The College of Agriculture is seeing a steady increase in the number of women enrolled in agricultural fields, bringing the percentage of women studying agriculture this year to almost half of the total students.

This fall’s freshman class in the College of Agriculture has 314 men and 303 women enrolled. This fall, women make up 49.1 percent of enrolled students, compared to 42 percent five years ago.

Women make up 42 percent of the 2,758 undergraduates in the college, and 35 percent of the 626 graduate students, according to College of Ag enrollment statistics.

“There has been a push in the agriculture industry to include women,” said Eric Hoiberg, associate dean of academic and state programs. “Several years ago, it was understood that the push was needed. Things are opening up because of the women’s movement in the 1980s, which gave women greater access to many fields.”

Hoiberg said most women in the college are choosing to major in public service and administration agriculture or food science and human nutrition. He said the animal science pre-veterinary major is also popular, with 62 percent of the students in veterinary medicine classes being women.

Robin Niehaus is one female ISU student who opted to join the College of Agriculture.

“My family really influenced me. My sister was in FFA, my father was an agriculture teacher and both of my parents were raised on farms,” said Niehaus, freshman in public service and administration in agriculture and agricultural business. “In high school, I was in FFA, and my love of agriculture came from being involved on my grandfather’s farm.”

There are fewer than 90,000 farms in Iowa and the United States because farms are larger and fewer people are needed to run them, Hoiberg said. About 15 percent of the agriculture students plan to return to their family farms, and there are still a lot of students interested in returning, he added.

“People don’t understand the importance of agriculture in everyday lives and the different opportunities in agriculture in facing and overcoming problems in agriculture,” Niehaus said.

Niehaus said she has noticed an increase of female role models in the agricultural fields.

“A lot of women have paved the way for me, which makes it easier to know that I could do the same,” she said. “People can help others by listening and being supportive. People in agriculture have a strong work ethic, and agriculture is more than a business; it’s a way of life.”