foundation’s horizon. “Stepping into this role has been both energizing and humbling, and in many ways, even more meaningful than I imagined. As an
35 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com January – March 2026
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