Women Towards Leadership in Business and Agriculture

Welcome address by State Secretary Leif Helge Kongshaug

Tale ved åpning av internasjonalt seminar 26. januar 2004 i prosjektet:
Kvinnelig eierskap i næringsliv og landbruk

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to participate at the opening of this first European seminar in our project ‘Women Towards Leadership in Business and Agriculture’. As State Secretary in Norway’s Ministry of Agriculture it is of particular interest to open a project that aims at strengthening the role of women in agriculture.

During the recent decades Norwegian policies has been characterized by increased focus on strengthening the role of women in society. The number of women in paid jobs has increased steadily, and women are now dominating studies at higher educational levels. However, Norway still has a highly gender segregated work force. Women still predominate certain occupations, especially within the health sector - just like men represents the majority in other professions. This division of the labour force can be traced back to a traditional pattern of sex roles that is evident also in European countries.

Norwegian agriculture has long traditions as an important source of income to families throughout the country. Farm work is still carried out by men and women cooperating. However, the distribution of tasks between husband and wife has changed somewhat with the economic and technological development., Still, the pattern of sex roles within agriculture is more conservative and bound to old traditions than in other spheres of our society.

Until 1974, only male heirs acquired allodial rights by inheritence to their parents’ farm. From then onwards female heiresses have been given the same rights. As a consequence, the share of women taking over their parents’ farms has now risen to about 25 percent.

The Ministry of Agriculture has in recent years defined its policies attempting to improve and strengten the role of women in this sector. Young women leaving rural districts is one of the problems that has acted as a motivation for special arrangements. It is an important political goal to ensure equal opportunities and freedom for women and men who want to participate in agricultural production.

In 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture defined its strategy for equal opportunities. The main goal in this, is to contribute to make attractive living and working conditions to both men and women in agricultural districts. The main measure was a pilot project in two counties in order to generate practical experiences with local initiatives that successfully mobilises women.

Additionally, five sub-strategies has been defined. Firstly, we want to open the agricultural sector to the surrounding world - that is, to reduce restrictions on who can work within agriculture and on what can be defined as agriculture. Secondly, we will work for equal opportunities together with other ministries. Hence we have established this project as a cooperation with the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Thirdly, it is a purpose to change attitudes within agricultural organisations. One of the biggest co-operations, “Norsk Landbrukssamvirke”, recently decided to achieve fourty percent women representation in their boards of directors. Fourthly, my Ministry will work to ensure the ‘equal opportunities perspective’ in our internal processes.

Finally, we want to generate knowledge and understanding of gender relationsships in agriculture and in rural districts. Today’s topic and project can be an important contributor to this. We need to understand more about how women get access to ownership in agriculture and how they perform this ownership.

The cooperation and comparisons that you will make across European countries can teach us important lessons about different roads towards ownership and leadership. The comparisons between women’s ownership in agriculture and business in general can also lead to interesting findings. I am sure this is also the case for Innovation Norway , which is the secretariat for this project. They also contribute with important work for the Ministry of Agriculture in order to achieve economic development within agriculture also for women.

I look forward to learning more about these issues when this project concludes at the beginning of next year.

Finally I want to wish you a pleasant stay in Oslo and I hope your work will be successful.