The Irish Farmers Journal poll on the incendiary issue of farm inheritance has been one of our most popular to date. Just shy of 2,000 voters made their views known on whether, given the choice, they would leave the farm to a son over a daughter.

Out of this amount, 15% of voters said they would leave the farm to a son over a daugher, 11% said they would not, and 74% said they would base their choice on who is more interested in the farm.

The poll came off the back of a number of discussions on RTÉ Radio One's Liveline programme on the subject of discrimination against women in terms of inheriting the farm and its attendant property.

It started with a discussion on the programme earlier this month, ignited when a woman rang in claiming that she had been disinherited from her father’s will due to her gender. The show returned to the issue a few days later when a woman called in to say she was not given any share of her parent’s farm as it was passed on to her brothers.

New level of controversy

The discussion reached a new level of controversy, however, this week, when a man called John decided to enter the fray and suggested that it is "very unrealistic" for a woman to run a farm because of their lack of physical strength.

“It’s very unrealistic for a woman to run a farm. In terms of strength – pulling calves out of cattle or lifting tonnes of beet. There is no beet now, but all that kind of thing – it’s not particularly suitable to women,” John told presenter Joe Duffy.

His comments caused an avalanche of outrage among female farmers across the globe when we covered them on our website, with comments coming in from Iceland, New Zealand and the US.

Our own deputy news editor Caitriona Murphy added her voice to the outrage, saying that John’s notion that women are not physically capable of working on a farm is both "chauvinistic" and "archaic".

Reassuring

However, despite 15% of voters saying they would pass the farm down to a son over a daughter, it is reassuring that the vast majority said it depends on who is more interested in farming. This, coupled with the comments from women and men supporting female farmers on our Facebook and Twitter posts, gives some hope that there is a shift in mindset and practice occurring, however gradual it may seem when we hear comments such as those from men such as John.

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