Empowering Women to Ranch

American National CattleWomen program equips women to tackle ranch life

by Lisa Bryant, Director of Communications

The face of the American ranch is changing. By necessity, happenstance or changes in our cultural views, women are discovering that they can perform tasks historically done by men on the farm.

That trend is being reflected in our college programs as well. According to Data USA, females earn 79.2% of animal science degrees in the top five largest animal science programs. In U.S. and Canadian vet schools, women make up approximately 80% of the student population.

Ruth Coffey, American National CattleWomen president-elect and commercial Red Angus producer from Springer, Oklahoma, said that in 2018, a group of American National CattleWomen considered this trend and started brainstorming ways to empower women to take a larger role in ranch management and operations.

Coffey said ANCW leadership wanted to help women plan for the medicines they needed at branding, figure out how many employees they would need to get cattle worked, calculate for grazing and manage all things related to animal agriculture. Out of this discussion, the Women in Ranching

Education and Development program was born.

Usually held with ANCW regional meetings, WIRED covers the hottest industry issues while demonstrating subjects such as cattle handling, record keeping, marketing and legal matters. ANCW will host four WIRED events this year, with attendance ranging from 50 to 90 women.

“We wanted women to walk away feeling like they had information they could use when they went home,” she said.

“At the first one I went to, there were two ladies in their late seventies. Their father had just retired from the ranch at 90 and he turned the ranch over to the girls,” Coffey told.

“They’d never been allowed to give shots, castrate or run a calf through the chute. He’d done all this himself or had the cowboys do it. They had just been allowed to watch, and that was the first thing they wanted to do.”

Coffey said these two embody WIRED’s target audience. “These ladies just want to learn the newest, most science-based ways of doing things.”

She said some attendees work all the time on the ranch, but some have worked a full-time job most of their life and have now gotten to the place where they can do this. Others inherited a ranch and have never been given the opportunity before now.

At one WIRED event, Coffey asked a well-dressed lady why she attended – noting that she didn’t look like someone you would see chuteside.

The lady replied, “My dad was a doctor in New York, and he wanted to farm and ranch all of his life. He thought he would turn the ranch over to the boys. When he bought a ranch in the Houston area, he invited the boys down to show them the ranch. They all had professional jobs and looked at him and said, ‘I don’t think so!’

“However, his daughter said, ‘I want to do that.’ You will not believe what her professional career was! She was an opera singer. She loved the ranching life and said she wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Coffey said great sponsors make WIRED possible. “They believe in what we are doing, and they want to promote women in agriculture.”