Women have always been involved in ranching, but now more than ever, they are taking on leadership roles and shaping the future. This week, we’re joined by the Executive Director of Women in Ranching, Amber Smith, to discuss how the organization is helping women build skills, find community, and navigate the unique challenges of Ag life.
Topics
[0:00] Introduction
[0:57] Women in Ranching: How it got started
[8:19] Building a nationwide community
[16:06] The skills women want to learn
[21:54] Creative ways the next generation is working the land
[25:44] Success stories from the community
[28:15] The future of rural leadership
[35:35] Grants, community, and what comes next
[40:02] Why every woman has a role in the future of ranching
Haley (00:06):
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin Podcast, where every other week we bring you experts in the field to impart their knowledge when it comes to the ranch and sporting property market, buying and selling advice, the latest best stewardship practices, as well as topics that impact landowners every day. I’m your host, Haley Mirr. Let’s jump in.
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin Podcast. I’m Haley Mirr. And today we’re going to be talking to an organization that I think is amazing. I was just talking about this call. I love their branding. I love their direction. I love what they’re doing for women in the space, but it’s women in ranching. And helping me out today is the executive director, Amber Smith. Welcome to the show, Amber. I’m so excited to learn more about what you guys are doing and the role you play in the space of ranching, so thank you for being on the show.
Amber Smith (00:54):
Thank you, Haley. It’s great to be here.
Haley (00:57):
And I know a lot of your work through our connection with Western Landowners Alliance, but I just really want to get connected with women in ranching and know what was the impetus to creating women in ranching. What’s your background and how did that kind of stem where women in ranching is today?
Amber Smith (01:18):
So we had very early on women who were just entering into agriculture through sometimes through marriage. More often folks who were getting degrees in animal sciences or range land sciences and wanting to step into agriculture working their butt off to get the foot in the door. And once they were here saying, “If I don’t find some community, if I don’t find a group to participate in, to be a part of, I don’t know if I can keep doing this work that I love. It’s isolating these big locations with towns a hundred miles apart. It can get pretty lonely when you’re a first time in agriculture, a first time in ranching.” So that was really the call that brought women in ranching together. And over time, I feel like part of why I love the organization is yes, we have many beginning folks, many folks like myself who didn’t grow up in agriculture.
(02:25):
And we have just as many fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth generation ranchers, people who have been in this for a long time. So whether you’re 19 years old and just getting your start in agriculture or you’re 79 years old and have so much wisdom to share, we have a great home for you at women in ranching.
Haley (02:44):
I love that. When you think about women who first started showing up, what were they missing in their day-to-day lives? I know you were talking how isolating it can be. Again, the community piece is really big, but what were some of the other things that kind of made you guys realize, okay, this is something that we need to do? What was some of the feedback you were getting?
Amber Smith (03:04):
When I think about the very first group I sat in, and I used those numbers 19 and 79 because we had a spread of folks between those ages and I had no idea what I was missing until I showed up at a women in ranching event and found a group of people who were deeply centered in land stewardship who cared a great deal about animal husbandry, low stress stockmanship, about their operations and ensuring profitability so they could bring the next generation home. And to look around the room and see aspirations, fears, challenges, opportunities represented in that group, whether you were 19 or 79, was an indication that there’s something to be had here. And I think about some of those meals where we’re laughing about whether it’s what… Okay. I can remember one of the first meals with the group and what I was sharing how that when I got stuck in the kitchen, because sometimes you get stuck in the kitchen, getting everything ready before branding so I would make sure and shove our breakfast burritos with kale or spinach because nothing made me happier than to be at the branding roping calves, taking a break and seeing grown me take bites of breakfast burritos, pull it away and green stuff down.
(04:44):
And at Women in Ranching, everybody understood what I was talking about. They could understand that feeling of wanting to both support nourishing people’s bellies while also doing the actual work on the ground and that those things don’t have to be in combat with each other. Those things can work in harmony together. And often it takes a rethinking of your operation. It takes a rethinking of your people resources and how do we make sure everybody gets to participate on the landscape in the way that suits them best? And how do we also make sure that each of us is stepping up doing things we might not love and might not be the easiest thing for us to do, but in order to be a team in these remote locations, we’re going to have to be creative and figure this out. And so what I found was a group of people wanting that and a group of people who were really hopeful about what could be and what was possible and what was to come and not because anyone in that group had perfect or easy lives.
