The importance of women in agriculture

BY MARK LUECKE

An image that many who grew up on a family farm have burned in to memory is dad walking through the door of the house, covered in dirt from a long day in the field, or covered in something else from a long day in the barn, and mom working tirelessly around the house, supporting children, putting food on the table, and generally managing every other aspect of the operation.

While that image may represent past generations and the roles that many men and women in agriculture previously served, it is not reflective of agribusiness today.

Large and small companies now recognize that the talent, creativity and leadership of women around the world is required given the serious challenge our generation is facing: an increasing global population, and the need for 100 percent more food by 2050, 70 percent of which must be produced with efficiency-improving technologies given the limitations of our natural resources.

Some of the largest agriculture companies in the world with corporate headquarters located in our region have implemented programs to support women executives and operators in agribusiness. These companies also lead by example by placing women in executive leadership positions, including Archer Daniels Midland’s Chairman, Patricia Woertz; DuPont’s Chairman and CEO, Ellen Kullman; Cenex Harvest States’ EVP and COO, Shirley Cunningham, and Land O’ Lakes’ EVP and COO, Beth Ford.

A significant number of small business operations, agricultural technology-based startup companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations in our region also count on women executives in leadership roles to help grow the industry and solve the global food security challenge. Prairie AquaTech’s CFO, Jill Holt, and CTO, Sue Lancaster, provide leadership by advancing new technologies that upgrade plant-based commodities, such as soybean meal, distillers grains, and canola meal, to high-quality ingredients for aquaculture and other animal feeds. South Dakota BioTech Executive Director Joni Johnson provides leadership by expanding research, advocacy, funding, education, infrastructure development, and promotion of the agriculture and biotechnology industries. Trudy Wastweet provides leadership as the deputy secretary of agriculture for South Dakota. And in fact, 2012 U.S. Census data released last spring indicated that women now make up over onethird of all farm operators.

However, even with these shining examples of women in leadership roles, the global food security challenge that agribusinesses are responsible for solving requires more engagement of women. A recent publication in Nature revealed that U.S. women receive patents about 40 percent as often as men, start businesses half as often, and receive significantly less funding for the startup companies they do launch. The publication went on to highlight that this is not only a problem in the U.S. Women are under-represented on the boards of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics companies around the world, despite the fact that companies with women on the board have higher share prices.

According to the World Bank Group, even though women form the majority of the agricultural workforce in many developing countries, and specifically in rural areas where 98 percent of active women are involved in agriculture, women do not have access to the land, financing, training, equipment and other resources required to be successful due to limitations in leadership, government regulations and culture. As a result of limited access, opportunities for women to be leaders of technology invention, entrepreneurship, and legal and regulatory change throughout the agricultural sector do not exist.

There are many opportunities for you to become more involved in this discussion and take action, both inside our region and on a global basis — send me a note. PB

Mark Luecke Managing Director/CEO South Dakota Innovation Partners mark@southdakotainnovation.com