By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — There’s been much made of what will happen to American agriculture as aging farmers retire and die, since far too few young people seem to be taking an interest in the field.
In the next 20 years, ownership of 70 percent of the nation’s farmland will turn over, according to USDA figures quoted by Alice Baesler, co-owner of Canebrake Farm in Lexington, Ky.
She pointed out that more than twice as many farm owners right now are over 65 years of age, as there are owners 35 and under.
This turnover will leave three-quarters of American farms principally in the hands of women, she explained – the fastest-growing sector of new U.S. farmers.
“We want to empower the women to do something, and we want to educate them,” said Baesler, co-founder of Kentucky Women in Agriculture (KWIA).
She and co-founder Dr. Bonnie Tanner of Harrodsburg didn’t incorporate the organization until 2003, but last week’s annual KWIA conference was its 10th. They came up with the idea for a state-level Women in Ag group while attending a meeting in Washington, D.C.
She said KWIA’s inaugural meeting was featured on radio host Paul Harvey’s show and attended by the deputy secretary of the USDA.
Even a decade ago, “Agriculture was more or less still a man’s profession,” Baesler said.
Women still had to work to be accepted as equals in many quarters.
Now, she added, “We don’t have to push. (Statewide ag groups) now include us without us having to push or remind” them to do so.
“We’ve always played a very important part in the survival of the family farm,” she explained – though not always in laws and policies affecting farmers.
After her husband, Scotty, was elected to the U.S. House in 1992, Baesler took over running their 420-acre tobacco farm during his three terms of office. For the last 10 years, they have shared responsibility: he oversees the equipment and mechanics of the farm, and she manages fieldwork and labor.
One thing that concerned her was finding “pockets” in Kentucky where women don’t vote, deferring to their husbands’ votes to represent both of them. In the last five years, she said the nation has 30 percent more female farmers, so one of the things KWIA tries to do is encourage women to register, vote and contact their Congresspeople on issues that affect them directly.
As 51 percent of registered Kentucky voters, Tanner said women “can design the state that we want.”
Not only is the gender of ownership changing, Tanner sees the culture of farms changing in the future. She predicts more niche farming – especially in Kentucky, where the ag landscape is shifting dramatically since the abolition of tobacco quotas and the auction system a few years ago.
According to ag economist Dr. Will Snell of the University of Kentucky, in 1997 45,000 Kentuckians grew tobacco and 60,000 leased out quotas, producing almost $1 billion of tobacco annually. Last year, only 8,000 were growing less than a $400 million value statewide. (In an interesting aside, he noted poultry has expanded from almost nothing just a few years ago, to nearly one-fifth of the state’s ag economy in 2008.)
Some of those former tobacco farms are transitioning to niche and multifaceted operations including home-based ventures producing salsa, jams, jellies and the like – businesses often operated by women, according to Jenny Inman, KWIA president from Owensboro. She said many farm wives also handle the bookkeeping and records for traditional operations.
“We try to gear things specially to the networking needs of women,” she explained.
Agritourism and wineries are just a couple of ag sectors in which women are playing a bigger role. “They’re looking for whatever projects they might do” to save their farms, Baesler pointed out.
“This is where I see you’re going to see more of the organic and sustainable” farms – among women owners – added Tanner. She said in the Northeast, there’s already a trend of women leaving behind corporate culture to run small farms or businesses on farms.
The attraction for them is: the desire to control one’s own destiny, to not have to leave the home for a minimum wage job, more time with family. Often, women who have worked off-farm have done so to secure health insurance for their families. Tanner said because of this, on average, a farm wife has 2-3 years more formal education than her husband.
Many now want to put that to work in a home business, believing their land can support more than one enterprise – whether it’s farm-related (food, tourism) or not (tax preparation, for example).
With approximately 150 members, Inman said those making up KWIA “are a vast variety” of ag supporters and entrepreneurs – and Baesler noted women from other states have used KWIA as a template for efforts back home. To learn more, call 877-266-8823, e-mail info@kywomeninag.org or visit www.kywomeninag.com |
