March 8th was International Women’s Day, but did you know that this year is the International Year of the Woman Farmer?

The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF 2026) to “spotlight the essential roles women play across agrifood systems, from production to trade, while often going unrecognized. Women farmers are central to food security, nutrition and economic resilience. IYWF 2026 will raise awareness and promote actions to close the gender gaps and improve women’s livelihoods worldwide.”

To highlight both #IWD2026 and #YearoftheWomanFarmer, we’re sharing #womeninag content in our pages and online throughout the month of March.

You’ll find an archive of some of our “best of” articles here. Also make sure to read ‘From Token to Trusted’ by Country Guide contributor Delaney Seiferling. She noticed that women’s roles in ag organizations across the country was increasing substantially and wanted to understand what was driving the trend — and how other sectors within the ag industry can follow suit.

And in contributor Helen Lammers-Helps’ article ‘How Women Lead with Confidence in Agriculture’ you’ll learn about the challenges and barriers that still exist for women in agriculture, despite many improvements over the last few decades. (And make sure you read ‘How to Develop Leadership Presence’ to learn how to develop your leadership skills.)

What women in Canadian agriculture have inspired you? I’d love to hear more: astewart@farmmedia.com

Farm families work together to break new ground and nurture growth. As each member grows, our Farm & Family team wants to know how we can help YOUR farm and family grow further. Share your thoughts with Farm & Family editor astewart@farmmedia.com

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March 8 is International Women’s Day, a global, annual celebration recognizing the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, while advocating for accelerated gender equality.

Women’s Month, which celebrates the contributions of women to history and society, is observed in March in the U.S., Australia and Germany to align with International Women’s Day. In Canada, we celebrate Women’s History Month in October to align with Person’s Day (October 18), a day that commemorates the landmark 1929 court ruling that recognized women as legal “persons.”

And this year, 2026, has been named the International Year of the Woman Farmer by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. They write, “Worldwide, women play essential roles throughout agrifood systems whether producing, processing or trading. Their work is vital for the welfare and health of their families, communities and economies. But in many countries, women’s contributions are not always appreciated, limiting their access to resources and opportunities.

“The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 is designed to highlight these realities, close gender gaps and strengthen women’s livelihoods, promoting their leadership qualities to build a more inclusive and sustainable agrifood system.” (To learn more, visit fao.org/woman-farmer-2026.)

Over the past decade-and-a-half, Country Guide articles have explored all these themes and more. We’ve looked at the benefits a woman’s perspective can bring to the board or farm table, how women have overcome challenges they’ve faced in a male-dominated industry, the pros and cons of invisible work, what a gender-neutral farm looks like, what women in ag need to succeed, the effect the “dream gap” has on young girls dreaming of becoming a farmer one day, and so much more.  

In short, we’ve delved into the many roles women play, the proven value they bring and how they can confidently lead in a sector critical to Canada’s economic and social success.  

Below, we’ve compiled some of the “best of” articles from our pages about women in Canadian agriculture.

PROFILES

• Ontario sisters strike farm business partnership
• When she’ll be the leader…
• A Canadian woman’s experience in ag

LEADERSHIP, BUSINESS, CONTRIBUTIONS

• What women in agriculture need and want
• A woman’s place
• The role ahead for women in agriculture
• Why agriculture needs more women to take on more farm roles
• Different goals for women in ag

What did you notice as you read through the articles above (which stretch back to at least 2014)?
Have things changed for women in ag? Not enough? Too much? Didn’t notice a difference? We’d love to hear from you: astewart@farmmedia.com

The post Celebrating women in agriculture appeared first on Country Guide.

“It’s the way our brains are wired. Even before people hear us speak, they are deciding whether they should listen to us, whether the information we are going to share is reliable and if they should trust us,” she says.

“Even if we don’t want to be biased, we’re making judgements and evaluations. We have to mentally think our way around it. It takes stepping outside ourselves for a moment.”

Sergy acknowledges that it’s frustrating to still be talking about gender and race. “We have to recognize those elements of human bias and we have to work with them strategically. The longer we work with it, the more we work strategically, the easier it gets. But we’re not there yet. Good people can still be unconsciously biased.”

She works with both men and women to help them learn to project an air of confidence and trust, what she refers to as leadership presence. While leadership presence may come more naturally to some people than others, it’s a trait anyone can develop.

Leadership presence is valuable no matter what stage of your career although Sergy says the vibe you give off will change as you progress through professional phases. When you are young, for example, she says your leadership presence may be more energetic and ambitious but when you are older it may be more reflective and philosophical.

Sergy offers the following advice for developing leadership presence:

• Accept and embrace imposter syndrome as part of being human. “I don’t know any high-achieving leader, male or female, who doesn’t express this. Learn to dance with it.” Her advice is to write an objective list of skills and career path highlights. “Ask others and take what they are telling you. You have the evidence in the list.”
• Develop self-awareness and self-control. Remain in control of yourself. You do not need to be a robot but show the right emotion at the right time.
• Look confident. Are you presenting the external appearance you intend? Stand tall with an upright posture and make eye contact. (This is generally true for North American cultures but may not apply to other cultures.) If you are a fast talker, consciously slow down.
• Listen more than you talk. Listening instills trust. When leaders listen to us, we tend to assume they are smarter although Sergy acknowledges this does take self-control.

The post How to develop leadership presence appeared first on Country Guide.

As a curious journalist and a farmer who is a woman, I got to thinking about gendered perceptions of leadership.

Are there differences in how men and women lead? Why do women seem to be at a disadvantage when it comes to leadership roles? What factors contribute to someone being a good leader?

My research started with a 2014 meta-analysis (i.e., a study that combines the data from multiple previous studies) that investigated perceptions of leadership effectiveness in terms of gender.

Researchers found four factors that contribute to the perception (note the word perception) that women are less effective leaders: lack of fit theory, role congruity theory, expectation states theory and the think manager-think male paradigm.

Let’s unpack those terms and find out what makes an effective leader — and whether it has got anything to do with gender at all.

Think manager, think man

What do you think of when you hear the word “leader”?

Probably adjectives such as “assertive” or “decisive.”

Were you also picturing a man? Maybe you didn’t even realize you were until you thought consciously about it.

Certain leadership traits are traditionally associated with men, such as dominant, strong, competent or heroic. And so, when we think manager, we think man. Culturally, around the world, leadership traits are stereotypically masculine.

Andrea Heuston wrote in Leading Like a Woman, “Historically, men are looked to, to lead. We hear about the great examples of female leadership throughout history because they were the exception, not the rule.”

Virginia Schein, an international consultant and lecturer on the subject of gender and leadership, initially examined the think manager- think male paradigm in 1973. Three groups of participants were asked to rate 92 traits of a manager as applying to “men in general,” “women in general” or as more related to “successful middle managers.” Results showed that the correlation between characteristics of a manager were more often thought of in terms of male traits.

“People think that leaders are masculine and assertive. And so, men are more like leaders than women are,” says Alice Eagly, a social psychologist who studied Schein’s work, in a 2020 podcast from the American Psychological Association.

Factors limiting leadership

Gender stereotypes, whether applied to men or women, can be descriptive (beliefs about what characteristics someone has) and prescriptive (what characteristics people believe someone should have).

Either way, they tend to harm perceptions of women’s leadership ability far more than men’s.

Double standards create various sets of rules for different people resulting in unequal treatment because those rules or principles are unfairly applied in different ways to individuals. They create a snowball effect around stereotypes: someone is treated a certain way because they are a woman, others observe and emulate that treatment, and so the cycle continues.

