(guitar music)
On farms and ranches across Nebraska,
women play a vital role in operations
that feed and fuel the world.
Women like LaDene Rutt.
I'm the boss, and I get to do what I want to do
and that's a good thing.
She attended
the first Women in Agriculture Conference in 1985.
My County Agent at the time told me about it,
and I went, "Hmm, that's sounds interesting.
"I guess I'll go and see what it's like."
I found out when I got there
I could actually talk to women about farming.
It was great!
I haven't missed a one since.
Through the decades the conference
has been a force for change and resilience.
It gives the women who come there a chance to find out
that yes you can live through the bad times.
The good times are great,
but they're not gonna last forever,
and neither are the bad times.
The program grew out
of a very bad time for agriculture.
Now 10, 11, 12, yeah.
We had incredibly high interest rates,
and banks were calling loans and.
Banks were closing.
Banks were closing,
and there just wasn't a lot of optimism.
To help struggling Nebraskans,
Ag Economics Professor Larry Bitney
worked with Jane Green and other colleagues
to develop Managing For Tomorrow,
a workshop for farm families.
We were trying to put together programs
that would assist farm and ranch families in staying alive.
Women who attended the workshop
demonstrated an appetite for learning
and a desire to know more.
We had farm families that had come
to Managing for Tomorrow
sometimes father, mother, daughter, son units,
but it seems like the women
were always less comfortable contributing
unless they were talking about family goals.
They were just a lot of places
that they were either not educated
or just didn't feel equipped to really contribute
to the management part of that discussion,
so we just thought
that there had to be a way of reaching women.
(upbeat music)
Jane Green
and Program Coordinator Deb Rood approached Dr. Bitney
with the idea of a statewide conference for women
in the area of farm business management.
And fortunately I was able to
get some grant funds, and we were off and running.
Over the years, thousands of women
from across the state travel to Kearney
to attend the Women in Agriculture Conference
among them Terri Jo Bek, a Professor
at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture at Curtis.
Bek has attended all but one of the conferences
as a participant or a speaker.
She says the event builds confidence
and gives new meaning to the role of Farm Wife.
You have all kinds of business management skills,
you can drive large equipment, you have leadership skills
because they usually belong to the church
and the community things when something has to be done
it's usually the Ag women doing it.
They're interested in bringing enterprise,
they're entrepreneurs,
so I kinda quit hearing that I'm just a farm wife.
You know, they're an integral partner,
and I think Women in Ag has helped them do that.
Every year the conference went on
through economic highs and lows
in fair weather and at least one major storm.
It was the largest registrations we'd ever had,
over 400 were coming, and the day before a blizzard hit.
As dedicated as these women are,
this falls during calving season,
we lost many of our ranchers, they had to stay home,
but there were still 200 women
that made the trek to Kearney.
That was also the year LaDene Rutt turned 80.
Instead of celebrating my birthday
with 400 of my good friends,
I celebrated with 200 of my very best friends.
Friendship is at the core
of why Women in Agriculture is a success.
All the people that you get to meet,
women that I would never
have gotten acquainted with any other way.
We were very cognizant of women
being comfortable in a great learning environment,
but we very much wanted them to be able to have fun too.
Women infrequently got away from the farm.
We wanted it to be an overnight experience
where they were pampered and given lots of reasons
to laugh and feel good about what they were doing.
Women also learn valuable information
on topics that influence the bottom line.
It allows people to get together and find out
they aren't the only ones having issues.
It brings management skills into it
and so these ladies, a lot of these ladies,
have become Business Managers
on their farms and the marketers.
More and more women are becoming
actual owners and operators by themselves
in the state of Nebraska,
so this research-based education has been very important
to them to learn aspects of farming and ranching
and being able to do this and make a profit.
Much has changed since LaDene Rutt
attended her first Women in Agriculture Conference.
I probably have slowed down a little bit
only I won't admit it.
But the mission of the conference
remains the same to empower women
through knowledge and networking.
I've met some wonderful women, wonderful women,
that have remained friends of mine.
I'm just amazed at the work that they do,
at how inspiring they can be, and how dedicated they are
to what they do and their families.
And I think that's partly
what's made this conference special
is that we've got people there that want to help each other
through the bad times and the good.
It's almost like a family reunion for me
to be at the Women in Ag Conference.
These ladies that have come for most of that time,
they've been through my marriage,
they've seen my child grow up.
Now they see my grandchildren and so you get back together
and I hope to see 35 more years
of generations coming back to the Women in Ag Conference
and passing knowledge down
as well as that feeling of family.
It's been 35 years since we started Women in Ag,
and I think over the course of whatever I did professionally
in those 35 years that's what I'll always be most proud of.
I'm proud to have been a part of the beginning
as well as the continuing of Women in Ag.
It has had a tremendous impact
on Nebraska farm and ranch families.
I'm really honored to have been part of this conference
for the women in the state of Nebraska.
It was an amazing ride for me.
I'm really proud that an idea that started 35 years ago
has blossomed to what it is today
in Women in Agriculture in Nebraska.
Well, I think 35 years of visiting with other women
about farming, about Ag in general,
and about our lives and family on the farm
has been one of the best things in my life.
(upbeat music)