Blaine County has high percentage of women ranchers and farmers

Reporter's note: While working at a pumpkin patch last October in Washington State, my boss brought me an ag newspaper. On the front page was a story titled "In West, women farmers carry economic clout." It was a statistical summary of women operators in the northwest and included some general statistics for a number of states, including Montana.

I didn't know about the large proportions of women operating farms and ranches, so decided to take a closer look. Of real interest to me was "how many women operate farms and ranches in Blaine County?" I posed the question of how many farms are run by women in Blaine County to my coffee group and one said, "All of them are run by women."

I began to sort through the statistical tables and reports but numbers don't tell the entire story. I wanted to put some faces to the statistics, to see what some of the challenges for women in agriculture are and to learn something about how local women came to operate farms and ranches. I couldn't talk to every woman involved in agriculture in Blaine County, but some general patterns did emerge.

A word about the statistics

The 2012 Census of Agriculture is the 28th federal census of agriculture. The federal government has been collecting farm statistics for 156 years, most of that time by the Bureau of the Census. In 1997 the job of collecting farm data went to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Readers who live on farms and ranches are likely familiar with the NASS data collection, having filled out a multi-page document about their operation that is the basis for the statistics. The census is done every five years. The next round of data collection is set for 2017-meeting the Congressional requirement to collect data in years ending with "2" or "7."

To be included in the Census of Agriculture a farm is "any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced or sold, or would have been sold, during the census years." This definition has been used for the Census since 1974.

A tricky statistical definition is how "operator" is defined in the Census. Because of partnerships and other ownership arrangements each farm can have multiple operators, up to three can be listed. For example, a husband-wife owned operation would show two operators for the one farm and one of those would be a female operator/farmer.

Per the article mentioned in the notes introducing this story, 31 percent of farmers in the U.S. are women. In Montana, the percentage of women farmers was 34 percent in 2012. Most all western states have higher percentages of women who are farmers with Arizona being the highest at 45 percent.

Women farmers in

Blaine County

In 2012 there were 546 farms reporting in Blaine County, with 2.2 million acres under production. Of that total, 284 farms had a woman operator with a total of 295 women operators (recall one operation can list up to three operators). Using those statistics, 52 percent of the reported farmers in Blaine County are women-more than 10 percent above the national average and nearly 20 percent above the average number of women farmers in Montana. There were 86 farms in Blaine County listed as "a farm with a woman principal operator." Clearly, Blaine County has a higher than average number of women farmers.

Women farmers

behind the statistics:

Ede Breitmeier ranches south of Zurich. Her ranch was homesteaded by her grandfather in 1912. She described herself as "the sole operator and owner" of the E7 Angus operation. She raises registered Angus cattle and recently started a 'bull leasing with option to buy' program that seems to be gaining popularity. She does most of the feeding and caring of her herd, with some seasonal help and a cousin, from Washington State, who comes to help during calving season.

Breitmeier is part of an emerging trend of daughters taking over ranches and farms. Some commentators point out that with smaller farm families, and many with no sons, more daughters take on the role as the successor to a farm or ranch operation. Breitmeier said, "My brother was an invalid so it fell on me to help my dad with the farm work while I was growing up. My dad was partial to grain farming so he had me take care of the cows early on. I loved working with the cattle."

Her father put all of the cropland into CRP for an extended period of time, knowing Ede would eventually want to continue using the grass for her cows once it came out of CRP. In the meantime Ede rented pasture from her parents and others. She started as a commercial producer, then in 1981 began a registered herd.

She recalled, "In 1996 I needed another operating loan. With a downturn in cattle prices and no land for collateral the bankers wanted my parents to co-sign the loan. At age 42 I didn't think that should have to happen." Trained as a teacher, she learned of a job in Taiwan teaching English and went there for a year. She added, "When I came back from teaching I bought the best bull I ever had and I didn't need a loan anymore." Breitmeier opined, "I believed then that if I were a man the bank would have worked with me to get a loan. That's just my feeling but that was one time I felt disadvantaged as a woman operator."

