Ohio State Offers Programs To Support Ohio Women Farmers

Jan 11, 2018

By Alayna DeMartini

Rarely is the image of a farmer a woman.

And yet, among all of Ohio’s farms, 40 percent are managed or partly managed by women. Nationally, women made up almost one third of all farmers, according to 2012 census data, the most recent year available.

With women playing such a significant part in running or helping to run farms across the state, Ohio State University Extension connects women farmers and provides support for them to thrive and continue the healthy growth of women in the field. OSU Extension is the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.

The number of female farm operators in the state has been rising since 1978 when it was first tracked.

“It’s surprising to people to find out how many women are involved in agriculture even though women have had an important role since the beginning of agriculture,” said Emily Adams, an OSU Extension educator in Coshocton County.

Between 2007 and 2012, there was a slight dip in women as principal operators on farms both in Ohio and the U.S. In the Buckeye state, the number declined by 5 percent. A new census is currently underway.

For women in counties across the state, OSU Extension hosts educational workshops to help them improve their farming and management skills and network with other women farmers.

Some of the challenges women in farming face are the same ones their male counterparts confront: planning for their successors on the farm as well as contending with insurance, liabilities and financial challenges.

But a lot of women say they are especially challenged by tending to the needs of their family members and the constant demands of the business, Adams pointed out.

“Women working in agriculture are trying to balance work and family responsibilities, and the two are interwoven because as women farmers, they often are working with family members 24/7.”

“We strive to empower women with information and knowledge so they are prepared for situations. Hopefully, they will worry less and recognize the influence they can have over a situation.”

Among the offerings that OSU Extension provides for women farmers is Annie’s Project, which is part of a national effort to enhance the farming and business skills of women involved in all aspects of agriculture.

Source: osu.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”