Do women farmland owners count in agricultural conservation? A review of research on women farmland owners in the United States

Excerpt

The future of agriculture, environmental conditions, and the health and vibrancy of rural people and communities depends heavily on the health of the land. Landowners—who may or may not farm, hunt or fish, or even necessarily live on the land (i.e., nonoperators)—manage their capital assets, and in doing so, help determine our collective future as eaters and residents of rural areas by their care and use of the land (Eells and Soulis 2013). This article describes the extent to which women landowners are represented across the United States, either through statistical measurements or through conservation outreach programs meant for women.

Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN), a national nonprofit organization based in Iowa, has worked for more than a decade with female nonoperator farmland owners. In 2007, women over the age of 65 owned more than 25% of Iowa's farmland. The typical female sole farmland owner in Iowa is 65 or older, has not participated in management decisions about the farm in the past, and is renting her land to a tenant (Duffy et al. 2008). WFAN's work with women landowners, through its Women Caring for the Land^SM program, is framed by what we hear from these women landowners and…