Role of women evolving in farming sector

By Sara Wood, Director, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Traditionally, agriculture has been a male-dominated industry, but women have always played very pivotal roles in farm businesses – just mostly behind the scenes or in a supportive capacity.

That is definitely changing, however. As a female farmer myself, it’s something that I can confirm first-hand, but it’s also backed up by data from the most recent Canadian Census of Agriculture.

In 2021, Canada had just under 80,000 female farm operators, making up 30.4% of the farm population compared to 28.7% during the previous census in 2016. In fact, this was the first time the number of female farmers in Canada has increased since 1991.

Statistics Canada attributes this increase to a rise in what they call “one-operator farmers” or women who farm on their own. The data also shows that more women are now running large farm businesses than ever before, and that Ontario is home to just over one quarter of our country’s female farmers.

Our family farm is located near the Perth County town of Mitchell, west of Stratford, where we raise broiler chickens and grow crops. For me, being an active female farmer has always been a given. That’s because our family farm is somewhat unique in our industry in that it has always had a woman as the main farm decision-maker – first my grandmother, then my mother and now me.