Jess Herr is a fifth-generation farmer who grew up watching her mother work alongside her father as they handpicked tobacco each summer on Southview Farms in West Lampeter Township. Now Herr is the first woman to represent Pennsylvania as a national FFA officer and one of many young women who are redefining the face of agriculture.
“We’re watching our world change,” Herr said, “and we’re watching our industry, specifically, change.”
That change is reflected in the growing number of women in agriculture’s work and training spaces.
The number of agriculture educators nationwide flipped majority female for the first time in 2020, according to the National Association of Agriculture Educators. Female farm producers increased 27% nationwide and nearly 18% in Lancaster County between 2012 and 2017, the most recent year of data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service’s five-year census. (NASS defines “producer” as a person involved in making decisions for farm operation.)
There is a relationship between the workforce and educator statistics.
Many young women who are now farming, or who have taken on other jobs in the agriculture field, found important female mentors in the classroom.
Herr had two female agriculture teachers at Lampeter-Strasburg High School. Now she sits on a national FFA board that is more than half female and attends board meetings where officers discuss the fact that more than half of all agriculture education teachers nationwide are also female.
“If we want to get people - specifically young women - interested in agriculture, the best way to go about that is by walking alongside them and mentoring them and sharing our lived experiences,” Herr said, “but also creating a space for them to create their own experiences and try new things.”
That mentoring and role modeling by women for women is likely to continue to rise in the education and training ranks for some time to come. Seventy-five percent of agricultural education graduates in 2022 were female, said Ashley Rogers, NAAE program manager for teacher recruitment and retention.
Pennsylvania has had more female agricultural educators than male agricultural educators since at least 2015, according to NAAE, and Morgan Bear is set to join those ranks. She graduated this year from Penn State with a degree in agricultural and extension education and will take a job this fall in the Cumberland Valley School District.
Source: lancasteronline.com
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