The need to create more career opportunities for women within farming and production agriculture is obvious – they are grossly unrepresented within the industry.

For years, I have heard farm leaders talking about the need to bring the brightest and best into the world of farming. But, in truth, this has been nothing but meaningless chatter.

Women represent about 50% of the population – of the brightest and the best – but very few of them take on real farm-management roles as they consider their career paths.

Currently, women represent 12% of Ireland’s land-owning population – I note this point.

But land ownership has very little to do with the glaring need to get more women involved in the decision making associated with production agriculture.

The reasons why farming is such an underrepresented industry, where women are concerned, reflect a way of life that should have been ‘killed off’ off 50 years ago.

Farming today is not all about men rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the jobs in hand. With advancements in technology, there are lots of machines now available to meet this need.

The real challenge facing production agriculture is having people with the intellect, education, and enthusiasm to bring the industry forward against a backdrop of climate change and the need to deliver global food security.

Women have all these attributes in abundance, which is why I make the point: steps should be taken in a proactive way to attract more women into farming. The clock is ticking.      

The veterinary profession has no difficulty in attracting women within its ranks and I am sure that most Irish farmers will have been clients of female vets over the years.

Yes, there are provisions within the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme that specifically relate to the role of women in Irish agriculture. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, in terms of government and farming society, as a whole, making the proactive case for women in farming.

Ten, or so, years ago, the industry found itself in a similar situation, where the role of young people within farming was concerned.

Today, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) actively reflects the needs of young people, as does the Land Mobility Programme.

We need proactive measures of a similar kind taken to specifically encourage young women into agriculture.

We also need to encourage more girls to consider agriculture as a serious study option, both at school and third level.

Over the coming months, the Stormont Assembly will actively investigate the role of women within Northern Ireland’s farming sectors. The report that follows will, I am sure, make for interesting reading.

But the need for the Oireachtas in Dublin to take a similar course of action is obvious!