Stereotypes also have the effect of enforcing the double bind and ideas around role congruity, lack of fit and expectation states.

• The double bind: In psychological terms, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says that a double bind is “a predicament in which a person receives from a single source conflicting messages that allow no appropriate response to be made.” It’s a communications paradox where the messages women receive make them feel that no matter what decision they make it will be wrong.

Go ahead and take a quick commercial break here so that you can watch Nike’s Super Bowl ad “So Win”. This pretty much sums up the double bind for women in general, not just in sports.

• Role incongruity: Role incongruity is a perceived mismatch, or disconnect, between the characteristics people associate with women and the traits they feel are required of a leader. For example, research by John E. Williams and Deborah L. Best show that, globally, people expect women to be the more communal — warm, supportive and kind — and men to be more “agentic,” that is, assertive, dominant and authoritative. Many find it off-putting if a woman demonstrates those male characteristics.

The article “Women Leaders: The Labyrinth to Leadership” offers the example of Hilary Clinton. She’s skilled, confident and knows politics, but during the 2020 election people criticized her for not being warm enough.

In her book When Women Lead, Julia Boorstin writes about Victoria Brescoll’s 2010 research where Brescoll and colleagues found that “leaders in industries that are strongly associated with the opposite sex, say a female police chief or the male president of a woman’s college are more strongly penalized for making mistakes than are those in positions more closely associated with their own gender. When leaders made mistakes, women in traditionally male jobs were judged more harshly and seen as less competent than their gender congruent counterparts.”

Women can also generate a self-fulfilling prophecy: if they see themselves as incongruent with leadership roles they end up creating self-imposed perceptual barriers — even when others evaluate them as more effective. This leaves them “dangling between two opposing sets of expectations,” write Ginka Toegel and Jean-Louis Barsoux in “Women Leaders: The Gender Trap.”

• Expectation states: A 2024 research paper on www.gender.study outlines this theory as “how cultural beliefs about gender shape interactions within various social settings.” The theory explains how it’s not only an individual’s actions that affect their status with a group, but also societal expectations and stereotypes.

“These expectations, deeply rooted in culture, often affect how people are perceived in terms of competence, leadership potential and overall influence.”

Essentially, this theory helps us examine how gender influences social hierarchies, leadership and power dynamics in groups.

But as Boorstin writes, “The fact that female CEOs are unexpected and therefore underestimated often causes them to find their own ways to prove themselves and to create new archetypes of leadership.”

• Lack of fit: Negative expectations around someone’s performance stemming from a perception of unsuitability for the role (e.g., that women aren’t suited for roles/jobs which men have traditionally filled) create a perception of lack of fit for the role.

Organizations and businesses can use the lack of fit model to understand what processes drive gender discrimination in employment decisions (e.g., bumping someone up to a leadership role).

While these stereotypes and double standards create barriers, surprisingly some research shows they can provide an advantage for women: when a leader’s skills or abilities are viewed positively and as occurring in spite of some shortcoming (e.g., a woman is not enough), she is more likely to be perceived as possessing a high level of competence.

Leadership labyrinth

When it comes to leadership ability, many women have what it takes, and they know it. But Boorstin says they end up exasperated and frustrated because role incongruity, the double bind, lack of fit and expectation states put them at a disadvantage.

Despite all the influences and hindrances, however, women have developed a unique style of leadership that many men are beginning to adopt because they notice the benefits, both tangible (profits) and intangible (e.g., improved organizational performance via people development and participative decision-making).

Boorstin points to research that shows women are more likely to demonstrate divergent thinking, a growth mindset and non-hierarchical leadership, a.k.a. communal leadership or transformational leadership (as opposed to transactional). A transformational leader inspires others while a transactional style is more about reward-punishment. Psychologists have found that a positive approach that emphasizes the reward portion (i.e., transformational approach) tends to be more effective because it improves morale.

“Men can, and often do, find opportunity in these approaches,” writes Boorstin. “(Researchers) found that when male leaders acted the way female leaders were expected to act, that is, communal and co-operative, they stimulated more co-operation than if they acted in a male way. Communal behaviour fostered co-operation, and stereotypically male, authoritative behaviour squashed it … It is gendered construction of male leadership that is the issue rather than only the leader’s sex.” (Italics are mine.)

Women also have a high adaptability quotient. Boorstin writes, “Research provides clues about why women might be well equipped to lead companies through crisis; they center on the notion of adaptability. Whereas in the 1990s the business world replaced IQ with a fixation on leaders’ emotional quotient (EQ), researchers have recently found a more predictive indicator of business success: adaptability.”

And characteristics that can seem negative at first blush can play to a woman’s leadership advantage as well.

For example, Boorstin writes how the bias of “warmth” worked for women rather than against them when male and female entrepreneurs were pitching their businesses, particularly when that business was a purpose-driven company. The stereotype of women being perceived as warm benefited them with a boost in the overall evaluation.

Boorstin also writes about research conducted by UC Davis cognitive neuroscientist Mara Mather which found that when subjected to stress, men become more eager to take risks, whereas women take a more practical approach. “Women in stressful situations pursue smaller wins that are more attainable and will have less downside.”

Adapt or adopt?

Still, there are many subtle gendered characterizations of leadership and authority that penalize women.

Something as “simple” as using the words “pushy,” “bossy” and “condescending” were found by writing teacher and public scholar Nic Subtirelu to be applied to women and girls three times more frequently than to men and boys.

Eagly noted that women also aren’t accorded as much authority. “I can be using the perfect leadership style, but unless they are willing to go along with me, I’m not as effective. And so we know that women are undermined by people not according us much authority.”

So, should women adapt and adopt more masculine traits of leadership to prove themselves as leader material?

A 2022 article on The Conversation (bit.ly/418N00G) summarized research out of Montreal’s John Molson School of Business and the Stanford University Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab which explored, among other questions, “Do women need to adopt male traits and behaviours to be successful in business?”

The study revealed that a low number of female respondents (24 per cent) and male respondents (17 per cent) from Quebec think that female leaders become more masculine to progress in their careers. But when researchers looked to their European counterparts (France, Germany and Italy), 46 per cent of women and 47 per cent of men shared this belief.

“This low feeling of masculinization of Quebec women leaders is particularly important to point out, because it prevents certain leaders from becoming obstacles rather than role models for other women,” write the researchers. “Far from denying their femininity, the results of this study seem to indicate that women develop a leadership style that is unique to them.”

In her podcast interview, Eagly said, “If you’re very assertive, so you say, ‘Well, okay, I’ll be just like a man’ — wrong. That doesn’t really work for women… (it’s okay to demonstrate some) qualities of being assertive… but not to go to the extreme, which is dangerous, but add to it the qualities of warmth and kindness and empathy. So, display both. That tends to be something that works for women who are leaders or wish to be leaders.”

And because the threshold of acceptable behaviour is often lower for women, a woman who adopts an assertive command and control leadership approach is often labelled negatively. This is referred to as the “abrasiveness trap” by Boorstin. When men demonstrate this behaviour, however, they’re usually seen as a leader.

Add to this Boorstin’s observations about the chicken-and-egg situation that gender dynamics create: “Women don’t seem good at hurdle races, because they don’t often compete at hurdle races. Therefore, bettors don’t back them and therefore women have less incentive to compete in hurdle races. Women don’t seem good at being CEOs because they don’t often serve as CEOs, therefore investors and board members don’t back them.”

