Providing Leadership Skills to Rural and Limited Access Women Farmers

Photo of focus group with text: "We asked women farmers what are the characteristics of a leader you admire?"

Many rural women farmers have limited access to personal development workshops because of lack of funds, time or transportation. This session from the 2019 Women in Ag Programs for 21st Century Farms and Ranches Virtual Conference share method for women to access self-led or leader-led leadership development education in which women farmers talk via video about their challenges and how they addressed them. Participants are asked to come up with methods of dealing with the challenges in a manner that is comfortable to them. Educators can use these videos to run small group discussions in areas where women have access to gather. Educators will be given tools to lead these discussion groups and methods to follow-up with farmers to reinforce success.

Presenter: Patty Neiner, PA Women in Ag Network

Evaluating Your Women in Ag Program

Title Slide for "You Did a Program, So What?"

You Did a Program: Now What?

Your stakeholders want to know what difference your programs make. You have limited time. In this recording of a workshop from the 2019 Women in Ag Programs for 21st Century Farms and Ranches conference, a team from Iowa State University’s Women in Ag Programs guides you through a process for going from program relevance to program impacts as efficiently as possible.

The presenters share their approach and a survey template you can adapt for your use and offer tips and tools for analyzing the data. The session included suggestions for how to use compelling stories to report program results to stakeholders, and walks you through a two-page report template you can adapt to describe your program relevance, response, results and impacts. 

Presenters: Arlene de la Mora, Cori Hyde, and Madeline Schultz, Iowa State University.

Additional Resources: Event Survey Template

Successful Women in Ag Programs

Title slide of presentation "We Found a Program. Now What?"

We Found a Program: Now What?

Working with national project project the Women in Ag team from Iowa State University created a catalog of more than 40 educational programs from across the United States that might benefit beginning farm and ranch women, collecting and analyzing existing evaluation results from some of these programs. In this presentation from the 2019 Women in Ag Programs for 21st Century Farms and Ranches Virtual Conferencethe team shares common themes and topics of successful educational programs.

One of the themes is the importance of networking and connecting with other farm and ranch women. The presentation also discusses successes, gaps and recommendations of the evaluation results we studied. Evaluation results provided by others can help you choose new programs, improve your current programs, and plan your own evaluation processes.  

Presenters:  Arlene de la Mora, Cori Hyde, and Madeline Schultz, Iowa State University.

Additional Resources: Presentation slide set.