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Its’ Women’s history month! Yea! And 2026 happens to be the International Year of the Woman Farmer! It’s a time to celebrate the accomplishments of women to society today and throughout history so I thought I would share a bit this week about the role of farm women. Many of you know as an academic this was a research topic dear to my heart. Having spent the last 30 years studying farm women I can tell you it's a complex subject and highly dependent on where in the world you’re discussing, so lets start here, in the U.S.
Women farmers have longed play a vital role in American agriculture and producing the food and fiber to feed and clothe us. That role is often contingent upon where and in what time period you are exploring. For example, black women in the south had little choice but to be in the field producing crops under slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whereas white women in the midwest might have been working in the fields but were often hidden by men. To have any woman in your family seen working the fields was a sign of weakness or poverty so men had them do work that would not be visible to outsiders.
The first thing most people think of when they think of women in agriculture is to view women as helpers or as "the farmer's wife"...in the back seat supporting a male farmer, typically the husband or other male relative. This approach has rendered farm women invisible and hampered our ability to understand women's work and impeded progress. Because of this assumption that farmers are men and women are helpers, the USDA didn't even count women farmers in the ag. census until 1978. Beginning in the 1970s we started to take notice of the vital role of women in agriculture and their importance to the survival of the American family farm. To be clear, today I'm discussing women who farm...women who are actively engaged in the daily production and decision-making practices on their farm, whether they run it solo or in concert with others. These women have a direct financial stake in the outcome of their work and decisions.
Women who farm make up 36% of all farmers in the U.S. but only 14% of female headed farms where they’re the principal operator/decision maker. This number is even smaller for women of color (5%). Why so few?
One of the things that women, regardless of location, have in common is that they all face quite similar constraints that limit their opportunities to produce agriculture products and excel at it. When youth come to my farm I often ask them, “what ‘s the most important ingredient needed in a successful farming operation?”. It’s good quality land, freely owned and controlled by the farmer so they have full decision-making rights. Women weren't allowed to independently own land in Michigan and much of the U.S. until the mid 1800s.
In part women were marginalized from independent farming through the denial of access to land and other material resources needed for success such labor, capital, technology, and training. Land transfer and inheritance practices have historically favored men. So, accessing land is a hurdle women have to first solve before planting can begin. Many lease, borrow, or work for years at paid labor to be able to save and buy land later in life. When I first starting lavender farming I ‘squatted’ on a friend's farm for three years, then I leased land in a program designed to help beginning farmers. I was 58 years old before I could buy my own land and I am very typical in this regard. This partly explains why women have historically tended to be older than men when they start farming.
When women do break that 'grass ceiling' barrier they often are faced with other challenges. As a result of these collective hurdles, it means than women farm differently from male farmers in a number of ways. This is a topic in which I have been particularly interested, but we'll take that up another day. I’ll come back to this next month, but I suspect you might know some of the reasons for how they differ. Stay tuned!
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