Tioga County Conservation District Holds Women in Ag Event
The Women in Agriculture event had a full house. Photo by Andrea Boyce, Tioga County Conservation District. Photo used with permission.
Article by Isabela Weiss, WVIA News, Report for America (reprinted with permission)
Farmers shared experiences at Tioga County’s Women in Agriculture event.
Hosted by the Tioga County Conservation District, women traveled to network with other farmers across the state. Dairy farmer Julie Hess was a speaker at Tuesday’s event. She has attended every Women in Agriculture event since it started ten years ago.
“I’ve been coming to the Women in Ag meetings since they started holding it. And I’ve been bringing my daughter with me, even when she was in like fifth or sixth grade, because I think it’s important for female agricultural producers to meet other female agricultural producers,” said Hess. “But they say that women in agriculture is like the largest growing sector of farmers.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2017 Census found that women comprise 36 percent of the country’s 3.4 million agricultural producers and that newer farmers are skewing younger. The 2022 Census will come out in Feb. 2024.
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