FARM WOMEN at their largest annual gathering here yesterday were challenged by Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to bring their natural instincts into play to help defeat the horrifying number of farm fatalities.
The Minister also asked them to become more involved in making the decisions on farm investments needed to drive the enormous expansion in the sector, which is expected with the ending of milk quotas and with the revision of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.
The 650 women who attended the Women in Agriculture Conference in the Lyrath Hotel were told by the Minister that the input of women on Irish farms was “totally undervalued” by commentators and the farming sector.
He said he was not talking just about the support women gave as mothers and partners in the family sense but also the vital commercial role of women on farms.
He said a 1990s study in the United States involving 1.9 million farm holdings showed the holding that had men and women farming in partnership had profits of 23 per cent more than farms that did not. “There is a very significant commercial contribution which women can and should be making to farming in Ireland,” said the Minister. “While I want to recognise the phenomenal contribution women make, not just on farms but in rural Ireland where 75 per cent of volunteers are women who in many cases run rural Ireland, I want to challenge women on farm safety and their future role in farm investment,” he said.
“The fact half the people who will die in the workforce this year will die on farms which accounts for only 6 per cent of the workforce is something we cannot stand over any longer.
“Women are more naturally cautious than men and I think they should be insisting, challenging what is often a very cavalier attitude towards farm safety by sons and husbands. There is a really strong role for mothers, wives and women partners.”
The second challenge, he said, was around the growth of the agri-food sector and the investment that would have to be discussed and made by farms over the next four to five years.
“Women need to play a vital role in that and not allow financial decisions on investments and borrowings to be made purely by men in the household because traditionally that has happened,” he said.
He said the research had shown successfully run farm businesses were run by men and women and when they are jointly involved there is a much more cautious questioning approach to borrowing and investing money.
The women, who had braved the bad weather to attend the event, heard lectures on farm management, taxation, health and food from speakers including Aiden Cotter of Bord Bia, Pat Smith, general secretary of the Irish Farmers’ Association, and chef Neven Maguire.