Number of women farm owners growing in Wisconsin

By Madeline Nordholm, Wisconsin Public Radio

MADISON (WPR) Women have been working on family farms for generations, but in recent years they have increasingly been taking charge and making choices as the head of the farmstead.

From 2002 to 2007, the number of women running Wisconsin farms jumped by more than 1,800, an increase of nearly 25-percent. 

Kathy Schmitt is a community services specialist at the Wisconsin Farm Center and also a small farm operator herself.  She says most of the new female farmers are working on smaller sustainable farms and are more involved in direct marketing and small animal agriculture.  She adds with the latest technology available, farmers don’t need to rely on brawn to get things done anymore.  And women bring an eye for detail to agriculture that can be a real asset. 

Pat Hoff is a small dairy farmer in Chaseburg.  She’s been farming for almost 30 years, and says in that time the number of female-decision-makers in agriculture has grown tremendously.  When Hoff began her farm in 1980, it was very unusual for a woman to be the head of a farm.  Hoff recalls having a hard time getting a loan, because no one trusted her to own and operate a dairy farm. 

But since then, Hoff says, women farmers have become very accepted in the farming community and its partners. She thinks there is very little discrimination now.

Both Hoff and Schmitt say they expect this trend to continue and believe that agriculture is a great business for men and women alike.  

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Information from Wisconsin Public Radio, www.wpr.org