Women can benefit farms, meeting told

IRISH farms could be more productive, competitive and profitable if women were considered as senior partners in the family enterprise.

Dr Maureen Gaffney told almost 600 women at the Women and Agriculture conference in Athlone that studies on Fortune 500 companies show that “those with the highest representation of women in senior top management teams had better financial performance than companies with lower representation”.

This is because they are better at decision making, innovation, produce better products and services and retain a competitive advantage. The psychologist suggested that this is true for all organisations and applies equally to farms and lobby groups.