Women in Farming: People skills key to Jenn Schooley’s success in agriculture, agritourism

Having worked full time as a farmer for a number of years now, Jenn Schooley knows all too well the ups and downs of agriculture, and how things like a late frost can impact the apple blossoms, and in turn, the harvest.

By Tamara Botting

The first time Jenn Schooley went looking for a pair of work boots in a local shop, there were only two options for women, “And they were pink. I was so pissed, because just because we’re girls, it doesn’t mean we want to wear pink.”

That was about five years ago, when Schooley decided to come back to the family farm, Apple Hill Lavender at 1795 Windham Road 11, Norfolk County.

For 20 years prior, she had been working for a children’s mental health agency.

“I wasn’t planning on coming back to the farm,” Schooley said. But “when COVID hit, I didn’t see my parents for three months at a time, and that’s the longest I’d gone without seeing them; I’ve always lived so close.”

She started thinking about the family farm and what she wanted her connection to it to be after her parents were unable to work the land anymore.

At that time, her sister was working on the farm, so they all had a family conversation. While her sister has since shifted to a different career, Schooley left her full time job and “jumped in with both feet,” to be part of the farm’s operations.

She’s now the Director of Operations for Apple Hill Lavender, which grows and adds value to apples, lavender and medicinal herbs. Her parents are still the owners.

Schooley’s previous role required a lot of patience and resilience, “and those come in very handy when farming,” she said with a laugh; especially farming as a woman.

Coming from a professional field that is primarily made up of women and a workplace that was very nurturing, Schooley said moving into the world of agriculture was a big change.

“It’s dominated by men,” she said. “I was not expecting those types of behaviours, certain comments here and there. That was a little bit of a challenge for me at the very beginning, to navigate my way through, because it was so shocking.”

She’s had farmers make inappropriate comments to her. She’s had people at supply and equipment stores talk more slowly to her, or assume she doesn’t know what she needs for her operation. When salespeople have come out to the farm, they’ll bring a hat for her father, and tell her they have nothing for her.

“I wear hats, too,” she said wryly. “Or sometimes, they’ve given me baking things; I’m so offended by that.”

One time when Schooley and her father were looking at a tractor, the salesperson started to show her how to put it into forward and reverse; she pointed out to him that he hadn’t done the same with her father a few minutes prior.

“I was like, ‘You’re mansplaining – to a farmer – how to drive a tractor. Whether they’re a girl or a boy, is that appropriate?’ He was very upset that he had done that; he didn’t realize he had done it.”

Schooley noted that financial institutions can be really hard to deal with as a woman.

“I can’t do a lot without Dad to be able to help. He has a lot more credibility as a male farmer in the financial world, at least with the bigger banks,” she said.

While Schooley will call it out when she sees people operating in stereotype assumptions with her, she always strives to do it in a respectful and diplomatic way.

Most of the time, “I don’t think they realize they’re doing it at all,” she said, adding that she sees it as an opportunity for education, not to embarrass someone.

Things like the weather and the cost of essentials like fuel and fertilizer are generally out of a farmer’s hands, but something that Schooley’s previous career had well prepared her for when it came to farming was the interpersonal aspect of the work.

“I have developed those ‘peopling’ skills over a period of 20 years, and working with a wide variety of different types of people from different walks of life. In the agritourism business, that’s essential, to be able to deal with people coming in from all over,” she said.

Education was also a huge part of her previous career, and she still find herself utilizing those skills now as she is “educating people here on the farm about what they see and what’s going on in the agriculture around them.”

Sometimes she’s educating guests about the produce being grown, or agricultural practices on the farm. Other times, it’s a much more basic lesson, like who can be a farmer.

“The stereotype that people have when they visit the farm, they’re expecting the farmer to be a man; that’s a big one,” Schooley said.

Local libraries will often do circle times at the farm, which brings families out to Apple Hill Lavender.

“I like to show up … on my tractor, so that everybody can see a girl can drive a tractor,” said Schooley, who added, “The kids aren’t shocked that I’m a girl; I just want to normalize it.”

It’s not just that Schooley has to be able to relate well with guests on the farm; she also has to be able to relate to others in the agricultural industry. Especially in her early days working on the farm, she found she often had to prove her credibility before others – particularly men – would take her seriously.

That’s why her advice to any women who want to get into farming is, “Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. For the first little while, two ears, one mouth – listen twice as much, talk half as much so you can really soak in and absorb.”

Very early on in her entry into farming full time, Schooley joined different boards in the community. Today, she volunteers as president of the Norfolk Federation of Agriculture; chair of the Norfolk Agricultural Advisory Committee for Norfolk County; treasurer for the South Coast Wellness (which supports people with things like mental health and addictions); and is on the board for ABEL Enterprises.

Her main reason for joining the agricultural boards was “So I could learn more about how other crops are grown, because we’re just edible horticulture here, and I wanted to learn how agriculture works and how it fits, and I wanted to learn the political and economical sides of it all.”

Schooley said she’s learned a lot about agriculture as a whole – from a national to a local level – while serving on these boards, and she’s very grateful to those she’s served with who have helped her gain a deeper understanding of the industry.

She’s also seen firsthand how if a woman in farming wants credibility with her male counterparts, “We have to be a little bit more professional; we have to be more assertive. We also have to be more nurturing.”

Still, Schooley noted, “Right from the beginning of time, agriculture has always had women involved … I think there’s always been an underlying respect for women in agriculture, because male farmers knew they couldn’t do it without their female partners.”

She pointed to Apple Hill Lavender’s barn, which was raised in her great-grandparents’ time.

“The men all worked together to put up that barn, but the women all came together and they made those meals to nourish those bodies that were lifting up those barns. So, the two really go hand in hand. There’s always been that healthy respect for women to begin with underlying; it’s just bringing that up more visibly.”

Schooley appreciates the work that other women in agriculture have been doing, especially locally.

“I am seeing more and more women in leadership roles in agriculture; that’s exciting,” she said. “We’ve got some really strong women farmers in Ontario. I’m really fortunate to be rubbing shoulders with some amazing women who have done some pretty amazing things. We’re really fortunate. Norfolk County seems to be a little bit more open-minded that way, and forward-thinking with that.”

Another piece of advice she has for women who are just getting into farming is to find other women in the industry to connect with – to learn, to vent, to troubleshoot problems with, etc.

As an example of the latter, Schooley said that while she might not have the muscle strength to do a particular task, that’s when she has to use brainpower to figure out a workaround.

“I think that’s one of the superpowers of women working in agriculture, though; we’ve got that creative, resourceful, driven – especially driven – way of doing things, and I think it adds a little bit of uniqueness to it,” she said.

One of the biggest challenges of farming is that it’s not something you can fake your way through, Schooley said.

On the flip side, though, that means “It’s very real, it’s very authentic, it’s very genuine. And you want to maintain that … that’s where you gain the credibility.”

These days, Schooley still has a hard time finding overalls or work gloves that fit right, and “They don’t make tractor seats for women, that’s for sure.”

But when she’s gone back into that local shoe store to look for work boots, there’s now a whole section dedicated to women’s work footwear.

It’s a small step, but “It’s come forward,” she said. 