The most common word used in the transcripts of this set of interviews was “Dad.”

Trailblazing

Women farmers reveal how they have succeeded in agriculture, and how other women can too (Part 1)

Reading Time: 4 minutes Country Guide asked for more on how we define a culture that is inclusive, equal and conducive for a successful female heir or independent business person from within a family unit. In this first part of a three-part series, I went across Canada and asked trailblazers — highly successful women in farming, agriculture and agri-business […] Read more

Farmer Barbie is one of over 200 “Barbie Career Dolls” from toy maker Mattel.

Farmer Barbie?

Is Farmer Barbie just another way to keep our daughters out of the business of farming, or is something more serious going on?

Reading Time: 6 minutes Next time you check out the toy aisle you might be surprised to find a Farmer Barbie doll on the shelves. She comes ready to farm dressed in a plaid shirt, denim overalls and rubber boots, with a red tractor, pink trailer, and an assortment of farm animals. Farmer Barbie is one of a line […] Read more


backside of woman looking over canola field at rain clouds

What women in agriculture need and want

Guide Opinion: Communication remains a key in order for farm families to grow

Reading Time: 5 minutes What do women in agriculture need? What do they want? I asked Canadian women who are farmers or in agriculture. The open forum for response on social media was complemented with phone calls and emails in which women thoughtfully responded with their wants and needs. 1. Women need healthier tax attitudes Women need farm families […] Read more

Bev Shewchuk with her daughter Stacey and granddaughter, Georgia.

Turning girls into farmers

Should you raise daughters differently to succeed at farming? This mother, daughter and granddaughter know their answer

Reading Time: 9 minutes No matter how progressive we think agriculture is becoming for ourselves, for our wives and for our daughters, there’s still a prevalent attitude that farming is “men’s work.” Now a new ethos is gaining ground, and anyone who subscribes to the men’s-work way of thinking is being asked — well, ordered really — to get […] Read more


Kim Jo Bliss credits her grandmother, Gladys Smith, with instilling the love of farming she carries with her today.

About the northwest

To this farmer, northwestern Ontario offers loads of advantages over the hustle of the southwest

Reading Time: 6 minutes Whether it’s through the longer days of spring and summer in northwestern Ontario or the darker nights that mark the passage of winter, Kim Jo Bliss puts a lot into every hour of every day. A full-time farmer, manager of the Emo Agricultural Research Station, a passionate advocate for farming, and a mentor for young […] Read more

horizontal image of a farmers wife standing at the edge of a yellow canola field wearing a red checkered shirt looking over the field at dark stormy rain clouds forming in the sky in the summer time

U.S. women own it

When we think ‘farmer,’ we often also think ‘male.’ Because it’s men who own the farmland, right?

Reading Time: 5 minutes The truth of farmland ownership is changing, especially the picture of who owns farmland in the United States, where the numbers are a bit clearer than here in Canada, and where the shift has been underway for decades. The questions are simple enough: How many women own farmland in the U.S.? What are the parameters […] Read more


"Women need to add their chair to the table,” Krysta Harden says.

The role ahead for women in agriculture

Unless farm women get more power and a bigger share of the farm voice, Krysta Harden believes agriculture will fail its greatest tests, feeding the globe and reconnecting with consumers. Summer, she says, is a time for change

Reading Time: 5 minutes It begins with a little girl, her face splattered with freckles, ambling up a dirt lane on a Georgia farm where her ancestors first broke ground. On either side, rows and rows of peanuts defiantly poked through the sand to thrive under the southern sun. Inside the clapboard farmhouse at the end of the lane, […] Read more

Portrait of a female farmer

Your next employee

The solution to your labour shortage may be just waiting for you to give her a chance

Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s a labour shortage on Canadian grain farms. And if industry predictions are correct, it’s only going to get worse… a lot worse. Following a three-year study, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) reported in 2016 that several factors will combine to create a growing shortage of domestic labour for farms. With an anticipated […] Read more


Mary Buhr, Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan

A woman’s place

Agriculture used to be a man’s world, at least in North America. But visit any agriculture college across the country and you’ll see that the times have already changed

Reading Time: 7 minutes At the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture, Dean Mary Buhr doesn’t spend much time fretting over whether women are being accepted in the agriculture industry. Long gone are the days when female students were seen as a novelty or as brave trailblazers. These days, they’re just students, and Buhr is surrounded every day by […] Read more