Breitmeier believes her future in the cattle business is looking up. She said, "With a lot of the land coming out of CRP I have more options for pasture and can expand the registered herd." She raises some of her own hay on another farm in the valley. Pointing to the hydra-bed bale handler she was using to feed, Breitmeier said, "Technology and improved equipment have meant, for me, I can take care of more things by myself. I used to have to hand load and feed bales, this equipment makes feeding much easier and quicker."

Breitmeier's of the opinion that things are better for women in agriculture now. She added, "There's still some prejudice by a few people toward women in what is viewed as a man's world. But, for the most part, I feel people look at what I can produce, not my gender."

Jenn Conrad partners with her husband, Jim, on an agricultural operation south of Chinook. She said, "Really, we're a team. We both have certain strengths and use those strengths to make things work as we function as a team." The Conrad's place is a diverse operation that produces hay, grain and has a livestock component.

Jenn grew up on a sheep ranch in New Zealand. She said, "I always wanted to visit the U.S. and, still in school, I was looking at positions for nannies. My school counselor told me about an ag exchange program that would me allow to live and work on a farm in the U.S." She worked three months at a dairy operation in New Zealand to raise the money she needed to travel to the U.S.

In Montana she lived with and worked for the Randy Reed family for seven months, near Zurich. Of that experience she said, "Their operation was diverse. I got to see all sorts of ag practices different from back home. And I learned how to operate a lot of equipment that was new to me."

During this period she met her future husband through a mutual friend. She went back to New Zealand for about a year, then returned to Montana as a visitor. She and Jim had developed their relationship over the phone during that previous year. With her visitor's visa running out, she and Jim married a week before she was to return home to New Zealand. She said, "Ardis Conrad planned our wedding. That was 10 years ago and I'm still here."

Though experienced with sheep, she said, "Learning the cows was a steep learning curve for me. I always liked working with livestock and now, using that interest, I make most of the decisions about the herd, including buying the bulls and cows as we expanded that part of the farm." She added, "Jim does the farming side of the operation. He's trained as a diesel mechanic so he also takes care of the mechanical things that need fixed and does the heavy lifting." At planting and harvest time, they team up to get the work done.

The Conrad's have three young children, one just turning two months old. Jenn said, "Balancing work on the farm with family requires teamwork. At supper time either Jim or I will be cooking, depending which of us has another project going out on the farm." Often they take the children with them to do chores but sometimes take them to daycare for one or two days a week. The kids also spend days with their grandparents who are nearby and love to help out. She explained, "There are some things we have to do that are not practical or safe to have little kids around." She added, "One nice thing about being self-employed is when we have a break from farm work, we can do things with the kids-like going fishing."

Jenn said one of the biggest challenges she's had recently was being pregnant and having to watch others take care of the cows. The herd's her specialty and she said, "It was hard not being directly involved. Shipping and calving are my favorite times of the year. That's when I learn if I made good decisions about the cows and bulls I purchased.

As to gender issues, Jenn said, "Early on there were some subtle things-like someone calling and asking to talk to my husband about a farm question. When he would tell the caller, "you need to talk to my wife, that's her area," things finally began to change where I was recognized for my skills, not my gender. I feel people accept me for what I can do, not my gender."

Jenn said, "My mother-in-law, Ardis Conrad, has been a great inspiration to me. She drove a tractor during planting and one of the combines during harvest, I learned a lot from her and how my role on the operation could be defined." Thinking back to high school, she said, "In our yearbook my proposed career was 'farmer' and my probable career was to be a 'farmer's wife.' Turns out, now I'm both. I am blessed."

Notable trends

These two interviewees reflected many of the trends identified by recent research and ag commentators: smaller families mean a daughter often takes on the operator's role to keep a family farm going; the average age of current farmers is rising, meaning more farms will be passed on to children in the near future; retiring owners often serve as consultants to the younger farmers taking on the operator's role. Jenn Conrad noted that she and her husband rely on the wisdom of her husband's parents and seek their perspective on the ups and downs of their agricultural business.

Conrad gave a bit of an international view of women taking on larger roles in agriculture, noting, "Even in New Zealand there is a trend toward women operators in large livestock operations." Both interviewees made a similar comment about their acceptance in what has been generally viewed as a man's vocation-that most people accept them for what they can accomplish as operators, not their gender.