Farms.com Home   Ag Industry News

Women in ag are underestimated, according to a Brock University researcher

New book studies ag women in 13 countries

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Despite all the work they do on the farm, women aren’t receiving proper credit, according to Wendee Kubik, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Brock University.

Kubik studies farm women in 13 countries, including Canada, the United States, Australia and Zimbabwe. She co-authored a book last April, Women in Agriculture Worldwide: Key issues and practical approaches, with Amber Fletcher, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Regina.

Farm women do more work than they are credited for and put in long hours off the farm too, according to the authors.


Wendee Kubik.
Photo: Brock University

Women also experience inadequate access to resources and gender biases, the authors say.

But the amount of work women perform has a great impact on the ag sector, says Kubik.

“We argue that the work of farm women has changed in relationship to the dramatic changes facing agricultural producers, such as industrial agricultural production, climate change, privatization of market relations, globalization and the aging farm population,” Kubik told The Brock News.

More than 80,000 Canadian women identified themselves as farmers in the 2011 Census of Agriculture, according to Stats Canada.

And 58.8 per cent of female farmers completed post-secondary education compared to men.

Farms.com has reached out to Wendee Kubik for more insight into her research.


Trending Video

Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz

Video: Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz


The 12-day war between Iran-Israel came to an end sending crude oil futures plunging as the big fund speculators removed the war risk premium.

The weather risk premium in the Ag complex is sending corn, wheat and soybean futures lower on month-end selling ahead of the market moving USDA quarterly grain stocks and acreage reports on June 30th.

Instead, funds were chasing and sending tech stocks higher with the S&P 500/NASDAQ indexes setting new all-time record highs!

June 1 USDA Hogs and pigs report was slightly bearish while the U.S. $ Index traded to new contract lows as the de-dollarization that began in 2014 continues.

Feed in the form of soybean meal futures for livestock producers got cheaper, trading to new contract lows.

The Stats Canada seeded acreage update was bullish canola and wheat.