In male-dominated industries, organizations or businesses (such as agriculture), one meta-analysis found that men were seen as more effective leaders than women. But there’s a paradox: if you haven’t seen a woman leader in a certain industry, how would you know the difference? A woman leader can’t be treated as an equal to her male counterpart until women in that position are normalized. But it can’t be normalized until she’s in those positions.

“It’s a chicken and egg obstacle,” writes Boorstin. “None of us want to tokenize female leaders, but until there are more women running businesses, the women who are in that position will attract additional scrutiny because they are rare.”

It comes back to the friction between people’s expectations and perceptions about what women can do and what they can actually do. “This incompatibility not only restricts women’s access to organizations but can also compromise perceptions of women’s effectiveness,” Eagly writes in her research paper “Female Leadership Advantage and Disadvantage: Resolving the Contradictions.”

Even though women may typically face more challenges than men in vying for leader roles, there are signs of change. Since 2011, some gender and leadership researchers have noted a partial shift toward androgyny (i.e., having both masculine and feminine characteristics) in the leader stereotype.

And Madeleine Baerg wrote in these pages in our December 2018 issue, “Farming excellence, we’re told, is no longer predicated on the farmer’s muscle strength. Instead, success is multi-tasking, management, problem-solving — areas where women excel at least as often as men.”

The key is self-awareness: understand your leadership style and silence the inner critic that has you underestimating your leadership capabilities.

Click here to read part two of this article ‘What it all means in the field (literally)‘ to find out how having more women leaders in agriculture could be economically significant for both the industry and at the farm level.

The post What makes a leader? appeared first on Country Guide.

It can be intentional, but it can also be subconscious or structural, such as when it’s embedded in organizational policies or societal norms. 

And it often goes unseen by those who don’t experience it themselves.

Although the number of women working in leadership positions in agriculture is increasing, women are still in the minority and continue to experience gender bias, according to a recent survey by the Canadian Agricultural and Human Resources Council (CAHRC).

In their 2025 survey of agricultural leaders, 40 per cent of the 431 female respondents said that they believed there were barriers to women advancing in agriculture but only 6 per cent of men believed barriers exist. (Women in their twenties and thirties were more likely to report barriers than the average; the proportion of women reporting barriers tended to decrease with age.)

The challenges women reported: breaking into the old boys’ club (81 per cent of female respondents), preconceived perception of capability by co-workers and senior management (74 per cent), and balancing careers and family responsibilities (73 per cent). 

“The difference in responses to this question between women and men is stark and consistent with the 2015 research,” write the authors of the report.

Survey participants also expressed concerns that “rampant sexual harassment” from men in the agriculture industry is driving young women away.

Viktoria Schuler, a senior manager at CAHRC, provided some examples of the double standards women face. 

On the one hand, women are told they can’t lead because they are “too soft” but if they are firm, they are accused of being too aggressive. 

And if a woman asks for time off to handle a family matter she can be judged as not being 100 per cent dedicated to her position; however, when a man asks for time off for a family situation, he is often praised as being a good father. 

Delineating family and farm roles can be especially hard for women working in a multi-generation family operation.

Despite the inherent challenges of working in a historically male-dominated field, Schuler says women are finding ways to lead with authenticity. For example, they are recognized for frequently possessing positive leadership traits such as higher emotional intelligence, more empathy and a more collaborative communication style. “Their teams benefit when they use these traits,” she says.

CAHRC’s survey also shows that women leaders tend to be highly educated and seek out opportunities to learn and build on their knowledge and leadership skills.

One such learning opportunity is a 10-week leadership development program for women offered by CAHRC. Country Guide reached out to three women who participated in the program earlier this year. 

Emily Seed is the executive director at the Northern Ontario Innovation Alliance and a partner at a small, local direct-to-consumer beef farm. Terrilynn Holloway of Wolfville, N.S., worked in a management role at a large poultry operation. Courtney Heuston works in HR and safety at Barrhill Feeders Inc. in Picture Butte, Alta., and is also a partner with her father in a cow-calf ranch where she grew up in southern Saskatchewan.

Here’s what they had to say about the program and their advice for other women in agriculture on how to lead with confidence. 

Seek out support

The opportunity during the course to learn from real life examples and to hear how other women navigated roadblocks was extremely useful, says Heuston. “It was the thing I didn’t know I needed.

All three valued the course format, which included opportunities for networking and time to discuss real life situations with other participants in similar circumstances. They were also able to connect with participants on an ongoing basis following program completion. “It helps to know that others are in the same boat, so you don’t feel so alone,” says Holloway.

Seed participated in the course just after her maternity leave. She found it was especially helpful to sharpen her leadership skills as she returned to work. She is passionate about what she does but as an introvert, she doesn’t love public speaking and “had to work to put herself out there again,” she says. 

The value of mentoring

Both Heuston and Seed emphasize the value of mentorships in leadership development. Seed says she has benefited from mentoring by strong women in leadership roles in the past through both 4-H and the Canadian Cattle Young Leaders program.

Heuston says, “Mentorship goes a long way. We all have something we can learn or teach. I try to be supportive to other women in my circles. Every little bit helps.”

Be your own cheerleader

Seed says she must work to overcome impostor syndrome, those feelings of self-doubt about skills, talents or accomplishments despite evidence of success to the contrary. “I remind myself that I do have the abilities, and I have people I can reach out to for support.

Holloway’s advice is to trust yourself. “If you feel confident in what you know, don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t let others sway you. Set boundaries.”

Heuston says being in alignment with her goals helps her cope when impostor syndrome rears its head. She recommends being your own cheerleader and using positive self-talk to give yourself a boost of confidence when you second-guess yourself. 

She adds that listening to podcasts that bolster her confidence (such as Authentically Ashlyn) or challenge her to think outside the box (Discover Ag) also helps her overcome the critical voice in her head.

But she admits “you have to be thick-skinned and roll with the punches. There will be hurdles. Don’t give up on yourself and don’t stay down too long.”

Ask for feedback

In Holloway’s experience, asking for feedback, good and bad, from someone you trust, either above you in the chain of command or your team members, helps you grow. “If I did something and it didn’t work quite the way I’d hoped, I’d ask others how they thought it went and if there’s something I could have done differently.”

Sometimes we can be our own worst critic, but Holloway says that gathering feedback builds your confidence. “It’s also a way to build trust with your team members who are going through the hardships with you.”

How to develop leadership presence

Lauren Sergy, an Edmonton, Alta., communications and executive coach, says it’s human nature to be biased when someone in a leadership position doesn’t look or sound like what we’re expecting — which, in agriculture, has typically been a white male. 

“It’s the way our brains are wired. Even before people hear us speak, they are deciding whether they should listen to us, whether the information we are going to share is reliable and if they should trust us,” she says. 

“Even if we don’t want to be biased, we’re making judgements and evaluations. We have to mentally think our way around it. It takes stepping outside ourselves for a moment.”

Sergy acknowledges that it’s frustrating to still be talking about gender and race. “We have to recognize those elements of human bias and we have to work with them strategically. The longer we work with it, the more we work strategically, the easier it gets. But we’re not there yet. Good people can still be unconsciously biased.”

She works with both men and women to help them learn to project an air of confidence and trust, what she refers to as leadership presence. While leadership presence may come more naturally to some people than others, it’s a trait anyone can develop. 

Leadership presence is valuable no matter what stage of your career although Sergy says the vibe you give off will change as you progress through professional phases. When you are young, for example, she says your leadership presence may be more energetic and ambitious but when you are older it may be more reflective and philosophical. 

