Biannual conference celebrates womens’ contributions to agriculture

Demand for the Advancing Women in Agriculture conference has only grown since its inception in 2014.

For organizer and founder Iris Meck, planning the shows, which take place annually both in Calgary and Niagara Falls, throughout the years has been the culmination of nearly 45 years in the business of agriculture communication and marketing, including with her own company and as a conference director with Glacier FarmMedia for both the Advancing conference and the Farm Forum.

So far, 13 Advancing Women in Ag conferences have yielded over 6,000 women from a wide range of agriculture based professions in attendance to learn within Meck’s five pillars, financial management; independence and communication; health, mental and physical; balance of life strategies; and career goal setting.

From “universities students, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and agriculture and food or members or representatives of growers associations and corporate agriculture business,” Meck said all women are given the chance to come down, build a community and practice their soft skills.

Meck agrees that many of these topics are not ones that appear in traditional farm conference agendas, however, many are topics that are “essential in good management and leadership.”

What started as a way to profile professional ag women and recognize their contributions to the industry came from the fact that Meck was a woman in agriculture who was planning conferences for clients who were not giving women the microphone.

“One day somebody asked me, why is it for all the conferences you do, as you do seven or eight a year in the agricultural sector, why are most of your presenters male?” Meck told farmnewsNOW. “And I found that to be an intriguing question, because here I am, a woman in agriculture, and, of course, all of the conferences that I had done to date were all conferences for a client and so they always had the final word as to who the speaker program would have on it.”

Before the advancing women came to be, Meck saw a few provincial and regional women’s networking groups but nothing on a national scale that was able to raise the profile of what women were doing within the industry.

“When we hold conferences today, we have women that come from all the way down from Mexico and all through parts of the U.S. and all across Canada. So when you go to an Advancing Women’s conference, you’re in Calgary, for example, you’re not just meeting with women from Calgary or women from Alberta. You’re meeting with women from as far as the Maritimes to British Columbia up to the Yukon.”

Getting started, there weren’t too many obstacles in Meck’s way besides sharing the idea that women have made these contributions to agriculture and have not been recognized for it. Meck does still get the question about when there will be a conference for men, to which she responds that she has been doing conferences for men for 20 years. However, it isn’t about gender.

“I never made this a woman’s conference on the basis of women versus men because I don’t think that’s the case at all. I did it because I wanted to profile great women and elevate the discussion about women in agriculture.”

This isn’t to say that men are not welcome at the conference but three or four men do stick out in a room full of 450 women, said Meck, from male speakers to mentors to professionals who just want to find out what is on the mind of women in the industry. However, they do get used to the tables being turned on them as the only ones in the room, she laughs.

Before Meck made her part of the team, longtime emcee of the event and freelance agriculture journalist, Dianne Finstad, told farmnewsNOW she was just leaving daily reporting for her own foray into independent agriculture journalism when Meck told her about the first Advancing conferences.
This was her first conference she had to pay for, she laughs, since she went as a participant instead of covering the event as a member of the media.

“I found it beneficial for my own venture as I was kind of launching out on my own as an independent freelancer. Lots of good, helpful information from lots of old friends that I met, contacts through the industry, so great for networking, and, you know, just really enjoyed new people I met.”

Being a part of the industry and speaking with other women about how things were 30-40 years ago, including women like Meck, Finstad understands that women in past generations have not had the same opportunities to advance in the industry. This has made the networking and topics of discussion that have been available at the advancing women conference invaluable.

And Finstad has seen the corporate world catching up with recognizing women for their work.
Meck is ahead of the curve when it comes to talking about women’s personal development issues, said Finstad, especially when discussing the future of agriculture and how women are playing a role.

“She manages to keep the conference topics and the things she delves into always on the cutting edge because of the people who are in her network and the connection she has in the industry and finding out what people are talking about where things are heading.”

As an emcee, Finstad gets a different outlook on the event and feeds off the energy that comes from women getting together to share their stories in a positive environment.

“They still have agriculture in common. And I think that was sort of mind expanding for me and I think for everyone who goes there, that’s the thing that they really get inspiration from, to see that they’re part of a very big and important industry around the world.”

That has been the biggest highlight for her, said Finstad, has been the ability to meet people, from big “high profile” attendees to starting to chat with a regular person in an elevator or meeting them for coffee.

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim