SALT LAKE CITY — Women are producers on 36% of the nation’s 3.4 million farms and play a decision-making role at more than 50% of all farms, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture.
Despite their clear presence in the industry, women remain underrepresented in agricultural leadership roles. This is one of several issues Utah-based Global Women Fresh seeks to improve in its international community of women, which seeks to create gender equity through leadership training, mentoring, and empowering women in the industry.
Global Women Fresh was founded in 2019 by Julie Escobar, who was working in the industry and saw the need for a community where women in agriculture — from the farm to the boardroom — could connect with and strengthen each other in the male-dominated field. The global organization now focuses on three pillars to increase gender equity: forming networking connections, sharing the impact of female leadership in the industry and bringing advancement opportunities and training to women all over the world.
Additionally, the organization aims to support women in agriculture through its Global Women Fresh Impact Award initiative, helping women worldwide. Most recently, this included providing medical insurance to female farmers in India following the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing a loan program for females who own and operate small farms in Africa and awarding 25 scholarships to women in Peru to learn essential irrigation techniques and gain agricultural training.
“Empowering women in agriculture isn’t just about fairness; it’s about building a stronger, healthier future for families, for Utah and for the world,” said Carmell Clark, transformational coach and executive committee member of Global Women Fresh.
In 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations proposed closing the gender gap in agrifood systems would, among other benefits, reduce food insecurity by 2% or by 45 million people globally. They suggested that localized interventions that empower women and seek to expand their reach on a broader scale, similar to Global Women Fresh’s mission, will be most effective in creating economic growth and food security.
“The fact of it is, women strengthen important factors within this industry — like food security and sustainability and economic resilience — all around the world,” said Clark. “It happens on the local level, it happens on the regional level, and it happens on the national and international level. So when we invest in women and we advance women, we’re actually advancing food security on a local, regional, national, and international level.”
Empowering women in agriculture isn’t just about fairness; it’s about building a stronger, healthier future for families, for Utah and for the world.
–Carmell Clark
Women make up the majority of produce pickers at around 80% of farms globally, according to Clark. Comparatively, Deloitte Insights reports that women only make up around 23% of company board members across all industries globally. While Global Women Fresh aims to increase gender parity in the industry, it mainly focuses on training women to seek promotions and excel at the executive level.
The importance of increasing female presence in the boardroom, according to Clark, boils down to the multiplier effect.
“For every woman at the C-suite level — the top, executive level in an organization — at the next level down, you would have an exponentially higher number of women,” explains Clark. “So one woman is (at the C-suite level), two women at the next level down, and then the next level down from that four, and the next level down from that 16. This exponential increase exists for women in industry, and that means if we’re really wanting to make a major change in the industry, we have to be able to target those top three levels with companies, because the more women we have at those levels, the more women are able to enter and advance within all other levels of the organization and the supply chain all the way down. It also means more respect and recognition of women throughout the entire supply chain.”
As a Utah native, Clark has worked with several companies in the state to provide women with leadership training. She noticed that women in Utah, similar to women around the world, experience difficulty when negotiating for higher pay, which Clark believes is a contributing factor to the wage gap.
Utah has the largest income disparity between genders in the country, with men making a median income $20,000 higher than women, according to data sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau. Clark explained that while the local wage gap may have a cultural influence, it is also points to broader systemic issues if people are not being compensated equitably for the same work and experience level. This may be evident in industries where women are underrepresented, like agriculture.
“The fact that there aren’t that many women in agriculture in Utah, when agriculture is a huge part of Utah’s economy, is one of the signals that I think we need to look at,” said Clark. “How do we promote that kind of equity so that is available for women who find that to be the way that they want to go? And then, how does our legislation serve women to create and bring about that kind of equity? Not just in agriculture and fresh produce, but across the board.”
As the organization moves forward, Clark invites women in produce to get involved in their communities. She also suggests they attend events and conferences that connect and educate agricultural professionals, like the annual Southeast Produce Council or Fruit Logistica conferences.
“These are opportunities for women to be able to connect on the global stage and really be able to come back and bring their impacts back to … where they are from,” Clark said. “So if they’re not participating in these, there is a place for them, and I would love for them to reach out to Global Women Fresh and have a conversation with us about how they can find their place in there.”
In May, Global Women Fresh plans to partner with Clark to launch Power Circle, a new coaching subscription program that helps women in produce connect, network and participate in professional development monthly on a local and global level. The organization also plans to select the recipients of this year’s impact award in the coming months, which will be announced on its social media.
More information and news updates from the organization can be found on its website.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
