Some people don’t want to believe women are just as good at farming
Trailblazer’s blast after new equality report
A YOUNG farmer has said she hopes to see more women entering the agricultural trade as new figures reveal that just one i n ten family farms are owned by women.
Despite the figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), Sinéad Conry, 23, believes significant progress is being made in the sector.
Ms Conry grew up on a farm in Roscommon before taking out a lease on her own farm when she was j ust 19. She now keeps livestock, specifically pedigree Hereford and Angus cattle.
She told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I’m only 23 and when I started out I couldn’t go into a bank and ask for half a million, but the plan is that I’ll take out another five-year lease and then buy it.’
Speaking about being a female farmer, she added: ‘I think it’s less common because sort of the way everyone was brought up was that the eldest son received the farm.
‘But in recent years more women have started to show interest and people now are leaving the farm to whoever is interested in it, which is right.’
Ms Conry said one problem in the trade is the perception among her male counterparts that women are inferior farmers.
She said: ‘Some people’s eyes
‘More women are showing interest’
still are closed to the fact that females are well able to farm just as males are. You get a couple of negative comments; you’d have someone drive in and say, “Oh where’s your dad?”, if they’re delivering something. You just say, “Well, this is my farm”.
‘But I think all the positive comments completely outweigh that.’
Ms Conry believes things are improving, not just in farming, but across society in general. She said: ‘I think we are going into a total equality world, which is absolutely brilliant. And I think female farmers aren’t going to give over until they’re just considered farmers.
‘I think it’s going down the route that the wife may be at home farming and the husband could be gone out working, whereas 50 years ago that would nearly be cursed upon.’
The new figures show that women hold only one third (34.4%) of managerial occupations, and won just a quarter of seats in 2019 local elections.
The figures were released by the CSO as part of a report on Ireland’ s United Nations sustainable development goals.
The report, which focused on the subjects of equality, empowerment, discrimination and violence, outlined how representation of women in local government was the highest in Dublin, where 38% of seats were held by women. The l owest was i n the south- east region, where just 13% of seats were occupied by women.
Cork Mayor Mary Linehan Foley bemoaned the failure to meet equality targets.
‘ We have seen considerable improvements across the board but have not reached the 2019 target of a 30% proportion of women candidates,’ she said.
‘Central to the goal of building and maintaining a sustainable democracy is having the active participation of women and representation of all groups across the board, whether in politics, business or education.
‘This is not just a number to be achieved; it’s a standard to reach and uphold, to properly reflect the needs of our society.’
The percentage of farms owned by women has been flat since 2002, when just 10.7% were owned by females.
A spokesman f or the Irish Farmers’ Association said: ‘If we want to encourage a more diverse farm owner, then having a diversity of people elected is one way of driving greater participation across the sector.’
They added: ‘ While there has been significant improvement in the level of female representation in the association in recent years, this strategy will ensure that we continue to grow and improve so that leadership better reflects our diverse membership.’
In a recent report, the IFA recommended reaching an 80-20 gender split on its national committees, with one in five election candidates being women.
Sinn Féin’s spokeswoman on children, disability, equality and integration, Kathleen Funchion TD, said women in Ireland are not on an equal footing with men, socially, politically or economically. She said: ‘The lack of equality is most clearly definable in the gender pay gap.
‘Women hold far fewer senior roles, meaning there are far fewer female role models for young girls to emulate.
‘Although Ireland has made progress on gender equality in recent years, we still have a long way to go in a wide range of employment-related areas.
‘The findings of this report are stark, but welcome in terms of showing how far we still have to go in promoting equality.’
Women’s business group Network Ireland also said the figures show how far Ireland has to go to achieve gender equality.
Women are outnumbered two to one in Irish management despite making up almost half (45.7%) of the workforce. Network Ireland president Louisa Meehan said: ‘This is the latest in a series of recent reports showing the gap that persists between women and men’s career prospects in Ireland. At a time when we’re hearing about the pioneering talents of an Irish-born woman [Teresa Lambe] working on a coronavirus vaccine, and an Irish university is appointing a woman as its president [Kerstin May of the University of Limerick], it’s high time businesses across the board began realising the full potential of the other half of the workforce.’
The proportion of women in Ireland who were found to have experienced physical or sexual violence from a previous or current partner was 15%, and for non-partners the figure was 19%.
This was slightly lower than the EU average of 22%. The CSO said there were 13 women under the age of 18 married in 2019, down from 36 women in 2018.
‘Improvements across the board’