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A Hendricks County farmer is a member of the American Farm Bureau Women’s Leadership Committee, which brings together women in agriculture to sharpen their skills to become leaders in the ag industry.
“We can be great leaders as women,” says Margaret Gladden, who farms with her husband Dale near Danville.
The American Farm Bureau Federation has been hosting Ag ConnectHER events which engage women with the training and education they need to become powerful advocates for agriculture.
“We try to do these four times, five times a year,” says Gladden. “We bring together powerful women that have worked their selves into the business world and have done wonderful, great empowering things. And they are just great leaders and can empower all women.”
“We had Beth Bechdol [as a recent guest speaker], the Deputy Director-General at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and it was just amazing to hear her leadership journey, and her words of encouragement for women: keep pursuing and keep going, be real, be ourselves, you know, you’re going to be nervous, but it’s okay to be nervous, and to be human.”
Gladden says it’s important for women in agriculture to come together and support each other.
“People tend to look at the role of agriculture as a man’s world, but there are more women that are coming up in the ranks of majoring in agriculture and there are more women owning farms now than there used to be. We look at that field, we’ve got to keep pursuing and going to stand on our feet, also.”
