Six years of drought have harmed the accomplishments of Australia’s farm women, who their Canadian counterparts have long praised as models of farm feminism.
While prairie farm women envied the government support and high levels of farm group leadership that Australian women attained a decade ago, a visiting professor from New South Wales says those achievements have since eroded.
Margaret Alston of the University of Charlesturt is on a seven week tour examining farm families in Saskatchewan, Nebraska and Ireland to compare their situations with Australia.
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The lack of rain for several years has made it critical for Australian farm families to have off-farm income and Alston said it is women who usually get the jobs.
For some rural farm women, she added, that has meant “involuntary separations” from their spouses as they move to the towns where the jobs are located. The decline of rural areas has also eroded the quality of available jobs. Instead of nursing and teaching, women are finding part-time and contract work that tends to be insecure and low paid.
“Farm women are underwriting food production,” Alston said.
As well, the lack of government support for farm groups means women activists are getting tired.
Farmer Wendy Manson of Conquest, Sask., talked with Alston and said it’s a similar situation in Canada.
“We discussed the fact that women need a critical mass at some point. It’s very difficult to be the only woman on a board.”
Manson belongs to the National Farmers Union, which has committed to having vice-presidents representing woman and youth.
“We concluded in our own work here that if farm organizations and governments don’t do intentional affirmative action programs, you won’t get more women,” she said.
“It ends up being ‘what’s wrong with women? They won’t come (to meetings).’ “
Alston said lack of community services is another fallout from tough times in Australian agriculture. In the last 10 years, more than 120 birthing centres in rural areas have closed.
She said this has led to several incidents of babies being born on the side of the road as women are forced to drive long distances to reach maternity hospitals.
Alston also did a study of the drought’s impact on farm children and found several disturbing trends.
The children’s educational dreams are curtailed because of the lack of money in the family.
As well, school time is disturbed by family necessity in rural areas where elementary and high school courses are often provided via satellite or internet to the farm home.
“Kids are called out to muster sheep or cattle because farmers can’t find hired labour,” Alston said.
Australia, like the prairie provinces, has a farm stress line that receives lots of calls. It has also developed a program of mental health first aid that trains teachers, stocking station agents and others who are in regular contact with farmers about how to recognize signs of stress or suicide.
Although 17 percent of Australians live in rural areas, Alston said the experts believe the number of farmers will drop by half in the next 30 years.
Since the average Australian farmer, like his Canadian counterpart, is 55 years old, that represents half a generation opting out of farming. Alston said it is more common to see mid-career entry into Australian farming rather than young people starting in their 20s.
“Families are worried about passing on debt rather than the farm.”
Alston noted the situation mirrors that in Canada and she suggested globalization is to blame. Unless governments intervene or consumers complain, food will be produced on factory farms or transported thousands of kilometres to stores.
However, in Nebraska she found farms are doing better, probably because of American subsidies.
“Certainly there were not a lot of broken dreams there.”
In Ireland, where she is going next, she expects to see a happier story because Europe supports its farms financially based on the public good.
