The ‘GRASS ceiling’ is a multi-actor three-year project funded by the European Union to promote gender equality in rural and agricultural systems. Its aim is to empower rural women and increase the number of socio-ecological innovations led by women in agriculture, the rural economy and rural communities.

In March last year, we gave an overview of the project. Since then, nine living labs across nine different countries have been developed and in these labs, eight women innovators are at different stages of business development.

The innovators are learning through collaboration and talks from guest speakers, including banks, agricultural advisors and enterprise advisors. The living lab in Ireland is found in South East Technological University’s Innovation Hub. Professor Sally Shortall, Duke of Northumberland chair of rural economy at Newcastle University, is one of the project co-ordinators.

One of the key messages, according to Sally, is the need for financial assistance that banks don’t understand. “There is a different level of financial assistance that’s needed,” she says. “Some of these businesses are very significant for their scale and, in a rural area, generating two or three jobs can be really significant.”

Comparative research

The project has pulled together statistical data and qualitative research across all countries to compare levels of women’s employment, size of farms and turnover in agriculture.

They also looked at the national provisions around parental leave to compare cultural norms and expectations about who should be caring for children. According to Sally, “Sweden is by far, in a way, the world leader in parental care. It is the only country in the world where having a child doesn’t impact your career in the labour market, as parental leave is split between men and women.”

“We found Swedish research complaining that men on Swedish farms are only taking 49 days of parental leave - that’s seven weeks, seven days a week, which is almost the statutory minimum provision for women in Ireland. So you can see how these rules have a huge impact,” Sally explains.

The group are really keen to understand more about parental leave, “because if men are able to take that much parental leave in Sweden, then there must be some kind of farming relief services provided around them,” Sally says.

In September, the GRASS ceiling project held its first annual meeting and showcase event at the COPA-COGECA headquarters in Brussels. During the three-day meeting project, partners and relevant stakeholders discussed how to advance gender equality and empowerment among rural women. One woman from each of the living labs across the participating countriess spoke about their initiatives.

“The really good news is that the European Commission are super interested,” says Sally.

Parental leave

COPA-COGECA are one of the partners and they have decided to run an award next year for the farming organisation that best provides parental leave.

“I think what we’re trying to move away from is that its all about women and how women are socialised, because we have to look at men and how men are socialised, too,” Sally emphasises. “How can men think its ok to be in a farmers association meeting or Scottish national farmers meeting, where in the Scottish case there are 26 men and no women? We need people to start understanding that this is about men starting to share parental leave with women.”

Key takeaways

There are a few key take-aways from the research carried out collectively by the GRASS Ceilings groups. One important factor is the way business support is set up does not taking into account that men and women entrepreneurs come at things with a different focus.

The second relates to the cultural norms and supports with childcare. “The way people understand who is responsible for what really matters,” explains Sally.

In Ireland, women get 26 weeks of paid parental leave compared to Sweden where both parents together receive 490 days of parental leave (which can be taken up until the child is eight). Either partner has to take a minimum of 30%.

The GRASS Ceilings project is also providing women the opportunity to get together. “They are mentoring and networking but in the longer term that needs to be mainstream because there’s always a fear that women doing something is seen as a fringe women’s activity and they are not actually then at the table when big decisions are made,” Sally says.

Replicated model

It was decided that the innovators would be paid a daily rate to participate in the project, which has proven to be a great incentive and has led to the success of the living labs. Here in Ireland, facilitators from Macra and SETU mentor the individuals and provide additional training between sessions.

“We’re trying to showcase what women are doing, to educate advisors, trainers and banks on how to support women in business and enterprise in rural areas,” says Sally.

They are hoping to showcase the findings and works in the near future. The ultimate hope is that the living labs are going to continue after the three years of the project are complete.

The belief is that this might be a model that could be replicated going forward to continue to help empower female entrepreneurs in rural economies.