When Simcoe farmer and Norfolk Federation of Agriculture president Jennifer Schooley talks about being a woman in agriculture, she tells the story of asking for a bank loan
The fourth-generation apple farmer set up a Zoom meeting with a lawyer and a representative from a local bank. Her father and predecessor on the farm, Harold Schooley, did not join the online call “because he doesn’t have the patience to deal with the bank,” Schooley chuckled.
Schooley — who spoke to The Spectator in between chairing a meeting of Norfolk council’s agricultural advisory committee and going back to her farm to fix a recalcitrant sprayer — “absolutely” attributes the difference in treatment to her being a female farmer in a male-dominated industry.
“And things like this happen all the time. It’s those assumptions that people make,” she said.
Even though women operate nearly one in three farms in Norfolk County and about 30 per cent of all farms nationwide, Schooley said she still gets talked down to by tractor shop employees who assume she lacks the knowledge to order the right parts.
And she chafes at being offered pink hats or work boots because she’s a woman.
“I don’t wear pink,” she said. “I am grossly insulted by the fact that you think I’m a female farmer, so you give me pink.”
Even more offensive was the time a sales representative from a chemical company handed out ball caps to the male farmers at a meeting and baking tools to the women.
Such incidents underscore the reality that women in agriculture “are not taken seriously all the time,” Schooley said.
And her experience is far from unique. In a 2020 survey conducted by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, two-thirds of female farmers in Ontario reported being disrespected because of their gender when dealing with agriculture-related service industries.
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