Raising the profile of female farmers

A woman is driving a tractor across a field, making furrow after furrow in the soil with the attached plough. An image that is rather rare in Swiss farming. Of the approximately 47,000 farms in the country, only 7% are run by a woman. In contrast, some 40,000 women work on farms. In many cases, these women are the partners of the farmer.

A point of clarification: the professional qualification as a farmer encompasses subjects such as plant cultivation, animal husbandry and agricultural technology, while the qualification as a farm and family manager focuses on running the household.

Female farmers lack a lobby

“Women play an extremely important role on farms,” says Sandra Contzen. “Without their labour, which is often unpaid, many farms would not survive,” emphasises the agricultural sociologist. What she finds particularly striking is the underrepresentation of women in management. “Agriculture is still a male domain. More and more women are playing an active role here, but female farmers with their own farms remain rare.”

Sandra Contzen and her team are working on a research project (German site)  focusing on the women who run farms. “Female farmers have no lobby, and they do not feel represented by the traditional farmers’ organisations and farmers’ wives’ associations.” With her project, Contzen aims to raise the public profile of female farmers and offer a way for them to network with each other.

Important dialogue

In addition to the agricultural, economic and political challenges that female farmers share with their male colleagues, there are issues that they, as women, often face alone. Sandra Contzen mentions motherhood as an example. “When a female farm manager becomes pregnant, the question arises as to how the farm will keep running and how she will later manage to strike a balance between caring for the child and her responsibilities on the farm.”

In the project, Sandra Contzen places great importance on the involvement of female farmers. For this reason, in addition to conventional literature research and interviews with female farm managers, working groups with women are also held. “We offer them a platform for sharing their experiences and collaboratively develop specific measures to address their challenges.”

Using the UN Year of the Woman Farmer as a platform

But are the research findings and working groups sufficient to direct the spotlight of public interest onto female farmers? “No,” concedes Sandra Contzen candidly. The project head therefore cultivates contacts with agricultural organisations. In their efforts to gain more attention, she and the project team will benefit from the Year of the Woman Farmer declared by the UN for 2026.

It is intended to serve as a platform for disseminating the measures developed in the working groups and working towards gender equality in this sector. The project team is in communication with the Swiss Farmers’ Union to coordinate joint activities, notes Sandra Contzen.

Predestined for equal division of roles

Contzen is convinced that agriculture is predestined for an equal division of roles. “Women and men can fundamentally share the work on the farm and in the household.” There is no reason, she says, why individual tasks should be reserved for men or women.

In her reflections on how a farm should be organised, Sandra Contzen takes things a step further. In her view, it is also conceivable that there could be structures where, instead of following tradition with a family running the business, with the man as the boss and the woman as an employee, there could be a single individual, two people who aren’t related or in a relationship, or a collective. She notes that even the economic link between the farm and the household is not necessarily required. There will be no shortage of things to talk about during the UN Year of the Woman Farmer and beyond.