What's changed for women in farming?

The Advocate, May 30, 2013

Last night I was part of a panel discussion in Devonport organised by the National Trust. It's been 70 years since Dame Enid Lyons was elected to federal parliament and became the first woman in the House of Representatives. We were asked to reflect on the progress, or lack of progress, in our own professions.

I’ve been thinking about the grandmother I never met, Bessie Wood, who had three children and a husband with itchy feet.

Around 70 years ago the family were living on a farm at Forth, and while I don’t really know what they farmed – I assume they had a mixture of beef cattle, potatoes, and a milking cow – there are three things I remember Dad telling me about that time:

• His mother would make the bread using home-made potato yeast. She’d cook in a Peter’s Oven and judge the temperature by putting her hand in (if the hairs sizzled it was too hot…)
• The family had home-cured bacon, made in a wooden box full of salt, and the meat had to be turned and turned through the process
• And when the men were in the bush working and it was time for lunch, Grandmother would use a bugle to summon them back to the house

70 years later, I’m trying to keep my sourdough bread starter alive, we turn about 20 pork legs into ham a week, and I have been known to get out my tenor horn and play reveille at lunchtime when we’ve got visitors out on the farm.

So have we progressed? That’s the big question. And I think it’s a difficult question to answer in my area of farming, because the family farm is a complex workplace where roles are blurred and sometimes not even defined. Respect is often gained in small circles, but sometimes with no public or broader recognition.

I suspect that a lot women farmers do the same sorts of jobs they did 70 years ago: a mixture of outside and manual work, looking after finances and correspondence, trying to save money while other family members are trying to spend it, and I reckon the majority are still doing more than 50 per cent of the housework and cooking.

The difference might be, that instead of growing only fresh spuds and milk we’ve got opportunities now to produce gourmet potatoes for the Sydney markets, and milk powder for the Chinese middle-class. We’ve got a world to sell to – and we can do it all online if we want. So the opportunities for women to do interesting, rewarding work in agriculture have grown along with our markets and technology.

We have some fantastic examples of women farmers in northern Tasmania. I’m lucky that I get to see some of them regularly at farmers’ markets and foodie groups we’re part of. These are my inspiration:

• Emma-Lynne Pinner who’s a dairy farmer at Brittons Swamp, but also runs Pure Sense and a growing number of other businesses. I think she told me she does 5 business activity statements each quarter.
• Andy Jackman from Red Cow Dairies at Oldina, who used to be in the police force, became a dairy farmer and is now a cheese-maker
• Leonie Hiscutt who has a cropping farm at Howth, who got into tourism, was very involved in the local chamber of commerce, and now is in the Legislative Council.
• Marilyn Brack, an ex-teacher, who produces goats’ milk, cheese, and yoghurt at Mathom Farm at Gunns Plains
• Then there’s garlic grower Rosie Mackinnon, Melina Parker managing a vegetable farm Don, Lesley Frampton on a dairy farm at Gawler, Carol O’Neil with her olive oil….

The list goes on and on and on, and there are so many others who haven’t had their faces in the Tas Country or The Advocate, who are making good returns for their businesses, raising children, and participating in their communities.

I think it’s important that we do continue to try and get our heads in the newspaper, even if we might feel embarrassed, and as though we’re self-promoting. It’s about changing the stereotype in the wider community. Within farming circles there is a great appreciation of women’s role. A dairy farmer told me that his wife’s role of mending socks and feeding the family was just as important as the other farm jobs, because you can’t work with blisters on an empty stomach. I get a bit irritated when customers at the farmers' markets ask me where I get the meat from that I’m selling. I have to try and convince them that it’s from my farm, and I’m a pig farmer, don’t I look like one?!

As a rural reporter, I went along to a lot of male-dominated boring industry meetings that were not inspiring, and were very negative. I can see why women aren’t involved: because they’ve got heaps better things to do. But I think that when the time is right, and a woman in farming has experiences to share and can prioritise these meetings, I think some of us – if we’ve got the right skills – need to go through the pain of sitting at a board table or in a price negotiation meeting, so that the debate is a bit more balanced. We might actually hear farmers being positive about the future of agriculture.

On the day of our fourth anniversary at Mount Gnomon

On the anniversary of four years at Mount Gnomon: a selection of photos from our farm.

It feels significantly longer than four years - and the grey hairs and wrinkles support that!

But as the song says, all you need is love, and without love we wouldn't be here riding the roller coaster of farming.

A special breed

X4 and her calf at Mount Gnomon                       Photo: Eliza Wood

It’s been more than two years since our first Traditional Dairy Shorthorn cattle stepped off a truck onto Mount Gnomon Farm at Penguin, in Tasmania’s north-west.

When Warrick and Betty Holmes sold their girls, we were very fortunate to be given the opportunity to buy a portion of the herd.

Since then, the numbers have slowly grown, and we now have almost 20 females on the property.

We have sourced additional heifers from local dairy farmer Symon Jones, who lives just over the mountain from us.

The dairy shorthorns give us so much pleasure – they are stunning to look at, and they are friendly and easy to handle.

You also never know what you’re going to get at calving time. Often the roan cows produce white calves, and the white cows surprise us with roan calves.

Our goal has always been to direct-market their meat and engage consumers in the dairy shorthorn story.

As the first steer grew closer to size, we crossed our fingers that his meat would fulfill our expectations.