Sergy offers the following advice for developing leadership presence:

• Develop self-awareness and self-control. Remain in control of yourself. You do not need to be a robot but show the right emotion at the right time.
• Look confident. Are you presenting the external appearance you intend? Stand tall with an upright posture and make eye contact. (This is generally true for North American cultures but may not apply to other cultures.) If you are a fast talker, consciously slow down.
• Listen more than you talk. Listening instills trust. When leaders listen to us, we tend to assume they are smarter although Sergy acknowledges this does take self-control.
• Accept and embrace impostor syndrome as part of being human. “I don’t know any high-achieving leader, male or female, who doesn’t express this. Learn to dance with it.” Her advice is to write an objective list of skills and career path highlights. “Ask others and take what they are telling you. You have the evidence in the list.”

Resources
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) runs the Women in Agriculture Essential Leadership Skills Development Program and has plans to launch a platform so women leaders in agriculture can network with one another.

Advancing Women in Agriculture Conferences (AWC) aim to build confidence in women working in agriculture and food. AWC EAST 2025 will take place November 23-25, 2025, at the Sheraton Fallsview, Niagara Falls, Ont., AWC WEST 2026 will take place March 8-10, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency, Calgary, Alta. Visit advancingwomenconference.ca for more information.

The post How women lead with confidence in agriculture appeared first on Country Guide.

Sawyer, who farms with her husband, Matt, in Acme, Alta., always felt the term signifies partnership.

“I have always taken great pride in calling myself a farm wife. I am a farm wife, and I’m a stay-at-home mom, and yes, I am farming.”

In her early years on the farm, Sawyer was busy raising three kids and being involved in the local community. She always played a role on the farm, relying on her education as a legal assistant to help with the administrative side of the business.

But Sawyer realizes not everyone in the industry shares her thoughts on the term. Recent years have seen much debate around the term “farm wife,” with some arguing in part that it devalues the often unpaid work of primarily women in farm businesses and homes, while at the same time enforcing traditional gender roles.

Unpaid work is a concept that has gained more and more attention over the last several decades. In the late 1980s, sociologist Arlene Kaplan gave it a formal name: invisible work. She described invisible work as unpaid labour, mostly performed by women, that often goes unrecognized and under-appreciated.

Since then, there have been ongoing discussions around if and how to recognize and value this invisible labour. A 2019 study concluded that the value of women’s unpaid work in the U.S. that year was $1.5 trillion dollars (at a rate of minimum wage). Some European countries have considered plans to compensate unpaid workers. One of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, accepted by all member nations in 2015, included the need to recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work.

Here in Canada, the federal government released a report in 2021 highlighting the need for more public and policy-related recognition of the unpaid work of women. Another recent study estimated that the value of unpaid labour in Canada is about 15 per cent of the country’s GDP, which is a conservative estimate.

Despite the advancement of these discussions in recent decades, women in North America do a disproportionate amount of unpaid work compared to men. This issue exploded during the pandemic years, when North American parents and caregivers, again primarily women, struggled so significantly with burnout that last year the U.S. Surgeon General declared parental mental health a “critical health priority.”

In the agriculture world, where primary farm operators (mostly men, according to statistics) work long hours outside of the house, it’s likely that the partners who support them (primarily women, according to statistics) shoulder the same or even greater domestic workloads than the average Canadian woman.

So, in light of global discussions around recognizing and valuing the unpaid work of women, has the agriculture industry advanced its collective thoughts and actions around this idea?

Many experts within the industry say yes.

More women are calling themselves ‘farmers’

Growing up on the family farm in Melfort, Sask., Kim Keller watched her mom serve as an equal and integral partner to her dad on the farm: working in the fields, running equipment and more.

“My mom farmed right beside my dad,” she says. “If it hadn’t been for my mom, my dad wouldn’t have able to farm how he did.”

Although she believes this was common at the time, she also believes many of these women still considered themselves “farm wives” rather than farmers.

This has changed — although only incrementally.

In 2021, the Census of Agriculture indicated an increase in female farm operators for the first time in 30 years, with approximately 80,000, or 30 per cent of Canadian farmers being women. Many feel this is still not an accurate number, but it does indicate a shift.

(It’s also relevant to note that Statistics Canada did not allow Canadian farms to list more than one primary operator until 1991, marking another potential reason why Canadian women on farms are disinclined to identify as farmers.)

Keller, who still farms today, believes that part of the reason a growing number of women are identifying as farmers is because their work — which often includes “softer” skills — is increasingly being valued, on the farm and beyond.

“The emotional intelligence, the compassion, the humility — this would have just been considered women’s work before, but now it’s everyone’s work. We’re seeing soft skills recognized as important everywhere.”

In fact, in her off-farm role as an executive at an ag-tech startup company, Ground Truth Ag, based in Saskatchewan, she says the majority of the skills she uses are soft skills.

“In order to be successful in any type of position these days, leadership or not, working with people is one of the most important parts, and people are emotions, people are feelings,” she says.

“Chat GPT can do all the hard stuff. It can’t resolve a conflict between heated or disengaged employees.”

Keller, who has held several leadership roles in the ag sector over the last decade, also believes there’s a greater appreciation for invisible work today because younger generations are sharing the domestic duties much more than previous ones.

According to StatsCan, in the last 40 years men have increased the amount of time they spend doing housework by 24 minutes a day — the exact same amount by which women have decreased their daily household work over the same time frame, reflecting a slow but growing trend toward more equitable participation in household chores.

Women are stepping into more leadership roles

Sawyer believes that as female farmers and farm wives take on leadership roles in the agriculture sector, the sector is also increasingly valuing the contributions women make to the farm, both paid and unpaid.

She says this has been true in her own experience.

Six years ago, as her kids were grown and she had more time on her hands, Sawyer decided to become a director on the Alberta Barley board.

But it was a tough decision for her at first, she says, because she questioned her own abilities to serve as a “farmer” board member.

“I almost wasn’t going to because I thought: I don’t run the machinery, I won’t be able to talk equipment, I won’t be able to talk seed rate.’”

She discussed her concerns with a female mentor, who convinced her that she brought many unique skills and perspectives to the table.

“She said: ‘You don’t have to run the equipment to sit at the board table. You know more than you think you know’,” Sawyer says.

In the early days of her board work, she says she was often recognized as “Matt’s wife,” which she found frustrating.

“I am proud of my husband’s contributions to the industry, but I am my own person,” she says.

Sawyer says that over time her own strong voice emerged, bringing a unique skill set and perspective to the table. Today, she is the first female chair of the Alberta Grains board and has leveraged her leadership skills and experience to guide the organization through significant transitions in recent years.

“I’ve been welcomed to the table, and I have been heard,” she says. “I know it’s because I also I earned the respect. You have to prove yourself.”

Making invisible work visible

Val Panko, a business advisor with FCC, believes the industry is getting better at recognizing the value of invisible work on the farm, but that putting an actual value on it remains difficult.

She says this type of work often becomes “visible” during succession planning.

“That’s when it the invisibility cloak comes off,” she says, adding that this is usually when someone who has done unpaid work for decades decides they don’t want to do it anymore.

Often, there’s no one willing to, or in a position to take over, Panko says.

“The roles in a farm operation and the management are clear cut, the ones behind the scenes aren’t.”

Panko says she has also seen cases where the invisible work has been outsourced as a result of generational changes on the farm, and some businesses are even customized for this, for example, custom catering businesses that deliver hot meals to farmers directly in the field.

