Workshop: Women at the Table

FarmLASTS: Changing Lands, Changing Hands Conference
Workshop: Women at the Table
Presenter: Denise O’Brien, Women, Food and Agriculture Network (IA)
Whether a farm operator, farmer’s partner, widow or entrant, women have unique challenges and
offerings. In the last comprehensive study on women’s patterns of landownership in 1993, women
were shown to own nearly 50% of the rentable farmland in the US. Women live longer so inherit
land from spouses or family. In 2000, Duffy and Smith conducted a study of farmland ownership and
1
tenure in Iowa in 2002, the results of which are detailed in a 2004 report .
Based on a random sample of parcels of agricultural land owned in Iowa, they found that 47% of
land in Iowa was owned or co-owned by women in 2002, and women owned or co-owned 54% of
leased farmland. Among these farmland owners are women primary farm operators, farm partners, or
women opting to cash rent their land to someone else, whether it’s a family member, friend,
neighbor, or farm management company. Currently there are several programs throughout the US
that focus on women in particular when it comes to managing the farm business. There are very few
programs that work with women to manage their land’s natural resource base.
In 2002, Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN) in partnership with Iowa State Extension,
the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) conducted a participatory research project with
women landowners in Cass County, Iowa. The results of this research indicated that women were
interested in conservation and natural resource management on their farms. From this work a two
programs have been developed in Iowa; 1) Women, Land and Legacy, conducted by the NRCS, the
North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD), and the Farm Service Agency
(FSA) and Women Caring for the Land conducted by Women, Food and Agriculture Network.
WFAN created ―Women’s Learning Circles‖ in three counties in Iowa. This project is working
directly with women farmland owners to improve water quality by education and empowerment.
Women participating in the learning circles attend field days that highlight natural resource
management. An advisor to this project is a farmer, an agronomist by training and the elected chair
of her Soil and Water Conservation District. The goal is to support women to make informed
decisions about land use and how they can help Iowa improve its water quality.
The purpose of Women, Land, and Legacy is to provide Iowa’s farm women with a risk
management tool that brings them together at the local level to empower them to act on their
landscapes and within their communities. There are two important steps in the WLL process: the
first is to listen and learn from existing and aspiring women farmland owners about their vision and
goals for the land via facilitated listening sessions. The second step is to use information gathered in
the listening sessions to offer local workshops that a) are in accordance with women’s values, b)
address topics local women identify as important, and c) discuss topics in ways that improve
women’s abilities to make decisions about their land. http://wfan.org/Resources.html;
http://www.womenlandandlegacy.com/WLL-8pager-Nov13.pdf;
http://www.ncrcrd.iastate.edu/projects/wll/WLL-report.pdf; http://www.ncrcrd.iastate.edu/wll.html
1 Duff y, Michael and Darnell Smith. 2004. Farmland Ownership and Tenure in Iowa 1982-2002: A Twenty Year Perspective.
Iowa State University Extension PM 1983. Available online at http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1983.pdf.