We remember that first piece of porterhouse so well. It was buttery, beautifully marbled and had a texture like none of the other breeds we had processed.

The feedback from the customers across the markets in Tasmania was incredibly positive, and that confirmed in our minds that this was the meat breed we wanted to keep.

Supply has been the biggest issue, and we have sourced young steers from Victoria to fatten on our farm to supplement our own production. It means we can provide customers with dairy shorthorn meat more frequently, and continue to promote the breed while our own numbers increase.

The dairy shorthorn in listed on the Ark of Taste – an international list of flavours at risk of extinction. Our meat was a feature of Slow Food Hobart’s Christmas dinner, which Guy attended (for quality control, of course!).

Our future plans include increasing our production of dairy shorthorn meat; milking a handful to supplement our weaned Wessex saddleback pigs; and promoting the dairy shorthorn as a perfect cow for the smallholder.

Next year we will open a rare breeds interpretation centre on the farm, at which we will hold courses on keeping house cows, making cheese and yoghurt, and numerous animal-related topics. The possibilities are endless!

Ten more (slightly restless) sleeps

In the same way a woman goes on maternity leave as her due date looms, Guy and Dane have been coaxing pigs with swollen bellies out of the herd paddock and into their personal farrowing paddocks.

They haven't got a hospital bag or a new nightie, but their pen has a muddy wallow and a shed filled with soft barley straw.

Through luck - and a tiny bit of planning - we've got a number of sows due in the week of our Rare Day Out.

Who wants to see a fresh, silky piggy, or ten?

The muscovy ducks that have been sitting in the barn have surprised us with their timing, and brought out their waddling clutches a little earlier than anticipated. At least the ducklings will be a bit more robust for enthusiastic handling at two weeks old.

The guinea fowl has also got babies. In the past we've had rotten luck with getting the chicks past a week old, but as we check these ones through the binoculars, they seem to have outlived the riskiest time.

Part of that's because the weather's a bit like dry Africa, where the fowls originated.

A year ago, as I looked out this kitchen window, the grass was a brilliant green and there was a paddock of smiling clover ready for the pigs to be moved into.

Today the grass that clutches the dirt is dead and waiting for the autumn break to bring it out of dormancy.

But as the wind blows, and the pigs rotate their bodies in the mud wallows, we are thankful for the  hardy shelter belts that divide the paddocks like green oasis strips.

It's dry - certainly the driest season we've had since we came to Mount Gnomon in 2009. But the old farmers across the north-west says it's been decades since we've had a year like this.

I'd love it to rain before our open day. I'll order a day where the cloud hangs low over the mountain and the water trickles slowly into the ground over hours. And then I'll order warm, overcast weather for the next day, and then the sun can come out and coax delicate shoots from the soil.

Dry weather or green grass, we're starting to get excited about the 2013 Rare Day.

Last year we fell off our hay bales when 650 people turned up to see our patch of piggies.

This year, we've got a few extra attractions, including music from the Doctors Rocksters, artisan wine from Blue Penguin Farm, Lost Pippin Cider, and cheesecakes, platters and smoothies from our friends at Red Cow Dairies.

They'll join Seven Sheds Brewery, enthusiastic coffee-making friends Theresa and Beau, and our team of Mount Gnomon taco and sausage cookers.

Head over to our registration page to let us know how many people you're bringing - you could win a voucher!

And we'll get back to running around like headless farmers as we prepare for your arrival...

Peachy keen

Five years ago Guy set the romantic bar rather high when he sent me a bunch of tropical flowers from the Northern Territory.

He was working at Humpty Doo for 12 months doing sustainable agriculture work, and I was living in my little house in Ulverstone getting up early to present the ABC's Rural Report.

As I relaxed in the bath on Valentine's Day 2009, I was annoyed by knocking on the back door. Very little will get me out of the bath once I'm in, so I ignored it.

The knocking continued. I assumed it was the children down the street, so I called out for them to "go away!". Eventually they gave up, and left me alone.

Later that night I opened the back door to go out to the veggie patch and there was a longish white box on the mat.

When I opened the box it was one of those wonderful moments where, even though you're alone, you grin rather stupidly and make happy exclamations.

There were heliconias, bee hive gingers, birds of paradise - all so bright and almost fake-looking. They were nothing like the salvias and daisies in my yard.

I know you're thinking about the flower miles and how a card would have been sufficient - but just let me enjoy this short moment of reminiscing.

My romantic contribution had been to make a batch of gingerbread biscuits, cut in hearts, and a card with a pumpkin on it. I was really worried the tropical heat would cause the biscuits to go mouldy, so when I asked Guy if he'd collected the office mail that day I had to encourage him rather strongly to make a special trip to town.

Five Valentine's days on, and surprises come in different forms.

"Get off the phone, Guy," I called inside this morning. "I've got a surprise, come and look!"

"Have we got guinea fowl babies?"

"No..."

"Have the Aylesbury ducklings come out?"

"No..."

We were heading for the orchard.

"Peaches!"

A tree that we thought the possums had destroyed is completely covered in beautiful downy, white-skinned peaches.

They're ripe and drippy and I can smell their fragrance as I stick my head between the branches to take photos.

So today we slurped and chewed in the orchard: dirty boots, farm clothes and messy hair, and ate the first fruit from the trees we planted together when we moved to Mount Gnomon.

That's what I call romance.