Agriculture Canada is a government department that seems to have bypassed the gender equality movements and the realization that women are in the mainstream of the economy, says the former women’s president of the National Farmers Union.
Saskatchewan farmer Karen Pedersen became emotional and angry, voice breaking, as she told the recent NFU convention in Ottawa that Agriculture Canada bureaucrats often have started conversations with her by asking:What do farm women do on the farm anyway?
“I would never have believed that in the 21st century, I would get asked that question,” she told the November convention in her last speech as women’s president. “It has been recurring.”
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The answer, she said, is that women do everything on the farm. And it is demeaning to be asked that question.
“It just shows the department has not recognized the role that women play,” she said in a later interview. “They routinely think of ‘farmer’ as a male word.”
Pedersen said it also is true of senior agriculture officials who are female.
“They see farming as male and wonder what we do. I think Agriculture Canada is one of the worst in that regard. It is appalling and upsetting.”
She has been involved in a study of gender issues and the agricultural policy framework, funded with government help. Although work is complete, the analysis done and conclusions reached, the government will not allow the study to be published yet.
Pedersen told the convention she was not able to talk about the results.
But she said she is convinced that if more women were involved in agricultural consultations, the emphasis in the resulting policies would be different. Rural child care would be part of agricultural policy and she noted that a coalition of farm women recommended several years ago that Canada fight to have agriculture withdrawn from World Trade Organization negotiations because the results do not help farmers.
She said Agriculture Canada has never formally responded to the proposal or explained why it disagrees.
“They just ignored it,” she said. “We really believe that if farm women were consulted in these (policy development) exercises, there would be a different message conveyed.”
Pedersen stepped down in November after three years as NFU women’s president.
She was replaced by Colleen Ross, a farmer from Iroquois, Ont. Ross said in an interview her emphasis has been and will continue to be on international development work, with particular attention on poverty in the developing world, hunger and the fact that most poor developing world farmers are women.
“I am interested in working on the feminization of poverty and how to combat that,” she said. “I also plan to use every opportunity I have to get more women here and abroad involved in the farm movement so that we can build opportunities to help ourselves.”
