By Nigel Maxwell

Women in farming

Ag workshop promotes future of women in farming

Feb 7, 2019 | 2:00 PM

Mental health, social media and disease management are among the topics to be discussed at an inaugural farming event this week in Meadow Lake.

The Women in Farming workshop has been put together by the Beaver Ridge Agri-Environmental Group Plan (AEGP), in partnership with the Meadow Lake Agricultural Society. AEGP technician Lacey Demmans said they’ve received a lot of requests from women in the area to host the event.

“There’s lots of events going on like this in Alberta and events popping up on peoples’ Facebook and social media, and so they are interested in attending one in this area,” she said.

Upwards of 50 women are expected to attend the event and Demmans said the main goal is to form a network and help women feel they have someone to lean on when they are needing support. She explained the agriculture industry can be very lonely.

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“You don’t have an office setting where you have coworkers to lean on, lots of times it’s just a husband and wife and kids,” she said.

Colleen Biggs with TK Ranch has been invited to speak about direct marketing. (Submitted photo/ Colleen Biggs)

One of the topics to be covered at the conference relates to social media and encouraging farmers to share their story. Colleen Biggs, whose family was one of the first in Alberta to direct market beef, has been invited to speak about the benefits of direct marketing and the use of social media.

“I think in our changing society, it’s becoming more and more imperative that farmers become connected with consumers because there’s a huge gap between people who live in the city and people who live in the country,” she said.

Biggs added she can recall a time when the consumer could directly relate to the person who produced the food.

“When we were kids, we used to buy beef from our aunt, we used to get vegetables from them, we knew where our food came from and people in the city now don’t know that,” she said.

Biggs further explained the disconnect can damage the relationship between consumer and producer and can result in a feeling of anxiety. She said the consumers want to have a say where their food comes from and the producers get offended when the wrong information is presented and feel consumers should just be happy with the food that is grown for them.

“So it kind of creates this kind of unfortunate conflict between [producers and consumers] that I think can be resolved very simply by producers really embracing the idea of telling their story to regain the trust of consumers that live most often in the city,” she said.

Biggs said she makes a daily habit of posting pictures online in order to stay connected with her consumers, in some cases something as simple as a view of the sunset or the animals on her ranch.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell