By Jonathan Eisenthal
“There are 35,623 women in farming in Minnesota, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture,” Susanne Hinrichs told the Minnesota Senate Agriculture, Broadband and Rural Development Committee. Hinrichs, an agricultural business management Extension educator with University of Minnesota Extension, led off Senate hearing testimony.
This was the second annual Women in Ag at the Capitol Day, a program organized by University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
Hinrichs further broke down the numbers: “Of the 65,000 farms in Minnesota, over half of the farms have a female working on their farm. Over half. Of the 35,000 female producers, 26,000 women farmers are a leader on their farm, highly involved in making day-to-day decisions. That’s over 75% of the women working in Minnesota farms who are making decisions and running the farm by themselves or with someone else. In addition, women producers manage over 9 million acres of farmland in Minnesota.”
According to Hinrichs, the reality behind these numbers—that women are a force in agriculture in Minnesota—drove the decision to create the Women In Ag Network in 2017.
“We want to work with legislators and other leaders to help inspire more women to pursue dreams of farming or other ag-related work,” Hinrichs stated about Women in Ag at the Capitol Day, which took place Monday, March 24.
The event drew dozens of farm women, and among them several testified about what is happening now on Minnesota farms. The numbers are not good.
“Growing up on a dairy and diversified livestock farm spurred my love of agriculture,” said Gail Donkers. In addition to being a livestock and crop farmer, Donkers serves as the vice chair on the Minnesota Soybean and Research Promotion Council, which manages the soybean checkoff dollars. She also works for Minnesota Farmers Union, a non-partisan farm group which she said has set the following priorities, “passing the Farm Bill and funding these agriculture programs, ensuring affordable and accessible health care, promoting land ownership and access, supporting cooperatives, and ensuring fair biomarkets.”
Donkers reported the financial distress impacting many farmers today.
“As a soybean farmer, I would be remiss for not telling you about the deficit that we are looking at while planting our crops. The net return for an acre is looking at a negative $189 per acre,” Donkers said. “That does not include any farm payments, nor any management or cost of living expenses…Just hearing that number makes my stomach clench. This brings me to mental health and the appropriations that help (Minnesota Department of Agriculture) manage Minnesota Farm and Rural Helpline, which connects farmers and others with mental health support. When we look at corn, the net return this year we are looking at is a negative $126.66 per acre.”
Women farmers support several important state level agriculture initiatives, according to Donkers.
“The Biofuels infrastructure grant is a very important program that has been funded at $3 million per year,” Donkers said. “According to the Department of Commerce, consumers who used Unleaded 88 in 2024 paid an average of 18 cents less than consumers who fueled with regular Unleaded 87. So, it would be very important to get those different pumps put in across the state of Minnesota.”
“Sustainable aviation fuel…would be great for biofuel producers, corn farmers, and several other sectors in Minnesota,” Donkers said. “Corn-based ethanol is a good fit for SAF production, and the alcohol-to-jet technology pathway, given its affordability, abundance in Minnesota, and existing infrastructure across greater Minnesota communities. … . In order to attract companies to produce SAF in Minnesota, we do need additional funding, and they need a tax credit.”
Jeanne Anderson of Montevideo and her husband took their passion for food and started a farm to produce beef, pork, lamb, chicken, seasonal produce, and other farm products. In addition, she has been a local, part-time ag educator.
“Without a fence in our yard, we got started,” Anderson told the committee. “Together, we have a passion for food, agriculture, and education. Our business combines all of these. Being able to teach consumers about their food and how it got to their plate has been an amazing experience for me. Food education is becoming more and more important every day.”
According to Anderson, getting adequate health-care insurance coverage and finding day-care for children are challenges for rural women that very much go together and in fact amplify the challenges in both areas.
“Can your self-employed business, agriculture or not, even make enough to pay for your family’s health insurance?” Anderson spoke the question facing many rural families. She said, “The majority of farm families have to have at least one, or two, or sometimes three, off-the-farm jobs. This leads to the wonderful balancing act that we all experience, the work-life balance that nobody actually achieves. And for some, it can feel like a work survival act. Go off the farm to work for health insurance, but if you have young children, you also need to find childcare. In rural areas, childcare is a continuous struggle. Daycare centers are limited, short staff, and can be expensive, and they can’t even afford to pay staff more or find more staff. Home daycares are closing. There’s just so many regulations that they can’t keep up with, and they may need to go to work to get benefits themselves if they have a self-employed spouse. There are families, some of my friends, many people that I know, are actually planning their family lives around these daycare openings. I asked our local daycare about a year and a half ago when they would have their next infant availability, and she laughed and said, I can put you on the list, but it’ll be a few years.”
Ultimately, the most challenging aspect of the farm life is the lack of certainty when it comes to economics, Anderson said.
“There’s no guarantees in your expense budget,” Anderson said. “You try really hard. You’re at the start of the year, and this (budget) is what you’re going to follow. Well, the tractor didn’t listen, and the tractor broke down, and so now you have to put money into that. Can’t farm without a tractor. Maybe you’ve replaced every single wheel on that hay rig, and it’s still not doing its job. Time for a new-to-you hay rig. If it’s July and the flies got really bad, you might go out to your herd and see that half of them have a pink eye. You can’t just stand there and look at your cows and say, ‘Sorry, the vet expense line has been blown, you guys. It’ll have to wait until the next fiscal year.’ So, try as you might, the expense budget might get blown. On top of that, there’s no guaranteed income. There’s no every other Friday, X amount of dollars being deposited into your account. Not only do you not know when that next paycheck is coming, you might not know how much it’s going to be. It could totally depend on things like if it rains, when it rains, how much it rains. If you were out calving when it was 40 below, you might have a loss in calf crop. You might have lower wean-weights at sale time. These are all going to affect things, and a lot of times they’re entirely out of our control.”
The thing that has carried the Anderson’s and kept them in business has been the suite of state and federal programs that provide grants for farmers like them.
Anderson made a plea for lawmakers to do what they can to preserve those programs, because they really make a difference.
“So how have we done it as beginning farmers? Honestly, we have partnered so closely with our NRCS program, and it’s been amazing. Working through the EQIP grant has helped us with cover-cropping, rotational grazing, manure management,” Anderson said. “We’ve even put up a high tunnel for vegetable production. We’ve also become Minnesota Ag Water Quality Certified. We were able to take that grant money and pair it alongside of our EQIP grant for our manure management project. And more recently, we were just awarded the Livestock Investment Grant. These grants have been vital to our success and in return we produce a better product for our local community and (our production) is better for our earth. We have become better farm workers. These grants have made us more regenerative, sustainable farmers.”
One of the many political leaders anxious to work with and spotlight the importance of Minnesota’s farm women is Minnesota Senator Mary Kunesh, who represents an urban district, but is proud of her roots in agriculture: “I can’t let another Women in Ag day go by without once again mentioning my mom. My mom, who is now 87 years old, but still tough as nails….There were seven girls and one boy. The girls did the work. They built a barn. There’s a picture of my mom and her sisters building their barn. She grew up on a working farm. All these women have worked just as hard as the men, if not harder, on their farms. I appreciate you and I see you. I want to give a shout out to my mom because she’s an amazing woman!”
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