Irish farmers need to consider their daughters as their successors claimed Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) senator Pippa Hackett.
Speaking ahead of International Rural Women’s Day (Friday) the senator said it was time that women’s contributions in agriculture are full recognised and there should be greater equality between men and women in farm ownership.
Senator Hackett said the figures do not tally well for equality.
“Women are listed as sole owners of 10 per cent of all farmland in Ireland, but most of these women own the land through marital transfer, rather than succession or inheritance,” she added.
“No other occupation has such an imbalance in property ownership. We know that one quarter of our farm’s workforce are women, yet only 4 per cent of farms registered with the Department of Agriculture are in joint female/make names.”
Senator Hackett paid tribute to women of rural Ireland: “With each new land registry, herd number or farm payment in a woman’s name, each new qualification she gains, each new female successor named, each business sale she makes, or each rural TikTokvideo she posts – rural women are challenging the prevailing culture and changing the future face of Ireland’s rural enterprises.
LSL News.