Women and Ag: Should gender quotas be introduced in farm organisations?

The former vice-president of the Norwegian Farmers Union has suggested introducing gender quotas to get more women at the top level of Irish farm organisations

During a panel discussion at the Women and Agriculture conference in Co Carlow on Thursday, it was suggested by Kari Redse Haskjold that introducing a policy of gender quotas could tackle the lack of female representation in farm organisations.

Haskjold highlighted the example of her own farmers union in Norway where, due to government encouragement, a policy of gender quotas had been introduced during the 1980s.

The policy helped the organisation to reach its 40% target for female board membership.

Currently in Ireland, there is only one woman on the 53-member council of the IFA and the role of president has never been held by a woman.

The former president of the Federation of Swedish Farmers, Helena Jonsson also pointed out that bringing more women on board in any sector had been proven to make economic sense, as often women provided a fresh approach to problems.

Forgotten women

The panel was concerned about the lack of visibility of women in farm organisations and stated that Irish farm leaders needed to step up and actively encourage female participation.

The discussion was opened up to the floor where one woman who described herself as a farmer’s wife and had worked alongside her husband all her life said: “We got no recognition, we got no tax relief, we got no salary…I feel like we are the forgotten women.”

On the issue of quotas, IFA President Joe Healy commented that for every woman in the room in favour of quotas there would also be one against, and most women he spoke to felt they should be elected to positions based on their merits alone and not because of a quota system.

However, one woman from the audience said she doubted that the male majority who sat on farm organisation boards had been elected solely for their merits, an observation that was met by a round of applause by the crowd in attendance.