Outsourcing forces farms to put a value on this type of labour, also called “sweat equity” in the world of succession planning. There are several tools, or sweat equity calculators, available to help farms do the math.

But Panko believes that calculating the real value of this type of work is a lot more complicated than simply assigning an hourly rate to hours worked.

In her work, she defines sweat equity as “the value that your children might have brought to the business above and beyond their contributed labour and their relative compensation for that labour.”

“I want people to think about it like: ‘How much did having your successor, your child or your partner involved increase your relative net worth or your operational success?’”

Other considerations should include any new ideas, practices, protocols or safety measures that person may have brought into an operation, and how they supported other peoples’ work as well.

Often, the value of these things is immeasurable, Panko says.

“I have many people say to me: ‘I wouldn’t have been farming these past five years if my son wasn’t involved.’ So, that’s five years’ worth of equity in their operation that’s grown because they were able to continue.”

Although Panko believes it remains extremely challenging to assign value to this type of work, she does believe we are making progress.

“I think we are moving in the right direction. I don’t know if we’re better at calculating it, because it’s hard, but I do think we are taking steps forward,” she says.

As for Sawyer, who still goes by “farmer” and “farm wife” interchangeably, she realizes many people still have strong opinions on the topic, and she understands why.

“It means different things to different people.”

For her, the big difference is that she always felt her work and contributions at home, on the farm and at the board table was valued by those who matter, despite the fact that putting an exact monetary value on them remains elusive.

“It is a very touchy title for some people who maybe don’t feel recognized,” she says. “And I think the reason why it didn’t bother me is I have always, always felt seen.”

The post What is work worth? appeared first on Country Guide.

Alanna Koch reminisces about her decision to quit her job as executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association to stay home with her kids full-time in 2000.

“I thought it was the end of the world,” she says.

Her role with the association followed years of public service work with the provincial Progressive Conservative government in the 1980s, including a position as chief of staff to Premier Grant Devine.

After her time in government, she and husband Gerry Hertz moved away from urban life in the early 1990s, to Koch’s hometown of Edenwold, Sask. Their plan was to start their own small farm operation and a family. But rural life proved busy for the young family, with both Koch and Hertz working full-time jobs and often travelling for work.

They’d enlisted a nanny to help with child care (there were no daycare options available in Edenwold at the time), but they still felt the arrangement was untenable, Koch says. “It was like we hit the wall. I was spending more time away, spending more money on paying the nanny than I was making.” And so, she and Hertz sat down to have a difficult conversation, one of many throughout the span of their professional and parenting careers.

“I wanted to have kids, but I didn’t think I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom,” Koch says. “It was our decision together, but I really felt forced.”

The experience of transitioning to full-time mom yielded one of the great lessons Koch has learned throughout her multi-decade career: transitions are difficult, especially when unplanned or forced, but they often yield rich periods of growth, fulfillment and valuable learning.

And not long after her decision to step back from the growers association, she discovered something unexpected. “I realized I really, really loved spending more time with my kids.”

Daughters Shayla and Keisha were born while Koch was working full-time. Her first maternity leave had been six months, the standard at the time, and her second had been only four months due to a job-sharing arrangement. “I hadn’t been home enough to really know what it was like to be home. I don’t think I had allowed myself that time.”

Another valuable lesson she learned was that being the at-home parent didn’t necessarily translate into the death of her career. She kept her foot in the door by taking on contract work and getting involved with local and provincial boards. “I always did a little bit of consulting work,” she says. “It helped with income and I think I was a better mom as a result.”

The next phase

In fact, Koch enjoyed her time at home with the kids so much that when newly elected Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall called to offer her a job in 2007, she said no.

But Wall drove a hard bargain.

“He said, ‘Listen, you’ve been haranguing me as leader of the opposition about all the things we should be doing in ag, so now you need to come make it happen as deputy minister.’”

Koch’s girls were 13 and 11 at the time, and she knew from her previous stint in the political world the expectations and pressures that come with the job. But she also believed there was tremendous potential for Saskatchewan’s agriculture industry, which could and should be nurtured through government support and policy. So, she and Hertz sat their daughters down at the kitchen table to discuss.

“I said, ‘This is an opportunity that I think I’d really like to take, but it means I’m going to be away a lot.’” It was a difficult conversation, but her family was supportive. Together, they decided Hertz would quit his full-time job to become the primary parent and focus on the farm.

“I don’t think any of us knew really what I was signing up for,” Koch says. “And maybe sometimes that’s okay, because if we knew everything, we would say ‘no’ more often than we should.”

Koch agreed to the position for two years, a commitment she now looks back on as “laughable.” Over the next decade, she served in several roles under the Wall government. She was the first woman to hold the position of deputy minister to the premier and she was one of the longest serving deputy ministers of agriculture in Canadian history.

“I couldn’t help myself,” says Koch, of her longer-than-expected term. “Once I got back in, you’re so passionate about what you’re doing in the moment. I think a lot of people are probably the same.”

This passion compelled her to run for the leadership of the party in 2018, a race in which she was narrowly defeated by current Premier Scott Moe. Although she was sad to lose, she says in the end she realized, again, the experience paved the way for another positive transition.

Transitioning once again

Koch left the political world for good in 2018 and focused on bringing her experience, skills and passion to leadership roles at prominent Canadian agricultural organizations.

She served as chair of both the Global Institute for Food Security and the CN Agricultural Advisory Council, board director for Protein Industries Canada, the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame, and many more.

Now, she and Hertz are gearing up for the next big transition, one that is top of mind for almost half of Canadian farmers these days: retirement. And like most of the couple’s life transitions, this one began with thoughtful and sometimes difficult conversations. “You think you want to retire, but then you think ‘it took us so long to build this business,’” she says, referring to their late start building their farm. “It’s almost like we want to quit, but we want to stay in.

“The early part of the conversation is always the toughest, till you get your head and your heart lined up together,” she says. “Then it gets easier. You have to walk in those shoes for a while.”

Over the last couple of years, they have started downsizing the farm, while Koch slowly begins to wrap up some professional roles. And one other detail has made the transition to retirement easier: finally having the time to do things they couldn’t in their previous life, including spending more time with loved ones, like her grandchildren and parents. “That’s not going to be an opportunity that’s there forever.”

The prospect of slowing down has prompted Koch to take stock of a busy career marked by transition and change. While often difficult, she says she is grateful for the experiences and couldn’t have done it any other way.

“I kind of meandered through all these opportunities,” she says. “When I look back, there was maybe a bit of a path and pace to it, but it was definitely just opportunity and people kind of shoving me along the way.” 

Advice for life transitions

Alanna Koch may be near the end of her decades-long career, but many of the issues she faced as a working parent are still relevant today. Work-life balance and career transitions remain top issues so Koch offers this advice:

Surround yourself with the right supports
Koch says her professional endeavours simply would not have been possible without the support of her husband, Gerry Hertz, who understood what fulfillment looked like to her.

When Koch and her family decided she would return to politics in 2007, Hertz quit his full-time job and took over child care. “I have an amazing husband,” says Koch. “When I went back to work full-time, he raised the kids. Eighty per cent of it was him, 20 per cent was me. Thank goodness I married well. He’s like super dad.”

Koch is also grateful for employers who helped make career and home life more flexible. When she served as executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association in the 1990s, the organization facilitated a job-sharing opportunity for her and another female colleague with children. The flexible arrangement allowed both women to serve as co-executive directors.

