‘Working together, the two genders is far better… in any industry. I believe [in farming], in teaching, in health, everything.” These are the words of Aileen Sheehan, the 2025 FBD Young Farmer of the Year speaking on our two-part podcast celebrating the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF). Aileen elaborates that in every role, men and women bring different strengths and values to the table.

This is further reflected by Carina Roseingrave, the Irish ambassador for the IYWF, who on page 5 talks about the success of her farming enterprise in Crusheen, Co Clare, which she runs in partnership with her brother Gerry. “We both have our own strengths,” she says. “Gerry is focused on the farm buildings, the infrastructure, the roadways and for me, it’s more the business, the financials and the animals.”

When it was announced that 2026 would be the IYWF, many saw it as a cause for celebration. Others argued that there was no need – that farmers are farmers, whether they are men or women and we shouldn’t distinguish one over the other. And that is a valid point, but there is also a story about female farmers worth telling.

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As Mairead Lavery, the former editor of Irish Country Living details in the podcast, the first time the CSO published statistics on farm work carried out by women was in the early 2000s. It found that women made up 30% of the agricultural workforce and carried out 27% of the farmwork, that 40,000 women farmers were farming full-time and 53,000 part-time. Mairead says, “The extraordinary thing is those women weren’t counted [until then], they weren’t counted in the workforce at all, only male farmers.”

As many readers know, women were involved in running farms long before that and Mairead and Carina witnessed it firsthand. Both women sadly lost their father at the age of 12. Yet, through the determination and hard work of their respective mothers and, in Carina’s case, also her grandmother, the farm kept going. The work of these women in the latter half of the 20th century is not written in the history books, nor recorded as a statistic. Yet, here we are decades later and their respective daughters are running successful farms, Carina with her brother and Mairead with her husband Sean. And there are many other stories like that – now that’s something to celebrate.

As many readers know, women were involved in running farms long before that and Mairead and Carina witnessed it firsthand. Both women sadly lost their father at the age of 12. Yet, through the determination and hard work of their respective mothers and, in Carina’s case, also her grandmother, the farm kept going

There has been a lot of coverage on the subject and events celebrating the IYWF, and it’s great to see. But here in Irish Country Living, we’ve always celebrated female farmers, on the pages of this magazine, online at farmersjournal.ie and every October with our Women & Agriculture conference. This annual event has become a permanent fixture in the calendar for rural women and it seems fitting that with Carina on our cover and the rollout out of our podcast that we launch this year’s event.

For the first time, we’re heading to Cork to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Little Island. The event will take place on Thursday 29 October, and we will be revealing our line-up of speakers in the coming weeks. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday 8 September and once again, we are delighted to have the support of FBD Insurance. And like every other year, we will be celebrating the women involved in farming and agriculture that have developed and continue to build this vibrant industry.