A farmer posted a story on Twitter earlier this year about a salesperson who visited the farm and asked her if the “man of the farm” was available.
Yet this particular farmer was more than qualified to conduct business.
One would hope this type of story had gone the way of the dodo bird, but that optimism might be misplaced. How many readers of this editorial simply assumed the “farmer” in the first paragraph was a man — until they noticed the pronoun?
Women have always made major contributions on prairie farms, but until fairly recently, gender roles were strictly defined: women ran the home and maybe the farm’s books, while men made the decisions and did the physical labour.
The divide between those traditional roles is blurring. Thankfully so.
The 2021 Census of Agriculture found that total farm operator numbers have declined 32.9 percent over the past 30 years, among both female and male operators, but the rate of decline was steeper for males. That increased the proportion of female farm operators.
The census found that 30.4 percent of Canada’s farm operators were female in 2021, up from 28.7 percent in 2016.
While that tells part of the story, a recent survey commissioned by Farm Management Canada determined that women’s role on the farm remains largely undervalued and misunderstood.
The survey found that farm women are involved in a wide variety of on-farm activities and take primary responsibility for family-related matters. They often work off the farm as well.
The report’s authors concluded that women’s roles on the farm are often undocumented, unacknowledged and unquantified.
“One must consider what impact this lack of data is having on policy and program decisions, skills development, innovation and growth opportunities,” they wrote.
One of the more disturbing findings in the report was that women struggle to identify themselves as farmers. The survey found that a slight majority of respondents strongly agreed with the statement, “I consider myself a farmer,” and almost 25 percent disagreed.
While 66 percent of those who strongly agreed said their involvement on the farm was “full time, all the time,” so did 61 percent of those who didn’t consider themselves a farmer.
“Data shows women are making an extraordinary contribution to farming in Canada with a high degree of involvement in virtually every aspect of the operation,” the report said.
Yet many of those women don’t acknowledge that fact, likely because too often they have been told they are “only” farm wives. That, despite their many contributions to the farm in a variety of aspects and tasks.
More must be done to validate women’s role on this country’s farms, and it likely starts with gaining a better understanding of this “underground economy.”
We have to figure out how to redefine and quantify the role of women on the farm. Besides simple fairness, there is at least one important and practical reason for doing so.
Women who feel their contributions to farming would be undervalued or even unacknowledged are unlikely to consider a career in the sector, nor would they encourage their children to do so.
The farm labour shortage has been top of mind for years, and appears to be worsening.
Treating women as the equal partners they are is the right thing to do and could also bolster the workforce of this vital industry.
Karen Briere, Bruce Dyck, Barb Glen, Michael Robin, Robin Booker and Laura Rance collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
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