“There was no job sharing back then,” Koch says, adding the association always had a lot of female representation on its staff, board and leadership. “That was an unheard-of thing. They were ahead of their time. They were willing to be really creative.”

And Koch says she and Hertz are grateful for supportive family members who helped with child care when the kids were young. “It takes a village,” she says.

Don’t close any doors
When Koch removed herself completely from professional life to stay home full-time with her kids, the move seemed drastic.

So, she figured out creative and flexible ways to keep a foot in the door. She picked up contract work and got involved with local and provincial boards of directors. And while it wasn’t always easy to balance work commitments with child care, she believes it’s critically important for working parents to allow themselves room to stay involved, if that’s what they want.

“I think it’s good for your brain and your mental health, because it’s really difficult to be full-time with kids. Some women are wired that way, and that’s great, but I wasn’t.” She advises working parents to enjoy their time at home and trust their instincts about when it’s time for a transition. “You’ll know when you’re ready to get back into your career full-time.”

And when that time comes, the transition will be easier if you have maintained connections. “Make sure you somehow stay in touch,” she says, noting this is much easier in today’s world of remote work.

Mom-guilt is real. Be kind to yourself
Despite today’s more flexible work arrangements for working parents, Koch believes there are fundamental psychological challenges that come with balancing work and home life.

“It’s still that challenge, that burden, for us as moms, where we’re always feeling like we should be where we’re not. When we’re working, we feel like we should be with our kids, and when we’re with our kids, it’s like ‘I have so much work to do.’”

She has learned that while guilt is real, we can be compassionate with ourselves. “Give yourself some grace and forgive yourself, because you’re always thinking you’re never good enough,” she says.

In her experience, children are more resilient than we give them credit for. “The kids are going to be okay. As long as you love them and you’re there for all the things you can be there for, and you’re present, they’re going to be fine.”

Follow your passions and be present wherever you are
One of the greatest challenges we face today is the constant demands on our attention, making it nearly impossible to just be present. “I tend to overuse the term, but be present when you’re present,” she says. “When I was home, I really did try to not be working, and I tried not to bring work home with me.”

Her daughters, now figuring out their own balancing acts between professional and home life, credit their mom with showing them how to work towards balance with a partner, while also making an impact in respective professional roles. “Gerry and I took turns in our career(s), being home and being away. And I think we’ve built resilient daughters. They’re both super moms.”

Be open to possibilities. Don’t fear change
Koch suggests staying open to new possibilities and opportunities and make decisions based on what’s best for you and your family.

Ask questions like: Is this the right time? Can we handle this as a family? Is this really something I’m passionate about? If this door closes, will it ever open again? “These are the things you think through with your head and heart.”

She says a cornerstone of her relationship with Hertz has been strong communication. “That’s the key to any good relationship and any good decision. And as you talk it through, you work through your emotions.”

The transitions and decisions they faced as a couple weren’t always easy to navigate, but she says they were always positive, even if it took awhile for her to realize. “How did I move through those transitions? Sometimes painfully and not very willingly,” she admits. “But I must say, all of the changes that I’ve made have always been really good, and spending more time with my kids was really good.”

The post Navigating transitions in career, family and the farm appeared first on Country Guide.

“The NFU wants to see farmers thrive in Canada. Enhancing farmers’ opportunities to build skills for their long-term success benefits us all,” NFU president Jennifer Pfenning said in a news release in late August.

THE EXCHANGE is a national program that aims to “maximize the long-term success of equity-deserving farmers in Canadian agriculture, the NFU said. It will support two cohorts of 20 farmers and farm workers to access training, grants, mentorship and networking.

The federal government pledged $287,487 over two years to fund the program.

“Agriculture is a vital part of our economy and we need folks from all walks of life to be part of it,” said federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay in the news release. “This program will help the participants develop and grow the skills they need to succeed as the next generation of producers.”

Applications close on September 27. Visit the NFU’s website for more information.

The post National Farmers Union opens applications to training, support program for underrepresented farmers appeared first on Country Guide.

There are two stories here. Yes, the proportion of Canadian farm operators who are women has edged higher in recent years, but the total number of women who are farming is still on a downward trend, and is expected to keep on that trend unless and until numerous challenges are overcome.

Statistics Canada’s most recent census of agriculture showed women accounted for 28.7 per cent of all farm operators in 2016. That was up from 27.4 per cent in 2011, and from 25.3 per cent in 1996.

The number of women farming, however, actually fell.

And it may be even harder for women to farm as we get further into the 2020s.

The challenges remain

Pam Bailey, a co-founder and former chair of Ag Women Manitoba, points out high farmland prices make ownership a challenge for young farmers, and women in particular. 

Women were most prevalent among farm operators between the ages of 35 and 54 at 30.7 per cent in StatsCan’s 2016 census.

“If young farmers cannot own farmland, or even rent farmland — regardless of gender — then our rural communities and food systems will further suffer,” Bailey says.

But the hurdle can be even higher for women, Bailey says, because women face additional barriers including the gender wage gap, which also extends to the agricultural industry.

“Hence, if there is available farmland that can be accessed by a young farmer, a male young farmer will be not only more likely to have more wealth built up than his female equivalent, but have more leverage,” Bailey says.

Women also shoulder what she calls the “Mommy Tax,” meaning women face more wealth setbacks by just having children.

Additional uncertainties in the form of climatic challenges and the ongoing cost-price squeeze also make it harder for young farmers — who are more represented by women — to enter the ag industry, says Amber Fletcher, a University of Regina associate professor in the department of sociology and social studies.

“So gender and large political-economic factors intersect to create particular challenges for women in agriculture,” says Fletcher, who also co-authored a recent report prepared by Saskatchewan’s Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. 

Between 1996 and 2016, says Cally Dhaliwal, an economist with the strategic policy branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the number of female farm operators declined by 20 per cent to 77,970, while the number of male operators declined by 33 per cent to 193,965. 

“As a result of the disproportionately smaller decline in number, the female proportion of all farm operators rose from 25 per cent to 29 per cent over that period,” she explains.

Who owns the land?

Federal statistics show, however, that farm women own less of the land they farm than male farmers. Men on average own over half the land they work. Women own just over one quarter.

In addition, few farms in Canada were solely owned by women. The 2016 census revealed 80 per cent of farms with women operators had two or more partners, and that independent women operators accounted for only 20 per cent of female operators. The proportion for independent males, however, was 50 per cent.

“As farms grow larger and require more capital, it may be even more difficult for women to become primary operators in the future,” said the Saskatchewan report, which examined the current status of women ag entrepreneurship in Saskatchewan in 2020.

The report claimed that also stymying women’s ownership is farm succession. The report and Bailey point out women don’t traditionally inherit farms.

Although some families have adapted to include all children in succession plans, the change hasn’t been universal, Bailey says. She’s personally seen capable women whose parents refused to see them as possible successors to their farm business.

“The fact that we still have that as a barrier is hard to believe, but it is a reality for far too many,” Bailey says

She predicts fewer women as primary farm operators “for the next while,” but adds this is intertwined with the fact the number of farms and farmers are in decline.

Gender roles 

The Saskatchewan report postulated men’s dominance in agriculture can at least be partly tied to gender roles on the farm. It said gender roles have positioned men as primary farm operators, with women as support labour.

The report found women most strongly involved in less visible operational tasks like farm management, marketing and accounting, whereas men’s most common jobs included seeding, spraying and combining.

