WESTPHALIA, Mich. — More women are becoming directly involved in farming operations, by the latest census data from the USDA. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture – the latest available – nationwide, women make now make up 30.2 percent of all farm operators, or more than 1 million.

The total number of women operators increased 19 percent from 2002, which is much greater than the 7 percent increase in the number of overall farmers. The number of women who were the principal operators of a farm or ranch increased by almost 30 percent, to 306,209.

Women are now the principal operators of 14 percent of the country’s 2.2 million farms. The Census defines a principal farm operator as the person in charge of day-to-day decisions for the farm or ranch. Before 2002, it collected detailed information on only one operator per farm; since then, it has collected this information on up to three operators per farm.

A principal operator doesn’t have to be the sole operator, according to Gerald Tillman, deputy director of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, Michigan field office. A person may be considered the principal operator if she makes independent decisions about the business.

Stephanie Schafer is a good example of a woman confident in being directly involved in the operations of a farm.

She and her husband, Leroy, own a dairy operation in Westphalia, which is in Clinton County in northern Michigan. They own 130 cows and grow corn and soybeans on part of their 210-acre farmstead.

Schafer is a graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in crop and soil sciences. She operates the business along with her husband and her uncle.

“I do a little more than the average farm wife,” she said. “I get up every morning to milk and feed calves. I also do a lot of the bookkeeping and I do a lot of the marketing. The loans for all the cattle are in my name, but I don’t hold that over my husband’s head or anything.”

Schafer said she isn’t afraid to sell grain and that in a way, she might be a little better at it than him because she isn’t as attached to the crop. She and Leroy also run a custom square-baling operation.

“It’s a group effort, no doubt, but I just happen to be a part of the group,” she said. “We bale other people’s hay, plus a lot of straw. From the middle of July we run like mad, baling straw. It comes all at once. There’s thousands of acres waiting to be baled. We’re well over 7,000 bales.” The square bales they make are three feet high, four feet wide and eight feet long.

Schafer said all of the women she knows who live on a farm are heavily involved in the farm’s operation. “I think education has come a long way,” she said. “I don’t think women are afraid to do it anymore.”

She became involved in a group called Annie’s Project several years ago. Annie’s Project was started by a farm wife in Iowa who thought farm women needed more networking opportunities.

“It gives the ladies a chance to see what works,” Schafer said. “It gives them more confidence. You don’t want to call it a support group, but I guess that’s what it is.”