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http://womensenews.org/story/entrepreneurship/120919/grass-ceiling-overhangs-surge-in-female-farmers
USA - SURGE IN WOMEN FARM
OWNERS/OPERATORS - ADDRESSING INEQUALITIES
By Maurice Hladik
- WeNews Commentator - September 20, 2012
US female farmers are very quietly gaining ground and causing what might be the biggest, quietest shakeup of a male-dominated industry. But a "grass ceiling" limits their government and financial supports.
Credit: Let Ideas Compete on
Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
(WOMENSENEWS)--If you think
you're seeing more women running farms in the
And despite some stereotypes, this
isn't an enlarged version of growing vegetables in a home garden either. Female
farmers run dairies and cattle ranches and grow wheat, corn, cotton and
soybeans, just for starters.
Between the 2002 and 2007 U.S.
Census on Agriculture, the number of farms owned and operated by women
increased by 29 percent to reach a total of 14 percent of all farms.
For the 10-year period from 1997
to 2007, the increase was an astounding 46 percent.
Arguably, there is no other
traditionally male-dominated vocation that is experiencing such a rapid
increase in participation by women. In absolute terms, the number of female
principal farm operators stood at 305,000 in 2007. Over these 10 years the
number of male farm operator actually fell by 5 percent, meaning that a woman
now manages 1-in-7 farms.
The above statistics tell only
part of the story though, as the U.S. Census data collection allows for one
name to be put forward as the principle operator. In the case of co-management
with a husband, it is normally the man's name that enters the statistics.
In
In the developing world the numbers are even higher, as women make up, on average, over 40 percent of the agriculture labor force.
A Perfect Storm
Over the past generation or two, farming has become so much more of an intellectual profession with much of the hard physical labor replaced by mechanization. Perhaps farming has been a positive "perfect storm" for women as they moved out into all walks of life. It is arguable that farming as a profession may be unique in its natural evolution to nicely match female skills.
But female farmers aren't in
clover, not yet.
A closer look at the statistics
show that female farmers face a "grass ceiling."
Like grass that is mowed and thus
unable to reach its growth potential, women in agriculture are hindered by a
shortage of government support programs and loans through financial
institutions. As a result, female farmers, in many instances, cannot reach
their growth potential as producers of food.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct.,
estimates that 43,000 female farmers have been denied more than $4.6 billion in
farm loans and loan servicing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In an
attempt to rectify this situation, DeLauro introduced the 2009 Equity for Women
Farmer's Act, which unfortunately died before it became law.
This lack of access to funding
and government programs is reflected in the 2007 Census data, which had the
average male-dominated farm sized at 410 acres with sales of $152,000 per year.
By comparison, the average size of a female-operated farm was 210 acres with
sales of only $36,000 annually.
It is telling that the states
with the lowest number of female farmers, all with less than 10 percent of the
total, were
Targeting the Inequalities
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recognizes this inequality and has established the Women Outreach Program under the Farm Service Agency.
Practicing female farmers have
also been taking matters into their own hands. Many, if not most, states have a
female farmers' movement, such as the Women's Agricultural Network,
a collaborative effort with the University of Vermont, or the Michigan-based Women's Agricultural
Community. Not only is the movement concerned with food production,
but such factors as conservation, sustainability and community are also top
issues.
However, the fundamental
underlying feature of this movement is to produce food and if you pick apart
the agricultural statistics it's easy to argue that women are directly
responsible for more than 10 percent of the nation's food.
Compared to the overall picture
this may not seem impressive, but look again. Women's 10 percent stake in food
production isn't that much less than the total output of corporate or factory
farms.
For all their capital-intensity,
these corporate farms account for only 15 percent of total
That means the gap between female
farmers and industry giants is only about 5 percentage points and could be
narrowing. Between 1997 and 2007 the number of corporate farms grew by only 1.6
percent per year, while female-operated outfits grew at nearly triple this
annual pace (4.6 percent).
It is therefore conceivable that
with increased access to government programs and finance, female farmers could
someday very soon be producing more food for the nation than all the factory
farms out there.
Bottom line: Without much
fanfare, women are making an increasingly significant impact on U.S agriculture