Half the seats in Midwest ag schools are filled by female students, but it’s the men in the classes who are likely to return home to run the farm. One communications teacher at Iowa State observed the difference first-hand when she assigned a film project and found that none of her female students planned on returning to manage their family’s farm, writes Harvest Public Media.
“The stories that the male students produce show a lot of continuity,” said Virginia Hanson of Iowa State. “They have worked side by side, often with their fathers or grandfathers, on the farm.” Although the videos of the female students portrayed the same “passion for agriculture” and “infectious enthusiasm for growing up on a farm,” their assignments lacked confidence in future direction.
Still, one in every three farmers are women, according to 2012 figures, and change could be coming. “Some start small vegetable operations. Some work on big commercial farms. Others do the books for their husbands. All are more likely to raise their hands and be counted as ‘farmers’ than women of generations past,” the report said.
“My daughter graduates from Iowa State University and heads back to the family farm and just assumes that she is a decision maker,” Madeline Schultz, program manager of Women in Agriculture at Iowa State University Extension, told Harvest Public Media.
There were more than 283,000 female owners of farms in 2012. The next generation of farm kids will enter a different world, Harvest Public Media said, and “perhaps there will be further changes to gender-role expectations.”