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Source: ONE News
Few women are directors of dairy companies, and some women say they encounter industry discrimination outside the farm gates.
"Women are making some of the most important strategic decisions about their farming operations - whether those are decisions made on their own or with their partners," said Dairy Women's Network general manager Lynda Clark.
"Although women are making these strategic decisions at farm level, in other parts of the industry, women are finding sexism is a major barrier."
The network, set up in 1998 to inform, educate, support and mentor women in dairying through 20 regional groups, commissioned a survey of 400 of the thousands of women it represents.
Clark said one of the "most concerning" findings was that one-third of the women surveyed thought sexism was the single biggest barrier for them working in the industry.
"Outside of the farm, women are feeling undervalued and under-utilised," she said.
"We can see this coming through at the highest levels in the dairy industry.
"How many women sit on dairying company boards? Not many."
The survey measured the level of involvement women in dairying have across a range of farm activities and decision making, and in the wake of a smaller 2005 study in the North Island.
This survey confirmed that women were involved in many of the day-to-day functions of running a farm, but in "support and strategy" rather than operations such as farm maintenance and stock work.
The UMR Research study found women had a high involvement in decision-making (4.1 out of five) when it came to working with banks, financiers, accountants and lawyers, and high levels of involvement in setting the farm's business goals (four out of five).
Though they were generally not involved at the operational level, women were highly involved in calf rearing.
Clark said the 2005 survey found only 42% of women had access to the internet and used it regularly, but this had now jumped to 73%.
Only 5% of the women surveyed had no access to the internet, which compared to 25% in the 2005 sample.
