Empirical study: Women in agriculture
As part of the interdisciplinary study module ‘Methods and Economics of Animal and Plant Production’, students on the Agriculture programme at Triesdorf carried out an empirical study entitled ‘Women in Agriculture’. In addition to a literature review, an online survey was carried out in the form of a quantitative cross-sectional study. The student researchers – Luis Scherzer, Lena Klemens, Luisa Siegelin, Cora Brugger and Jana Stöffler – were under the supervision of Prof. Dr Jörg Rühle of the department of Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition. The large sample size of 2,200 respondents provided an excellent basis for well-founded and meaningful results. Prof. Dr Klaus-Peter Wilbois interviewed the students about the key findings.
Where do women in Agriculture still face the greatest obstacles today – and where have there already been noticeable changes?
Furthermore, under the traditional system of farm succession, farms are passed on primarily to sons through patrilineal inheritance. If a qualified woman has a brother, her chances of succeeding to the farm are drastically reduced. What is striking is the extreme double burden: women perform around 80 per cent of unpaid family care work (household chores, looking after children, caring for relatives) alongside their time-consuming work as staff on the farm. Whilst traditional media often still portray women stereotypically as a ‘helping hand’, so-called ‘agrifluencers’ on social media are attempting to create modern and visible role models in order to increase digital visibility.
Why is it that women’s work in agriculture often only becomes visible when it is suddenly absent?
Women in agriculture often carry out indispensable but largely invisible work. This includes organisation, care work, bookkeeping and farm management. These tasks are frequently taken for granted and are scarcely recorded in statistics. It is only when women are absent that it becomes clear just how vital their role is to the running of the farm.
What is needed to ensure that farm succession becomes more a matter of suitability than of tradition?
Above all, this requires a shift in mindset within families. Daughters should be given the same opportunities as sons and introduced to responsibilities at an early age. At the same time, good framework conditions must be created, for example regarding the work-life balance and fair access to property and financing. Farm handovers to people outside the family can also help to ensure that professional qualifications count for more than traditional role models.
How important are career changers for the future of Agriculture?
In the survey we conducted, 62 per cent of the 323 people changing careers were women. As highly motivated professionals, they ensure the long-term viability of many farms.
How does the balance of responsibilities between the farm, family and household affect women in Agriculture in the long term?
For many women in Agriculture, these responsibilities lead to a high level of stress in the long term. The frequent lack of separation between work and private life increases the risk of exhaustion, burnout and mental health issues. At the same time, many women work on the farm without pay and therefore accrue only minimal pension entitlements of their own, which weakens their financial security. Furthermore, after having children, they often take on a greater share of care work and, as a result, sometimes step back from leadership roles on the farm.
This also affects the mental strain experienced by women. In our survey on the project, 61 per cent (n = 1,344) of respondents assessed the mental strain in Agriculture as equally high for men and women. By contrast, a significant minority of 27 per cent (n = 595) attribute a higher level of mental strain to women, whilst approximately 12 per cent (n = 264) attribute this primarily to men.
What political or social changes would most alleviate the burden on women in agriculture?
Relief would come primarily through good political framework conditions: these include statutory maternity protection for self-employed women farmers, reliable and unbureaucratic farm support, and better pension provision.
When we look back on the Year of Women in Agriculture in ten years’ time, how would we know that it really made a difference?
Looking back from the year 2036, it might become clear that the International Year of Women in Agriculture 2026 was a significant catalyst. It brought about change in the agricultural sector whilst also raising social awareness of women in Agriculture. Only with the necessary benefit of hindsight will it be possible to fully assess the specific developments and lasting changes that have resulted from it. Even today, however, we are confident that the year 2026 has helped steer politics and society a step further in the right direction.
Triesdorf Workshop Discussions
The Triesdorf Workshop Talks are a loose series of specialist interviews conducted at the departments of Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition and Environmental Engineering on the Triesdorf Campus, as well as at the Institute for Biomass Research on the Merkendorf Innovation Campus. These were initiated by Prof. Dr Klaus-Peter Wilbois, who also conducts most of the interviews. The following interviews have been published to date:
- Green roofs as a contribution to building climate control
- The “Zukunftsbauer” project quantifies the social and climatic value of Bavarian Agriculture
- Optimising the processing and marketing of organic products
- Feeding trials on the Triesdorf free-range chicken
- Innovative breeding research into novel cereal crops at the HSWT
- Black soldier fly larvae as a protein feedstuff
