By Pat Leimbach, author and Ohio Agri-woman
Of the more than 80,000 farms in Ohio, more than 4,800
are actually managed and/or operated by women. No longer passive, apron-clad
homemakers or unskilled farm hands, today’s farm women are working
in challenging new capacities to ensure the survival of the family farm.
For many, survival means taking an off-the-farm job to
put food on the table, freeing farm proceeds for investment in the business
in anticipation of an improved farm economy. Her on-farm experience
and often related training in 4-H, FFA, and agricultural studies lead
her into an agricultural career. When they are not laboring on the farm,
farm women are working as salespersons of farm supplies, agricultural
loan officers, field technologists, surveyors, agricultural educators,
researchers, Extension agents, media communicators, management trainers,
geneticists, greenhouse and nursery retailers, and more.
On large farms with diverse enterprises, a farm woman
may find accounting, purchasing, record keeping, and marketing to be
a full-time job. She’s well equipped with an office, a computer,
a fax machine, and multiple phones. Doing fieldwork has not gone out
of style for the modern farm woman, but today it involves larger and
more technologically advanced equipment like global positioning systems,
yield monitoring, and computerized animal feeding and watering systems.
The vast range of issues impacting modern agriculture — the environment,
property rights, labor supply, litigation, urban development, water
rights, governmental regulation — have motivated groups of concerned
farm women in Ohio to work to present the true identity of Ohio farmers
to urban and rural non-farm consumers.
Those apron-clad ladies of long ago worked alongside their
husbands to create the legacy of the incredible Ohio family farm. Today’s
farm women, using new skills and different approaches, are determined
that it shall survive. For more information, contact Peggy Clark, president
of Ohio Agri-Women at 937-885-5965.
