Agri-conference hears women are 'secret weapon' for environment
A Dublin conference on generational renewal and women in farming that took place this week was told that women are "the secret weapon" when it comes to protecting the environment in agriculture.
The 'Interparliamentary Conference on Securing the Future of Farming, from Policy to Practice' took place in Dublin Castle on Monday (July 27) and brought together public representatives and lawmakers from across the EU, as part of Ireland's presidency of the Council of the EU.
One of the speakers was Prof. Maura Farrell, from the school of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies at University of Galway.
Prof. Farrell is also the coordinator of an EU initiative called FLIARA, which stands for 'Female-Lead Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas'.
The FLIARA project works across 10 EU countries, and supports women in farming and rural communities.
Prof. Farrell told Monday's conference: "I think a lot of the questions today have been hugely relevant in relation to the environment. When we analysed all the interviews we did across the [FLIARA] project, 98.7% of the women had a hugely strong ethos around the environment.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again, when we're looking at the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy], when we're looking at our agricultural policy, we are desperately trying to protect the environment. The secret weapon here are the women," she added.
"These are the women who are actually on the ground, protecting the environment.
"Every single one of the women we spoke to, irrespective of what type of a production they had on their farm, their main concern was the environment," Prof. Farrell noted.
She added: "Everything they did every day reflected that. I think those really are the secret weapons when it comes to the environment, right across Europe."
Generational renewal
Prof. Farrell also addressed the issue of generational renewal, which was a key part of the conference.
She stressed that conversations around generational renewal must take account of the older generation passing on the land.
She said: "We can't just talk about the conversation of trying to bring younger farmers into farming without considering what's going to happen to the older farmers.
"Farming as we all know it is such an emotive profession. It is not a profession, it’s a way of life. And when we spoke to a huge amount of older farmers here in Ireland, the thought of them not farming for the rest of their lives, literally you could see these people dying in front of you," Prof. Farrell added.
"It's not a question of trying to remove older farmers. It's trying to build policy around how we can it work between everybody.
"Farm partnerships can do that as well and I think that’s what we need to do this," she said.
The University of Galway professor also called for an increased role and recognition for women in generational renewal programmes.
"I think when we have programmes around generational renewal we need to include women in the programmes," she said.
"More often than not, the generational renewal programmes that are in many countries, including our own, are very much targeted to the male ownership or the male farm holder, or the successor at the time or the potential successor," according to Prof. Farrell.
"Very few of these are targeted to women, we need to really consider that."
She also called for policies that have been implemented for women in agriculture in a handful of EU countries to be evaluated properly "before we run off and decide what they did and replicate them".
"We need to make sure we evaluate them. We need to make sure those policies are exactly what women need, [that] they're exactly what needs to happen across Europe," she said.
Prof. Farrell also called for a change in the way we talk about women farmers.
She said: "We've got to move away from 'the female farmer, the women farmer'. These are farmers, and they deserve that recognition."
