The role of women in agriculture

I have been interested in gender equality since I was a teenager. When I was growing up my younger sister and brother and I all worked on the family farm. We worked after school and weekends and were involved in all aspects of the farm. I grew up in a hugely supportive and forward thinking family. However, when we all came in from working a day at the tatties to dinner made by my Gran, the men sat down first and ate and the women held back for round two of the dinner. As a teenager I couldn’t really understand this!

Also when I was growing up I remember listening to friends of our family when a new child was born and people declaring that whichever couple it was had finally got the “son in heir” they were looking for. As a girl who loved the farm this frustrated me.

I was brought up in the era of the bright kids or girls being encouraged off farm and boys, particularly less academic boys being encouraged to be the farmers. I think this still exists to some extent but think things have changed with parents more conscious now to encourage both sexes to take an interest in the farm from being children – but we still have a long way to go on this.

At 14 I was encouraged by my Dad to join Young Farmers but for me the stories of the previous generation with competitions such as the Pinta Princess and Miss Scotch Lamb was a big turn off and I decided that agriculture and farming was not for me. Glasgow University beckoned and I headed for the bright lights of the City where I studied Economics, Sociology and Psychology, going on to specialise in sociology where I learned all about socialisation.

I think things have changed in the 25 years since I was a teenager but for me the socialisation of how we bring up boys and girls in agriculture is critical and now as a parent it is our responsibility to ensure that we bring up our children where we emphasise that they can not only do whatever they want in the world, but if they choose agriculture and farming then that is something a girl can undertake as successfully as a boy. I believe that this is happening but we won’t start to really see the benefits for another 20 years.

Women as well as men are guilty of promoting traditional values in agriculture.

You might be thinking at this stage that I am some raving feminist, it's not so. I understand tradition and the very positive elements of our agriculture sector, to the outside world and in that I mean the 99% of the population not involved in agriculture, the role of women looks decidedly as if it is from the middle ages.

The point here is that our sector is extremely inward looking. It is a sector often isolated from other sectors in the economy and we have a massive consumer/producer gap. The perception of our sector as one where there is equality is important in terms of its value and role in society – how people view us from the outside world.

The other dimension is marriage. In the cases of two people both with a family farm, in the vast majority of cases women continue to move to the home farm of the man on marriage. It is still unusual for the woman to be farming and for her farming husband to join her on the family farm, leaving his family farm. This does affect the number of 'women farmers' as women coming into their husband’s farming business are unlikely to be deemed the farmer and may not be a partner in that farming enterprise.

I am interested in the term farmer. What is a farmer?

Is it one person in a farming business? Can it be applied to multiple people involved in that farming business? Is it the owner of the land or assets? Is it the person who puts their name in the IACS form? Does it apply to all partners in a business? It is the person who signs the cheques or does the online banking? Is it the person who is the main decision maker? Is it the person who analyses the business performance and makes suggestions on future strategy? Is it the person who drives the tractor?

The terminology is important.

In our farming business I do not own land or assets. I am not a partner. Our farm is a one-person farm for much of the year and a two-person farm for some of the year. I am not the tractor driver. In recording of stats terms I would not be recorded in the IACS form or recorded via the company accounts.

But my main contribution is farming tourists which in many countries is deemed to be an agricultural activity. Our farm using 0.6 acres to farm tourists and brings in a turnover the same as the farm and a profit level seven times more than the farm does if you exclude subsidy.

For a farm that is like many other farms making small amounts of profits to live on before subsidies, which after Brexit will go, I feel I contribute significantly to the economic viability of the family farm but this contribution will not in current terms be recorded anywhere. In terms of the rural economy our 'diversification' employs five people and brings more than one thousand high end visitors to the area. This arm of our farming enterprise delivers the public to consumer farming engagement which agriculture desperately needs more of.

The economics of farming are important, particularly in Scotland and have an impact on the gender balance in agriculture.

An average 650 acre mixed family farm cannot sustain two salaries. Most farms are producing very small profits, or no profit at all. This means that the economics of agriculture in Scotland in many cases means we can’t have two more 'farmers' working full time and taking out a full time wage.

So one in the couple needs to go out to work or undertake a farm diversification to make the financial situation viable. The other option which many people go down is living on barely nothing and having no savings and no pension. My point is that woman going off farm to work or running a diversification is often viewed as the women not wishing to farm or run the farm but in a lot of cases there is an economic need to have another income. Given that most farms have multiple generations and possibly multiple siblings involved in the family business, there is not the scale in most traditional Scottish family farms to allow multiple people a decent income.

