The lack of female representation at senior level in Irish farm organisations was highlighted as a major issue at the Women & Agriculture Conference last Thursday.

Out of the ICSA, ICMSA, IFA and INHFA, only the ICSA currently has more than one woman visible at a senior level, with eight women in total on the national executive.

The ICMSA does not have a single woman on its executive board and every chair at county executive level is male.

The IFA has only one woman sitting on its 53-member executive council, and the INHFA also suffers from a similar lack of female representation.

Female leadership

Macra na Feirme has had one female president, Catherine Buckley, from 2007 to 2009.

In Northern Ireland, Roberta Simmons was president of the Young Farmers Clubs of Ulster between 2015 and 2017.

A lack of female representation is not unique to the Irish farm sector, with only 22% of TDs in the Dáil being women.

Although there are women at senior level in commercial organisations such as Bord Bia, women are scarce in traditionally male-led farm organisations.

Speaking at the Women & Agriculture conference, former Kilkenny IFA county executive Joan Fitzpatrick described her experience of trying to progress through the IFA leadership chain as “negative”.

“To think we have one woman [in the IFA] representing all the women in this room is criminal … I’m so sad the IFA have not embraced the important role women are playing on family farms.”

Gender quotas

During a panel discussion, the efficacy of gender quotas was highlighted as helping the Norwegian farmers’ association reach a 40% female representation on its executive board.

However, the former president of the Federation of Swedish Farmers, Helena Jonsson, pointed out: “This is a question of leadership. You have to have support from the highest leadership – Joe Healy would be the one to put this [quotas] in place.”

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Joe Healy said the organisation was putting a committee in place to review the lack of female representation, and he would not hesitate in encouraging his own daughters to go into farming.