By Charlotte Caldwell
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SIDNEY – The 2023 Growing Women in Agriculture: An Empowerment Celebration was held at VanDemark Farm on Sept. 7 with five guest speakers.

First, Women in Ag Committee Member and Shelby County Commissioner Julie Ehemann provided an introduction and spoke about the organization’s new scholarship program, which a portion of the event’s fees went to.

“Over the last few years, we have used some of the proceeds from our events and we have helped out women in crisis or other stressful times in their lives, and we really reached out to some very deserving entities,” Ehemann said. “This year we decided to do something a little different and we started a scholarship program, and we wanted to gear this toward women who are transitioning back into education and workforce, or graduates of high school that were firmly planted in their college careers, and we wanted to focus on individuals in our community who are local.”

This year’s scholarship went to Aubrey Hoying. She is currently a third-year agriculture communications student at The Ohio State University and grew up in Anna on a dairy farm.

“As a woman, I feel encouraged to educate the youth and the public about the truth behind agriculture. I enjoy seeing their faces light up when they begin to understand and appreciate what this industry has to offer,” Hoying’s bio read.

“Very well-spoken young woman, very passionate about agriculture and committed to letting the community know the importance of agriculture in our community,” Ehemann said of Hoying.

There were three keynote speakers this year and they sat on a panel with Ehemann acting as the moderator. The panelists were Elizabeth Harsh, the executive director of the Ohio Beef Council and the Ohio Cattlemen’s Association; Cindy Layman, a board member of the Ohio Soybean Council; and Liz Funderburgh, a board member of Ohio Corn & Wheat.

One of the questions the panel answered was about the biggest challenges for women entering the agriculture industry.

“I don’t feel like there are obstacles for women who want to do something. If you want to do it, just do it. I have never felt like I haven’t had the opportunity to do what I wanted to do, I just had to have the courage to do it,” Funderburgh said, which the other panelists agreed with.

Another question pertained to the agriculture industry’s biggest challenge in the next 10 years.

“I think our biggest challenge is maintaining agriculture as the state’s number one industry going forward,” Harsh said, specifically citing the land use competition issue. “The other one I have would be all the misperceptions around sustainability.”

“The first two things that come to mind to me when it comes to challenges to agriculture is, first of all, international politics,” Layman said. “The second one is domestic policies.”

“I think one of the biggest challenges is if we don’t tell our stories, someone else is going to tell it for us,” Funderburgh said.

Ehemann also asked the panel about some of the top priorities of their organization this year. Funderburgh mentioned passing the farm bill with no change to crop insurance, year-round ethanol and the Current Agricultural Use Value (CAUV). Harsh said maintaining a business climate that allows the industry to grow in Ohio, the farm bill, maintaining funding for the vaccine banks, and federal issues like black vulture control. Layman mentioned expanding biofuels.

After the panel, Professional Clinical Counselor and Certified Hypnotherapist Nicole Keller, the owner/founder of For You Counseling & Hypnotherapy, took the stage to discuss mental health in the farming community and some tricks to overcome feeling stressed and overwhelmed. She also lives on a farm and recently became a farm stress certified counselor at OSU.

“Mental health in farming has become a huge new area. Suicide rates in farmers are going up drastically. Ohio State University recognized this, which is why they reached out to several rural therapists in these rural counties and got them trained for free in farm stress so that we were specialized to work with farmers and farming families as they are a different breed of people, and we can’t treat them like the typical person,” Keller said.

Keller discussed some stresses of farming, like being unable to control the weather and the market rates, and if the stress is not managed, it could lead to more accidents and deteriorating health of the farmer, which is the main asset. She encouraged the women in the room to learn to say no when potentially taking on more tasks and learn where their priorities are.

“You can’t do it all. And when you try to do it all, you’re giving each thing 25% and it just doesn’t add up to much, when you could be giving 100% to something and really making that one thing the best you can be,” Keller said.

The last speaker, Garden Designer and Consultant Kara Maynard, the owner of Deeply Rooted Landscapes, then spoke about the importance of native plants and how landowners can transform unused land into a rewarding space with native plants. She recommended starting with a Native Plant Finder tool from the National Wildlife Federation and mentioned some programs that can be used to be reimbursed for planting native plants, like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) – which provides a yearly rental payment to farmers who remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality – and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) – which helps farmers, ranchers and forest landowners integrate conservation into working lands.

“One of the things I love about native plants is that not only are they attractive, but it’s a deeper, richer experience. It’s not just visually appealing, like ‘oh there’s some pretty flowers,’ but when you get up closer to the plants and you can see a little chew mark and you flip that leaf and see a monarch caterpillar, that’s a richer, deeper experience,” Maynard said.