Highland County selected to begin Ohio Women Farmers Study

Columbus, Ohio (September 28, 2009) -- The Ohio Farm Women Consortium, whose founders include representatives of Ohio State University Extension and Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, and Sharon D. Sachs, Ph.D. decided it is time to conduct a formal study of Ohio farm women, not an academic study but a study of women farmers by women farmers. A team of volunteers comprising women farmers and advocates of women farmers is assisting to launch the study. Sachs, who has been working with Ohio women farmers since 2004, thinks the study will answer many questions she hears women farmers asking about each other.

The USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture reports that increasing numbers of women are operating Ohio farms. There are 31,277 women operators compared to 28,890 in 2002, an increase of almost 2,400 women.

Not only is this trend evident in Highland County, but this southern Ohio county may be one of the best places in Ohio for women farmers. When reviewing data on Ohio women farmers, Highland County has distinguished itself among the 88 Ohio counties in six categories. It is for this reason that the independent statewide study of and by women farmers will begin in Highland County. Highland County farm women have the opportunity to participate in one of three ways during the period October - December 2009.

Highland County ranks first in the state in two categories:

• the most women farm operators, 679

• the most farms whose woman principal operator is a full owner, 221.

Highland County ranks second in the state in two categories; it has:

• 225 women who are principal operators of a farm

• almost 17,700 acres of farmland whose women principal operators are also full owners.

Highland County ranks third in the state in two categories; it has:

• almost 20,700 acres of farmland whose principal operators are women

• it has 99 women principal operators who report farming as their primary occupation.

Highland County also ranks tenth in the state in the number of farms with harvested cropland whose principal operators are women, specifically 84 farms.

The process of the study will make the information reported in the Census of Agriculture more visible, better understood and utilized. It will also generate additional information that women farmers seek, to the benefit of other Ohio women farmers and other interested persons and organizations. However, the intention is not only to make Ohio women farmers more visible and better understood.

Study participants themselves will decide what the information gathered means to them and how they want to use it. Sachs projects that Ohio women farmers involved in the study may do some of the following:

• Decide to increase their opportunities to impact policies and programs designed to help them and collaboratively plan for their future in Ohio agriculture;

• Collaborate to formulate market strategies that benefit their farm business and to develop methods to increase their production and profitability;

• Decide to make projections and forecast their learning and development needs, negotiating with service providers to meet those needs;

• Advocate for or contribute and allocate funds to programs and services and high priority to them; and

• Coordinate efforts to provide background materials for stories and articles on Ohio agriculture and women's role in it.

The immediate goal is to engage women farming in Highland County in the pilot study.

Women on farms in Highland County are asked to register now for one of the three alternative ways to participate. They can either (1) attend a local meeting in mid-November with a follow up meeting in December; (2) be sent a hard-copy survey to complete and return; or (3) gain access to an online survey to complete.

For more information or to express interest in participating, send contact information to Sharon Sachs, Study Manager, immediately or no later than October 31 by calling 614-885-3042, or e-mail sachssd@aol.com, or by mail to 59 W. Short Street, Worthington, OH 43085-3560.