I believe the value of bringing in that salary or that profit from that other business is keeping many farms in business and afloat and in this sense women are contributing significantly to farming and the rural economy. However, this role off farm again reinforces that women are not farmers.

The other factor, of course, is availability and cost of land, access to capital and also availability of tenancies. For a man or a women not succeeding the family farm, it is difficult to raise capital to buy their own land and start up their own farm. New entrants are viewed to be people without any background or relationship with agriculture but should also be viewed as men or women from within the sector through family ties who would like to farm in their own right.

In England where I spend a quite a bit of time via consultancy work and where I have built up relationships with a lot of innovative farmers through Nuffield and the Oxford Farming Conference the role of women in agriculture seems slightly different.

The economics are different with many larger scale farms and agri-businesses. Turnover might be £2 million and not £200,000. I have a number of female friends running the family farm in their own right or as an equal with their partner. There is room in this enterprise for two or more decent salaries and the scale to allow different people to manage different areas of the enterprise.

Leadership is something I am very interested in and passionate about developing. Businesses need effective leaders to grow. Communities require effective leaders to thrive. Business sectors require not one person but many effective leaders to provide direction, strategy, and a voice to allow sector growth for the benefit of the economy.

I believe that agriculture is a sector with many, many challenges. I also believe that other sectors face the same challenges. We require a great number of quality leaders, both male and female to turn around farm businesses and to turn around the fortunes of our sector. We need talent in agriculture regardless of gender.

In terms of female participation boards in agriculture I feel that England are 20 years ahead of us. Gender feels much less of an issue. There are a number of women I know taking a leadership role and no one is batting an eyelid. I feel much more comfortable in England than Scotland in terms of how you are viewed as a woman in agriculture.

The Oxford Farming Conference debated gender and women’s role in agriculture at the University Union during this year’s event. It is an organisation actively promoting the best men and women in the sector, drawing the best male and female speakers from across the world to the event each January.

More than anything our industry needs talented individuals who are outward looking, who connect with consumers, who connect with other sectors. Individuals who have business skills, a wide range of business skills. Our industry tends to be inward looking and feels it sits in an isolation position.

Going back to my opening points, the reason the terminology of what is a farmer is important in relation to participation in the board room. For economic reasons and for traditional socialisation reasons, and patterns of marriage, organisations looking for new board members who are 'active farmers' find it challenging to find women with this criteria. It can then be perceived if you are not the person driving the tractor but you are still relating to the viability of the farm and the sector you have little to contribute to boards within industry.

I believe that effective leadership delivered by a number of effective leaders across businesses, communities and sub sectors of agriculture is the biggest game changer in our sector.

We need talented people regardless of their gender.

I believe that the skills that people have gained working off farm or running an agri-business are in many cases more valuable to an organisation than a farmer who only farms.

Despite everything I have said I am not in favour of 50/50 boards in terms of gender split. I believe that a board should consist of the most talented people who can contribute to the success of that organisation or business. I also believe that you make your own success and if you work hard you will get where you want to go. It’s just some doors are more open than others and the journey is easier.

I do believe however, that organisations require to be much more open and transparent about how they recruit men and women to their boards. I am calling on agriculture bodies in Scotland to take out an ad in The Scottish Farmer and ask for talented individuals to come forward, be clear about the skills they are looking for and provide information on how to get involved.

Most people do not know how to get involved and there is too much recruitment undertaken via a tap on the shoulder.

Sexism and discrimination do exist with some key individuals reluctant to appoint women.

Going back to the terminology of what is a farmer. I was told by a director of RHASS that they found it hard to appoint more women as RHASS directors as there are hardly any active women farmers.

A quick win is the Government should allow all the people involved in the farming business to be registered on the IACS form, including diversified businesses based on the farm. This would measure the real contribution of farms to the rural economy and would give a true representation about the age profile and the gender profile of farming families.

The organisations in Scottish agriculture need to take a proactive stance in getting more talented people involved at grassroots up to board level, regardless of gender.

I don’t believe that we need a separate women’s only group. The drive to focus on women is already hacking off some men. We don’t want to be known as one man put it recently as 'the rural on steroids'. We need more integration with the organisations already there.

I do welcome the Scottish Government’s research into Women in Agriculture. I hope that as many people as possible will participate and I encourage you to do so.

For me despite wishing to have a life off farm and outwith agriculture when I was a teenager, my heart was always going to be in this sector. My hope is still to have enough funds from my own businesses to buy my own farm in the future.