The Blount County Extension is holding an educational session focusing a specific audience in agriculture. The 2025 Women in AG workshop will include speakers on handling cattle, estate planning, and driving a tractor aimed at female farmers working in the state. Amy Burgess is helping to organize the event. She says more and more women are working in agriculture and their needs are different…
“And so farming as as a female, has some unique challenges,” said Burgess. “We're just not inherently as strong physically as men, and so sometimes we have to think differently about how we do something to get the same same effect. And so this event is geared towards talking through some of those issues.”
Sessions will focus on tractor driving and attachment basics, trailer safety and handling, soil and forage sampling, estate planning, small engine maintenance, flower arranging, beef cattle evaluation and conformation, cattle handling and vaccination, calving management and dystocia, introduction to beekeeping, small fruit and flower production, food preservation, and a local farmer panel discussion. Burgess says the session will focus on female farmers of all experience levels.
“Our goal for this event is to more and enable the women who who either have an interest in getting involved or who are who are just getting their feet in the door of agriculture, enabling them to feel more, feel more at ease, and taking on some of the jobs that they're going to be faced,” she said.
The event takes place this Friday and Saturday at the Blount County Multiple center in the town of Cleveland. There will be a follow-up in Monroe County this coming October.