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Women in Agriculture Canada: Ranching Networks and Mentorship in Alberta and Saskatchewan

October 12, 2026

Calving, fencing, haying and bookkeeping have long been shared work on Prairie ranches, yet for decades much of what wives and daughters did there never reached statistics, titles or land records. That is changing: the latest census found the first rise in three decades in the number of female farmers, and for women in agriculture, Canada offers a growing mix of local groups, conferences and mentorship programs. Below: what the numbers say, what still gets in the way, and which networks a Prairie rancher can join.

Women in agriculture: Canada and the Prairies in the census

The 2021 Census of Agriculture gives the clearest recent count. Canada had 79,795 female farm operators that year, and their share reached 30.4 per cent of farm operators, up from 28.7 per cent five years earlier. Their number rose by about 1,800 from 2016, all of it on one-operator farms, meaning more of these producers run their own farm businesses.

Provincial shares vary. According to the federal census portrait of female operators, the share was 32.4 per cent in Alberta and 27.2 per cent in Saskatchewan. In beef farming and feedlots it was 31.0 per cent. Six in ten were 55 or older, so succession, and support as young women step forward to take over, is a practical question rather than an abstract one.

From helper to partner on paper

Ranching was long treated as a male-dominated industry, and the law followed. Alberta has its own landmark here: in Murdoch v. Murdoch (1973), the country's Supreme Court ruled 4 to 1 that Irene Murdoch had no claim to the family ranch she had worked on for years, treating her labour as no more than a ranch wife's normal share. Justice Bora Laskin dissented. Public anger over the decision fed the matrimonial property reforms that followed in province after province.

Recognition has improved, but paperwork still lags. A University of Regina report, written at its schools of business, heard that women's farm work had long been counted as help rather than partnership, and noted that most farm partnerships in Canada have no written agreement. If a woman's name is not on the documents, her stake is hard to prove. The report recommends recording each partner's share and role in formal business ownership agreements.

Barriers that still come up

The report, prepared with the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, drew on 32 interviews with entrepreneurs and others across the agriculture sector. Its findings fall into four groups:

• Land and credit. A woman is more likely to rent land than own it and to run a smaller operation, so capital is harder to raise.
• Leadership roles. A Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council study found that women represent a quarter of agricultural managers. Among 65 agricultural organizations, national and provincial, just 12 per cent had a female board chair or president, and 28 per cent had any woman on the board's executive.
• Time. Farm work is still planned around caregiving, with little child care tailored to calving, seeding or the long days that farming and business demand, and few child-friendly spaces at agricultural meetings.
• Being taken seriously. Interviewees described lenders, salespeople and sometimes their own hired staff talking over them, or being asked whether they farm or only help a husband.

The interviews also gave reasons for optimism: role models, peer networks and social media advocacy, and men can play a part by sharing child care and housework and by challenging sexism. The report's recommendations end with training and networks designed for women, and on the Prairies those networks already exist.

Networks closer to home

A directory kept by the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture in Saskatoon lists several groups working across the industry in the two provinces:

• Rural Women's Issues Committee links rural residents of Saskatchewan and carries their recommendations to decision-makers.
• Women In Ag, from the same province, runs a flexible mentorship program for members, anything from one conversation to a longer relationship, plus a Connect Conference.
• Alberta Women in Ag operates as an online networking group rather than a formal organization.
• Advancing Women Conference, organized from Calgary, holds a West edition with sessions on finance, coaching and wellness.
• Young Agrarians Business Mentorship Network is open to new farmers of any gender in the Prairie provinces and BC, with roughly 30 hours of one-on-one business mentoring.

National mentorship programs: which are still active

AgriMentor is a program designed specifically for women working in agriculture. It began as a pilot by Agricultrices du Québec through its federally funded Dimension E service and went national in 2024. In Ontario it is led by the francophone farm union UCFO, with a provincial farm federation in support. The program page describes six months of one-on-one mentoring in English or French, one virtual meeting a month, free of charge and open to residents of any province. Sign-up forms were live in October 2026, but intake dates are not posted.

Ag Women's Network began in Ontario in 2013 as a volunteer group open to anyone in the sector across the country and ran a mentorship pilot in 2017–18. We could not confirm that it is still active: its old website no longer loads, its blog stops in 2017, and no current intake is published. Treat it as inactive unless the group says otherwise.

Getting value from a mentor

Mentoring works best around a narrow question. "How do I set up my first grazing lease?" or "What should a written agreement with my parents on the family farm cover?" gives a mentor something to work with; "help me with the ranch" does not. Agree early on roles and on how often you will talk; a phone call after evening chores may suit you both better than video. And look past formal programs: a neighbour who has run a cow-calf herd for thirty years can be as useful as any match.

A year of attention

The UN General Assembly declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, a push led by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization for policies that remove the barriers women farmers face. Campaigns come and go; the groups listed above were running before this one began. On Prairie ranches, much of that support still starts with one conversation.

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