Celebrating International Women's Day in agriculture

Mar 08, 2023

Today's reality -- only 9% of farms are fully female operated

By Haley Bilokraly
Farms.com Intern

As women across the world are celebrated on International Women’s Day, let’s take a look at the statistics related to women in agriculture and the steps being taken to encourage women in the industry.

Firstly, the number of women working in agriculture is growing. There has been a 23% increase of women farm operators in Canada since 2012 with the total number rising from 969,672 to 1,227,461.

Today, it is normal to see a woman working on a farm since 51% of farms in the USA include at least one female producer. However, only 9% of farms are fully female operated.

Poultry farms are the most common farm type for female farm operators as 31% of women producers specialize in poultry. The least common farm type for a female producer is cotton farms.

Female farm operations occur across the USA with Arizona having the highest percentage, 49%, of female farm workers, Alaska has the second with 47%, then New Hampshire with the third highest at 46%.

Although these statistics are promising for women in agriculture, women have not easily been recognized in the industry. For many years, women have gone unnoticed for the hidden work they do on farms and were often left out of agriculture-related leadership opportunities. For example, in 1914 a program was created to dedicate farm education to men and educate women on home economics. Although this disregard for educating women in agriculture has since been changed, it had created lasting stereotypes and biases that are still barriers for women in the industry today.

However, it is important to celebrate the progress that has been made. This is only achievable because of the individuals and organizations who have created events, networks, programs, funding and more that is dedicated for women in agriculture.

A few examples of these initiatives include the American Agri-Women Organization, Annie Project – Education for Farm Women, and the USDA Women in Agriculture Mentoring Network.

This International Women's Day, take a moment to reflect on the promising story told through these statistics and the progress that still needs to be made for women in agriculture.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”