But the report also found that gendered divisions of labour on the farm are weakening, and gender roles are changing.

“Men are becoming more involved in child care, while more women are performing traditionally masculine tasks, like operating equipment,” the report stated.

Julia Laforge, a post-doctoral fellow at Lakehead University, speculates the role that women play on farms “hasn’t changed that much, since women have always been involved in farm decision-making, accounting and labour.”

“What has changed are attitudes. Whereas that work would have been considered the job of the ‘farm wife’ and was considered unpaid labour in previous generations, now there is increasing recognition that this work is the same as their husbands’ and partners’, and therefore they are farmers as well,” Laforge says.

Iris Meck, founder of the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference, and Glacier FarmMedia’s director of conferences, also believes women are receiving more recognition that they’re involved in every aspect of farming.

In the 1960s, her mother took care of the farm books, but also worked in the fields and looked after livestock. These days, technology has made it much easier to communicate what farm women are doing on the farm.

“All you have to do is go to any blog or social media platform, and you’ll see women in the combines, the tractors, looking after cattle, and livestock of all kinds,” says Meck. “We’re recognizing that they’re there, and they’ve always done everything.”

Opportunities

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Peggy Brekveld predicts a continued decline of farmers across Canada, but a slow rise in women farmers, especially in regions that led the way with higher proportions of female operators.

British Columbia had the highest female proportion of farm operators in Canada at 38 per cent, followed by Alberta at 31 per cent, according to the 2016 census.

Women made up 29.7 per cent of Ontario farm operators in 2016, and Brekveld points out that while the number of farms in Ontario decreased by 13 per cent from 2006 to 2016, the number of farms with female operators increased by 12 per cent.

Laforge says her own research found that there is a growing number of young women farmers, especially on smaller, niche farms. They’re using direct marketing, including community-supported agriculture and farmers markets.

That aligns with the 2016 census, which reported female farm operators were more represented on farms specialized in serving niche markets, and on more diversified farms that produced a combination of products, such as fruits and vegetables, and/or poultry and eggs.

Interviews conducted for the Saskatchewan report supported the possibility that alternative forms of agriculture, such as organics and direct marketing, might provide a more inclusive environment for women in agriculture, says Fletcher.

“Due to the disproportionate financial barriers women experience getting into agriculture — which include the price of land but also the price of equipment and other inputs — less industrialized or less capital-intensive forms of agriculture might provide a more accessible route into the sector for women, or new farmers generally,” Fletcher says.

Role models

Brekveld thinks that positive examples will help bolster the number of women in farming.

“As young women see more role models who are succeeding in farming, on their own or in partnership with others, it becomes a natural career option to consider,” she says. The Saskatchewan report adds that role models and mentors can provide a crucial entry point into agriculture.

“Socialization is powerful: if young women are encouraged to enter the ag sector, they not only see it as a viable option, but learn important knowledge and skills along the way,” the report says.

Brekveld notes that support for farm women has grown, with farm magazines and social media outlets highlighting women in ag, and various groups providing networking opportunities.

Meck adds that after a couple of years of holding her conferences, she observed more articles about women in agriculture, including many more young women profiled in publications.

The report also highlighted emerging opportunities to help women in farming to access financing, mentoring, training and other support to build their businesses. Several programs offer support specifically for women entrepreneurs, such as Farm Credit Canada’s (FCC) loans for women ag entrepreneurs through its Women Entrepreneur Program.

Ongoing hurdles

Fletcher, however, says the report’s interview data revealed that sexism and stereotyping continue to exist for women in agriculture.

“There have been times where men have not wanted to deal with me because I’m a woman. ‘How could you possibly know as much as Joe about chemicals and cropping rotations and things like that?’” one interviewee said.

Others reported customers preferring to deal with the “man of the house,” and employees refusing to take direction from women.

“We need to ditch the stereotypes and include women — daughters, wives, daughters-in-law and sisters-in-law — in the conversation,” agrees Bailey.

She calls for major systemic changes that include gender pay equality in the agricultural industry, and rural child care that would allow for both partners to keep working.

“It would be nice to have a government program that supports women farmers specifically to address some of these major issues, but until these tremendously important barriers come down, it is only a band-aid solution.”

– This article was originally published in the April 2021 issue of Country Guide.

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Maybe it used to be a struggle for Dad to stop being Dad and become a business partner. especially if it’s his “little girl” that’s stepping up to take over the farm. Sometimes it still is, but on a growing number of farms, dads and daughters are not only getting the job done, they can also teach some lessons in best practices to dads and sons.

So how are daughters and dads harnessing this dynamic, zooming past the occasional eye rolls they still get to some well-deserved pats on the back? Country Guide put some probing questions to two young women near Dauphin, northwest of Winnipeg. Their responses are below, lightly edited for flow and length.

Gracey Gulak, Manitoba

At 22, Gracey Gulak is a fifth-generation grain and cattle farmer on the 1,500-acre family farm pioneered by her great-great-grandfather at Gilbert Plains. She is also a diploma ag graduate, working off-farm in agronomy for 360 Ag Consulting.

Over the last two years, though, Gracey has announced to her father, Peter, that she wants to farm. More than that, at the end of the day, she wants to have his job, becoming the decision maker for their family farm.

What is your transition plan?
We don’t have a concrete plan, nothing that is set in stone although we do try to give ourselves deadlines and keep each other accountable for certain aspects on the farm. But our plans are always changing, just like the ag industry is always changing.

I am not in a rush… I just want to do it slowly and where we are both comfortable with the situation, because I’m still working full-time. This is what’s working for us. We want to transition slowly and it never means pushing my dad out of the picture. I would like to farm with him as long as I possibly can.

Where are you at in that transition?
What we have done in the past few years is draw up some legal documents to help keep each other accountable, things like rental contracts for the land rent. I currently rent 110 acres and I hope to increase that number this coming spring. In my first crop year, I purchased grain bins for my own grain storage.

We also have put some equipment rental agreements in place where I will pay for the use of the equipment (that is still owned by my dad), as well as the fuel and any parts that are needed. I have set up my own accounts at the ag retailers, so all our inputs like seed, fertilizer and chemicals are separate. I find it easier to keep track of things that way. And I purchased some bred cows to start building my own herd.

How do you succeed at working together as business partners?
Keeping each other accountable is very important because sometimes it’s easy to let things get put on the back burner when you’re dealing with a relative. My dad is someone I see all the time. But a farm operation is a business, and this is my business partner that I’m working with so I want to treat that relationship in a professional manner.

In the big picture, we have similar goals in relation to doing a good job of our management and wanting to improve the soil health. But I do recognize that he is sometimes stuck in his ways and I feel sometimes I am more adaptable to change than he might be. So, we talk about that often.

How have you got your dad onboard with the changes you have made or want to make? How do you handle disagreements?
Whenever I’m trying to bring up a new idea, such as upgrading equipment, I present him with lots of information. I write it out to present to him and show him the benefits or the advantages to trying something new. I present him with lots of options because it doesn’t have to be my way, we can find a way to compromise and what works best for us because every farm is different.

I’m not expecting him to do everything I say because he is still the main manager but I’m just slowly getting more input on the decision-making processes.

My goal is to not pick up more acres, but to be managing what we have the best I can and maximize potential in a sustainable manner.

What do you do to inspire your dad’s trust and confidence?
I need to build trust with my dad to show him I am committed, involved and capable of potentially managing in the future… he has to be sure the farm is going into good hands.

