Speech
Andrew Holness  ·  2026-08-17 16:41

More Women Are in Agriculture Than Ever Before

The beauty of culture is that it shows us our past. It is what we do as a conditioning based upon our past. But the culture is also a springboard from which we aspire to achieve even greater things. Some people look at culture as tradition, meaning that you must continue to do the things that you did in the past way into the future. But culture, it is not only tradition. Culture is also a boat how we change. And what I have seen coming to Denbigh for a number of years is that there is change happening in the culture of agriculture. One of the things that is striking, striking, is that there are more women in agriculture today than there were in the last 10 years. And they are not there as just the farmers. They are there as the entrepreneurs in agriculture. They are there as the managers in agriculture. So I jokingly said to one of the ladies who was tending to a prize bull. And I said to her, "You know, there is such a thing in agriculture called husbandry, but I'm not seeing any of the husbands [laughter] in agriculture so much." And that that is obviously because more women are coming into agriculture. And that is in my opinion a positive change. It is not a displacement. It is an expansion, a broadening, a diversification in agriculture. And it would suggest to me that what we are seeing is the introduction of greater management in agriculture. Because, you know it is, the women are better managers of our household. So I don't want to get in any gender wars, but I will say to the men, "Step up your game."