With labour shortages in ag already well documented and getting worse, the assumption is that more farmers will want to hire more women. But will they actually follow through?

Women get the job

The new hire may need smaller boots but she can certainly fill them, as the real-world experience on more and more Canadian farms is proving

Reading Time: 6 minutes If it has been a challenge to convince more women to be open to a job on the farm, it isn’t only because of the attitudes and biases that can seem — especially to non-farmers — to be inherent in agriculture itself; there are also a host of practical issues that any woman who is […] Read more


“It’s important for women to be a visible part of the industry and set the tone for equality ... We all need to work together and for each other.”

A woman’s voice at the money table

More women own farms and have key management roles running them. So why are women still ignored when the talk turns to finance?

Reading Time: 5 minutes Heather Little farms with her husband in Amaranth, Ont., and is a realtor with Royal LePage. She recalls the treatment she received from lenders when she bought her first farm with her husband nearly 20 years ago, a time when the lenders she dealt with were predominately older males and insisted they deal with her […] Read more

Educational opportunities are often available on-demand online and could include micro-credentials which certify the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences.

HR ideas right for 2023

Six progressive strategies to attract — and retain — the employees you need

Reading Time: 5 minutes Faced with a deepening labour shortage, farm businesses that tailor their jobs, their benefit packages and their work environments to what employees are seeking can expect more success and their choice of the best employees. The question is: is that a realistic goal? Clearly, the nature of farming does impose limitations on what can be […] Read more


Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau speaks at the evening reception at the Advancing Women in Agriculture conference in Calgary on March 13, 2023. (Jessika Guse photo)

AWC 2023: Federal ag minister inspired by farm women’s progress

Don't wait to be asked to participate, Bibeau tells AWC West

Reading Time: < 1 minute Calgary — Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau drew applause from delegates attending the Advancing Women in Agriculture (AWC) conference here this week as she acknowledged their efforts for paving her path into politics. Bibeau told delegates attending the 10th annual conference she’s never felt like she’s had to fight for spot at the political table […] Read more

Throughout her farming career and while raising her family, Lazurko tried hard to create space for her writing, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

A life in parallel

It’s there in many farmers from the beginning. Of course Anne Lazurko wanted to excel at farming, but there was a drive in her that was equally persistent — to become a novelist. But how does a farmer make that kind of leap?

Reading Time: 8 minutes When you’re one half of a busy couple running a farm while also raising four young children, there isn’t a lot of time left over. If you’ve got other passions or aspirations, well, they just have to wait. Except it turns out this isn’t entirely true, as Anne Lazurko was to discover. Lazurko dreamed of […] Read more


Increasingly younger women are taking advantage of the period in their lives before they gain family responsibilities to get both a post-secondary education and a career.

The equitable farm

Being fair and equitable to women on the farm has to start much closer to home than most of us are aware

Reading Time: 12 minutes Women in agriculture span the career spectrum from hands-on farm owners and managers to the unpaid extra pair of hands that runs to get parts or takes a turn checking the cows at calving time. Women fill all those roles and more, and almost without exception, they juggle that work with all the other balls […] Read more

“There’s no expectation that a man should be leading things,” says student and ASA president Josie Huber. “It’s just a matter of ‘Are you qualified.’”

Are you ready for this?

Columnist Leeann Minogue learns that if you don’t get on board with how these young women think, you’ll get left behind

Reading Time: 8 minutes What do young women think about the male-dominated ag industry that they are about to enter? I had been asking myself this question, and I wanted to find out, so I talked to a selection of female ag students. What did I hear? Without exception, these young women all wanted to know why I was […] Read more



“Industries with more gender balance and diversity are more profitable. On wafer-thin margins, why wouldn’t you want that?”

A question for women in 2022

Gender issue? What gender issues? Hasn’t the battle already been fought and won?

Reading Time: 5 minutes Try it yourself. Check it out with women in agriculture who speak about gender issues in the industry. Find them informally via social media or look for them through an ag women’s organization, of which there are several across Canada today. Then ask them what kind of response they get when they talk about gender […] Read more