Homestead project aims to empower women in farming

A new grassroots initiative in St John is breaking ground for women in agriculture, offering hands-on science education and mentorship to build both food security and community resilience.

Dubbed the Homestead Project, which will begin with a small cohort of 20 women, it is designed to transform participants from novices to confident, critical problem-solvers in the field.

Linda Hinkson, vice-president of the Barbados Sheep Farmers Association, introduced the project during the St John edition of the Ideas Forum on Monday. She outlined a vision for a training and coaching model designed to move women from curiosity to expertise in farming.

“Having females in the project would not be a difficult one,” she said. “We’re going to move from the aspect of application of the science, because agriculture is a very heavy discipline—complex math, chemistry, biology, and physics happening all at the same time.”

Hinkson, a trained agriculturist, explained her educational approach, which aims to demystify farming science and provide women with the tools to critically analyse and solve problems in the field.

“I’m going to let you understand the science, and from that, you’re going to apply the science,” she said. “So when you actually see things are happening and happening in the correct order, you feel the empowerment to do more.”

The St John Homestead Project, planned since September 2024, will blend classroom learning with hands-on application and coaching. Hinkson stressed that real empowerment comes from education—not just funding.

“With most farmers, the downfall is not about getting the funding. It’s to understand the process of what you are doing,” she said. “To be able to go out and identify things that are happening.”

Using practical examples, she illustrated how knowledge can transform a novice into a confident problem-solver.

“I said to my female farmers, if you came home and your piglets—say you had a batch of piglets that give birth early—and they die, you can tell if it was born dead or if it died after birth. How? Because if it was born and then it died, the lungs would be inflated. You cut it open, you put it in water, it rises to the top. That’s a simple analogy.”

Hinkson also recalled helping a friend, who had inherited a pig pen but didn’t know how to use it at first but after training became a successful pig farmer.

She emphasised that the educational process would be central to the initiative’s success.

“It is about educating the person—make them become a critical thinker, make them want to do more, motivate themselves, want to move from one building block to the next.”

In addition to training, the project aims to create a monthly farmers’ market where participants can sell produce and earn supplemental income.

“From this we can actually move towards a farmers’ market probably once a month on Saturdays, so that persons can sell their produce. And from that they’ll be able to get extra income.”

Although formal discussions with the government are ongoing, Hinkson used the forum to signal that the project was moving forward.

“This project was planned since September 2024, but I have to speak to my minister and then we’re going to materialise it—how we are going to go forward. But I said, since today is a day to give out ideas, I’m just going to toss out the idea so that persons will be aware that something is about to happen.”

(SZB)