Spring is well underway in our part of the world, Women’s History Month just ended and Women in Ag Magazine celebrates its fourth birthday with a brand new magazine filled with stories from women in agriculture from all over the world. Our magazine was launched on International Women’s Day 2021 from our home office near Brussels, Belgium. In just four years’ time, we travelled Europe to talk to women in our industry, launched the Women in Ag Awards in collaboration with the DLG and met dozens of amazing women from all continents. We promise we’re not stopping there: with 2026 declared the International Year of the Woman Farmer by the UN General Assembly, we have a few exciting new projects lined up to celebrate women in agriculture and raise awareness for the work they are doing.
While we hope this magazine will one day be obsolete and gender equality achieved, the passed few months have shown us that we are far from there yet. And if this gender inequality presents itself in different ways, depending on what part of the world you live in, it is clear that women’s voices still need to be empowered. With this in mind, we welcome a new columnist this year: Nigerian farmer, agribusiness manager and activist Yamah Yemisi Dorcas. Her first column tackles an rampant problem in rural Nigeria: discrimination and sexual assault of women farmers. It is not an easy read, but it’s a necessary one. We are proud to be able to contribute by amplifying Yemisi’s voice.
As always, the magazine features encounters with farmers, the first one being Bev Flatt from Tennessee (US), who was a candidate for the Women in Ag Awards 2024. You can read her story here. Our second encounter is Canadian farmer, speaker, panellist, moderator and host Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel, who made it her mission to bridge the gap between city-dwellers and farmers. Finally, Brazilian ex-farmer and now PhD researcher Renata Rossetto Lopes tells us how farming taught her about the importance of sustainable solutions for the future. You can read Renata’s story here.
As we are gearing up for the Women Awards 2025 at AgriTechnica, we look back on the 2024 edition as well. Susan Waithira Kuria, runner up in the Agribusiness category, remembered the ceremony with us as she told us all about her Nairobi-based company Essential Drugs Limited. In ‘More than Farming’, ER nurse and farmer Katie Hammock stresses the importance of first aid tailored to farm accidents. A very important read for anyone working in our industry. Next, we meet not one but two outsiders as we talk to Maxine Hollis and Elif Kaplan, who both work a technical job in the Basildon (UK) and Ankara (Turkey) tractor plants of New Holland and Türktraktör.
Mental health remains a very important subject to our magazine, and that’s why we were glad to help the Irish Farm Families research project by sharing their story. You can read all about it in an interview with project leader Dr. Siobhán O’Connor here. This issue’s book review is Jennifer Clap’s ‘Titans of Industrial Agriculture’, a book that provides insights on the big ag manufacturers and how they came to be major players in the market. Last but not least, our columnist Judith De Vor talks about women’s rights protests and International Women’s Day in a plea to celebrate the woman of the future. You can read her column here.
We hope you learn as much from reading this issue as we did writing it.
Happy reading!
Kim.
