Pressure on all fronts…
Your letters on the role of farming female
Traits that help us to survive…
On the traditional Cornish family farm the wife/mother figure has not only run the farmhouse as a home but also taken on many other womanly tasks, eg reared the calves/orphan lambs, relief milked/washed the parlour, tended the poultry, entertained B&B guests, driven the countryside collecting supplies from vet and agricultural merchant, co-ordinated phone calls/messages and picnics, become a skilled nurse, bookkeeper and secretary. So much so, any rep worth his salt will know being on the wrong side of Her Indoors/Mother will leave him with an empty order book.
Agriculture in the UK is changing faster now than it has ever done – Im glad Ive experienced the security of family farming, but it is also vital (to maintain my existence as a single-handed small farmer) for women to be accepted as the farmer. Apart from the decreasing number of letters addressed to Mr Juliet Tom (!), my most entertaining encounter within a male orientated world was being told (while away doing contract yard-work) that my hourly rate would have to be two-thirds of a lads, as I was just a maid! Once my mouth had bounced back from the toe of my welly, I laughed so hard that I didnt notice HE wasnt joking – so I hightailed it to a more appropriate place of work and dined out on the story many times.
Rural women (along with a few men) can make first class stockmen with their powers of observation, reassuring calmness, gentle but firm handling, intuition and ability to think two steps ahead. As the Western World accepts women in high business, (if only theyd asked the reps years ago!), female farmers may yet have an advantage over the boys as commitment bordering on obstinacy (a fine female trait) will ensure the survival of womens rural lives and businesses in a changing world.
Miss Juliet V Tom
The Lower Yard, Lower Trewiggett, St Teath, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Lets have a national day of letters
Thousands of small farms throughout the UK have passed from father to son. He runs the business and makes the decisions. This is not to say that his wife does not have a say, or hold some sway, that she is not wholly necessary to him and to the farm. But traditionally the role is a supporting one.
I would not presume to say that this is right or this is wrong. Personally, it suits me but I can understand the need of others to have a more equal role in the business that is our life.
The more important question, as I see it, that you ask is "What can we do to mark WRWD". Let us be practical. How many of us can afford the time and the expense of travelling long distances to marches or rallies, however important the subject may be? So what can we all do that might make a difference? We all think, we all have opinions, our own particular axe to grind. Then let us have a national correspondence day, when we women all put pen to paper and say what we want to say.
It might be MAFF, ministers, newspapers, organisations, supermarkets who are the targets of our views. The list is endless and the subject does not have to be of national importance. If it is important to you then it is important enough to say.
Who knows, someone, somewhere may hear us. They say the pen is mightier than the sword.
Christine Saxby
Highfield Farm, Hardwick, Saxilby, Lincoln.
NFUmust change tune
We are now one year on from the London Conference organised by the NFU which looked at womens role in agriculture in the UK.
Has the NFU taken on board any of the issues raised at the conference? On page 12 of the conference report it says "organisations need to recognise that farming is a partnership. Both partners should be registered as members rather than the husband alone".
When so many farmers wives give so much of their time, usually unpaid, to their husbands businesses this would surely be a small gesture by the NFU.
Granted I have never been asked to leave an NFU meeting because my name doesnt appear on a membership card but I am sure there are farmers wives who do not attend because they feel they are not members.
Jan Bates
Manor Farm, Little Chishill, near Royston, Herts.
Keeping the farm afloat
BSE, poor prices, poor weather, the government and shops offering goods from countries that do not have to work under so many rules and regulations just to sell their produce are making the womans role in the UK agriculture one of bread winner.
Women are having to get jobs away from the farm to support their husband, family and business over these hard times. The money they make keeps the bank manager happy and profits (if any!) can be ploughed back into the farms and hopefully keep things going till better times.
Mrs Julie Jewitt
Sandforth Moor Farm, Piercebridge, Darlington, Co Durham.
Hard role in difficult era
Rural Womens Day should be marked by highlighting the increasing problems that such women have. Some people live in the country by choice, a luxury they can afford. There are those of us who have to live in the country because of our work or our husbands job, in particular farm families. We are isolated from off-farm employment, further education or retraining and rural services are being reduced, eg schools, post offices and hospitals.
Women have played a large part in UK agriculture for many years. On family farms they have been the unpaid workers and book keepers. They try to make ends meet, feed the family and keep up morale – very difficult just now with farming at such a low ebb.
Womens voices should be heard at NFU meetings. In Northern Ireland we have a Farm Family committee. As consumers we have power: Only buy home produced food, ask supermarkets and keep asking. Women do feed the world in the UK with UK food.
Angela J Martin
Gordonall, 93 Newtownards Road, Grey Abbey, Northern Ireland.
Pressure on all fronts…
As the crisis in agriculture here in the UK deepens, rural women are feeling great pressure for themselves and their families and supporting almost suicidal menfolk. The problem is how to sell food no one seems to want or wants at below production costs.
Yet only an aeroplane flight away rural women in other countries face pressure of a different kind – where to find food for their families as in Russian and Africa, or how to produce it in the face of floods as in Bangladesh, or in the midst of war and drought as in Sudan.
What a mad world! Surely with modern technology and the best brains of today we could marry the two extremes and make life better for all rural women and their families. We are all human beings for Gods sake.
Freda Phalp
Aireyholme Farm, Great Ayton, Middlesbrough, Cleveland.