Happy Nollaig na mBan

The laws of percentages have always interested me.

By my reckoning, if we apply those laws to the 22 Macra na Feirme Young Farmer of the Year winners over the decades, 10% should be left handed and 30% should be red-heads (or strawberry blonde depending on your sensitivities). A further 12% should be women.

I know what you’re thinking, and I can’t recall a ginger leftie winning the title – but neither can I recall a woman ever winning either.

Even Ornua’s recent “Oscars of the Dairy World” had not a single woman entered in her own right.

Plus they seem to like juggling it all, given they’ve been doing it for a couple of centuries without complaint

With my tongue firmly in my cheek, I would suggest that this might be a good thing, because we all know women can’t be trusted with their emotions.

While they might seem perfectly capable to milk cows, fodder stock, drive tractors, lamb ewes, ring bulls and even change lightbulbs, we wouldn’t want them to consider leaving their full-time off-farm jobs and child minding duties to focus solely on the farm.

That would be asking too much of them. Plus they seem to like juggling it all, given they’ve been doing it for a couple of centuries without complaint.

Unrest

In saying that, The Dealer is aware of some unrest in the female farming ranks.

While there are some long-standing female CEO faces, such as Tara McCarthy of Bord Bia or Siobhán Talbot of Glanbia, The Dealer can’t make out why the #womenandag campaign doesn’t seem to have translated into a discernible increase of ladies on co-op or agriculture boards.

The only noticeable change was the IFA, which has gone from having zero to eight women leading county executives.

Out of the 24 selection panel, all were male

No one else seems to have really bothered, holding firm to the well-worn misconception that a woman’s natural place is in the kitchen.

This natural sorting policy was pointed out very well in this newspaper, when we ran another tongue-in-cheek article selecting a dairy all-star team to take on the might of the Limerick hurlers.

Out of the 24 selection panel, all were male.

The Dealer actually took some quarrel with this, since even the back room nutritionists were men, and you probably should have had a woman on that side since they’re good at the cooking.

Of course there are great female farmers out there – just look at Louise Crowley, Teresa Roche, Norma Dineen, Caroline Walsh, Gillian O’Sullivan ... I could go on.

Anyway, happy Nollaig na mBan to all the farming women, hope you enjoyed the day off and thank you for the hoovering, and the childcare, farm paperwork, milking, calf rearing, lambing, medicine recording, bill paying, off-farm income, dosing, co-op shopping, feeding ... thanks for the farming.