More women entering agriculture industry

More women are swapping desks and offices for milking sheds and quad bikes as dairy farming lures women into the agriculture industry. Census data released last week show the number of woman in forestry, fishing and agriculture has not increased in Southland. In fact, it has declined from 3048 women in 2006 to 2988 in 2013. 

Those figures were not broken down into farming sectors, and industry leaders say dairy farming is bucking the trend. Federated Farmers' Southland president Russell MacPherson said he believed there had been a steady increase in the number of women working on farms. As the dairy industry grew, so did the number of women involved, because more and more women were attracted to the career path, he said. He suggested a reason for the census numbers was that some women undervalued the work they put into the farms when raising children and had not ticked the agricultural occupation box. 

But some women were also entering the industry alone, something the industry was welcoming, he said. "People's attitudes towards women running farms is totally different to what it was 30 years ago. "Women now are treated as equals in the agriculture world." MacPherson said while more education about the agriculture industry was needed to get more young New Zealanders involved, it should not just be targeted at women. "Everybody should be involved. It's a nice place to raise families but it's also a dangerous place to raise families. That's the beauty of agriculture, you live and work in the same place.