Through the work I do off-farm, where I am exposed to many different environmental and soil conditions, and different seed and chemical treatments and practises, I have been able to demonstrate that I can make educated decisions about our farm input purchases.

My dad trusts me to make spraying decisions because I scout all the fields on the farm throughout growing season. Having eyes on them all season long helps identify optimal spray times so we can get the best results and cost efficiency from the products we use.

Dad also allows me to take the lead or consults with me when we are looking to implement any new technology on the farm. The technology aspect comes slightly easier to me, but I do have to remember to put myself in his shoes and recognize all the changes he has encountered throughout his farming career.

Are you treated differently than if you were a son taking over the farm?
My dad has four daughters, so he treats us all the only way he knows. Any of us could be future successors. I feel that I did grow up in a constructive, hard-working environment just like any other farm kid, whether girls or boys. I do think I had less experience with equipment maintenance which is definitely a weakness of mine that I am challenging myself to learn now. If I’d had that foresight, I may have already had some years of experience under my belt. In all other aspects I feel that I am treated no differently than if I was a son taking over.

How is your Dad preparing you for a management and decision-making role on the farm?
He has helped me a lot on the financial end of the business and encourages me to do a yearly net worth statement. This allows me to assess what I have done throughout the year, compare my finances from year to year and make improvements in the future. He has also helped me to run the numbers before making a purchase. This should be common sense, but it is easy to make impulse decisions.

I also understand that time management is important and there are priorities that need attention with both the grain and cattle sides of the farm. We both share a holistic view of management and that’s always in the back of our minds when thinking about the long term.

What are some changes you want to make?
Something we are discussing in the near future is to purchase a new seeding implement. My goal is to upgrade so we have the ability to do variable rate (VR) and to provide better efficiency on the farm. With my job, I promote and see the benefits of zone sampling and applying fertilizer and seed by VR.

What more do you need to learn?
Dad encourages my learning by pushing me to find ways to stay educated. That includes reading articles, asking me questions, continuous research to find better ways to improve sustainability on the farm in the short and long term. There’s always something new, for example, new products, chemical resistance issues or new diseases or bugs. I want to stay on top of those things….

I am also interested in taking some business courses to get a better handle on finances. This is all new for me and the best way to understand it is to be actively involved. I want to develop better knowledge in this sector. Being willing to learn and adapt is something that’s never going to stop, no matter how old you are.

McKinna Klassen, Manitoba

McKinna Klassen farms with her dad, Keith Kotyk, uncle, Ken, and younger brother, Colton, about 30 minutes west of Dauphin, where she is taking over the 3,000-acre grain side of the operation with the help of her brother, who is also taking on the 300-head cow herd.

McKinna is 26 and studied agribusiness and worked as an agronomist after high school. Then, after a short stint in banking, she ended up in her current off-farm career as a grower support representative for Cargill.

Klassen recently married Michael, who has his own family farm. Although they may help each other out from time to time, though, the two operations are totally separate from each other.

What is your transition plan?
My dad and uncle have seen me helping out on the farm over the years and were 100 per cent convinced that I was capable of taking over the farm. We are looking to continue to slowly expand the grain farm and my brother has been expanding the cattle side of the business quite quickly. He knew that was something he had to do if he wanted to farm full-time.

At some point, when we have expanded the grain side of the farm to a point where I feel comfortable, and my dad and uncle look to fully retire, I will quit my off-farm job to farm full-time.

Where are you at in your farm transition?
In the early spring of 2019, my grandfather decided he no longer wanted to be part of or live on the farm. We worked through a transition plan with him and he decided to transition his farmland to me and my brother. He skipped a generation in the transition.

In 2019, my brother and I also purchased our own first farmland together and purchased more in 2022 with the help of our dad and uncle.

Today, I make the majority of the crop input and grain marketing decisions on the farm. My brother handles all of the cattle decisions and a majority of the cattle work. He also does most of the equipment maintenance and purchasing decisions — he decides what model, year, condition we should purchase — and I make the financial decisions about whether we can afford to upgrade something. I do the books and financials, and the actual farm work we do together alongside our dad and uncle.

We still have our dad and uncle’s farmland to transition from them to us. We have discussed this with our dad and uncle and are making the steps to transition the land over time when they are ready.

How have you got your dad onboard with the changes you have made or want to make?
We have open conversations, and I think sharing my knowledge and ideas has helped us to make changes.

Purchasing more farmland was an idea that took some convincing for my dad and uncle, because we hadn’t purchased any new land or rented any in 20-plus years. But as my brother and I proved that we wanted to farm, they began to realize that we needed to expand to do that and keep us around.

What do you do to inspire your dad and uncle’s confidence?
My brother and I found farmland to purchase, made the offer to purchase and made moves to secure the financing on our own (although we needed our dad and uncle to help us make the purchase). I think they were proud of the steps we made on our own and at a young age —
I was 21 and Colton was 19 — as well as us making a financial commitment to help it expand and be successful.

At 25, I rented my first quarter of land. Again, I found the land and made the deal with the landowner myself without the help of my dad and uncle, and this was the first grain farmland we have rented in many years. That did take a bit of convincing!

Are you treated differently than if you were a son taking over the farm?
Definitely by my grandfather, but not by my dad and uncle.

My grandfather had a very traditional attitude. I found it difficult to prove to him that I could farm. I had to prove to him that I was 100 per cent invested in the farm, from taking my agribusiness diploma, getting my Class 1A licence, purchasing farmland, working at an ag retail to providing advice and making the main input and grain marketing decisions on the farm. These were things I had to do to earn his trust and respect that my brother did not have to.

My dad and uncle were always very supportive of me helping out on the farm. They gave me the same opportunities they gave my brother. They were just happy to have the help. They taught me to drive equipment and how to check fields and cattle at the same young age.

I was once scared to learn how to run a different piece of equipment on the farm and kept avoiding learning how, until one day my uncle said, “This is a family farm. Everyone has to know how to run every piece of equipment.”

That was when it hit home to me that he was 100 per cent invested in helping me farm and my gender didn’t matter.

How have your dad and uncle prepared you for a management role?
My dad and uncle prepared and taught me management and decision-making by including me in the decision-making process long before I started making decisions. They would have the decision-making and tough conversations in front of me and my brother. They were very open in making us aware of where the farm was at in terms of work that needed to be done and financial conversations. I think including me in the struggles they were facing and listening to them work through them helped. As well, they never sugar-coated any of the challenges they’ve faced in their time farming.

What are some changes you want to make to the operation?
I would like to finish the transition planning with my dad and uncle when they are ready, as well as work on making the cattle and grain farm one farm rather than it being separate. They can help offset each other when one or the other has a tough year.

What more do you feel you need to learn?
Currently, I love having an off-farm job in a related field to help me expand my knowledge and bring innovation to the farm. I feel I’m never done learning!

Do you have advice for other young women looking to farm?
A lot of farmers assume the farm is over after them if they don’t have sons. I still see a lot of young girls that grow up on the farm but aren’t encouraged to farm… As a girl, I was sometimes intimidated about wanting to farm, whether from teachers, adults or other kids (boys) my age that grew up on a farm. You have to ignore the comments you sometimes get.

I grew up with a mom who worked full-time off the farm and still found time to help run equipment and check cattle, so I had a great example at a young age that females can have a huge role in the family farm.

My biggest advice is to just go for it, get involved as soon as you can. The transition plan can still include you, even if you have a brother. You might need to work a little harder to prove yourself, but it will help you in the long run.

– This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue of Country Guide.

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