(05:57):
And I remember listening to some of the women’s stories and hearing things like, “I have this big idea. I want to put it forward to the ranch. I don’t think my husband’s going to love it. If I’m pursuing this thing on our operation and I’m no longer in 100% support role of him, could this lead to divorce? If it would lead to divorce, I no longer have access to land.” Those are real fears that people were holding or I am now leading and managing the ranch. I’m also caring for a husband who’s incapacitated due to injury or cancer or whatever. And all of a sudden I’m raising my grandchild. How do I actually do this? I finally have the opportunity to take this business in the direction I want to, and I have these huge buckets of care that I’m also holding alongside of it.
(07:03):
Those are the types of things that women talk about when they have the space to share and when they’re in a space where they can clearly see everyone in this group understands what I’m moving and walking through. And that’s just, it’s a different scenario than going to a National Cattleman’s Educational Day or Montana Stock Growers Association, all of which are things I participate in and enjoy and love. But for me to keep doing this work when I’m tired, when it’s 50 below zero and we have waters freezing and kids to get to all kinds of activities and cattle needing us breaking water and trying to figure this out, I want a group of people around me who understands that work, who values the work, who sees that it’s going to take more of us in these places. So why not activate the people who are already here?
(08:08):
We already have women here and so why aren’t we activating their leadership on the land just as much as everyone else is getting the opportunity?
Haley (08:19):
I’d love to know how you guys all do it. I mean, to your point, I’m sure with the internet that makes it a lot easier when you’re in these remote places to be able to communicate and share knowledge and all those things. But how did you guys start at the beginning of Women in Ranching to be able to give that knowledge out there? How did you guys connect when it first started to where you are today?
Amber Smith (08:44):
So Women in Ranching first started back in 2016 gathering women in person on host locations. So that’s what we were doing all the way up until COVID. It was great. It was amazing. It’s a lot of work trying to get folks to leave their operations and travel and be in person with a group. I’d had supporters saying like, “Why don’t you guys try to do something virtually?” And I would always push back and say, “Oh, I just heard a statistic the other day. 0.02% of conservation work globally is spearheaded by women. 0.02%. At least what’s getting funded.That’s where money is flowing into these handful. And you and I both know women are doing this work all the time and have been doing this work across the globe for time and memorial. And so when I would have a sponsor or a donor push the virtual, I would always say these women deserve every penny that we’re able to resource to get them to these locations, to find great educators and speakers.” Well, then COVID hit.
(10:11):
So in that challenge, we did try to gather virtually and to my complete surprise, people showed up. So really since that 2021 period, we’ve been hosting both in – person and virtual education and programming, which has increased the accessibility and definitely increased participation. And what we still hear is we want more. We want women in ranching in more places and more regional locations. We want gatherings in our communities, which is what brought forward our community re-grant program, which I’m really proud of. We launched the community re-grant in 2025. And so women apply with, “Here’s who I am. Here’s what I’m about. Here’s my geographic location. Here is the skill building education that I want to provide to other women.” And we offer financial support for them to get that done.
(11:14):
And this past season we had 38 applications and I have money to fund eight of those projects. So our way of answering the need, like most organizations, we have limited resources. And so how do we actually show up in so many communities across the US? And increasingly we have participation in Mexico and Canada. How do we show up in these places and answer this call? Well, our mission is we hold brave space, support courageous action and champion rural women’s leadership on the land. If that’s true, why not put resources into women leaders in their own communities to keep activating them at the soil surface?
Haley (12:08):
I love that. So is your focus really then intentional regional smaller groups because they can become neighbors, they have similar landscapes and environments. Where did that kind of intentionality on focusing on the regional start?
Amber Smith (12:29):
Yeah. So I would say it’s just been in the last two years that we’ve done more regionally specific programming, particularly on the Navajo Nation and the Blackfeet Nation. However, leading up to that, while our programs were in specific regions, we were drawing folks like a typical gathering would have a minimum of 15 states represented even if it was only 25 people getting together. So very geographically disparate and diverse. The benefit of that type of offering is you can show up a little easier as your full self with your problems, your challenges, your concerns, where you’re needing help, because you feel less judged. Sometimes when you’re in a group of neighbors, the last things I’m going to do is tell my neighbor, “Well, we tried to do this and here’s the rec that we ran into.” I mean, the neighbors already know the wreck because they’ve been watching over the fence all spring.
(13:38):
So a lot of our programmatic work is drawing smaller groups of women, but from a large geographic participation base. And then these last couple of years we’ve been trialing very regionally specific programs with regional coordinators. So Tiffany Sincador is a rancher on the Blackfeet Nation. She’s been hosting, this will be her third gathering this coming October. So very specifically Northwest Blackfeet community here in Montana, which does have its own benefit because over time, as you keep meeting annually and running into folks in your home community, the support feels a bit different than when you’re showing up at a one-time event at a far away place with people you don’t know. Both are beautiful and both are necessary offerings. And we just continue to trial what’s the format that works best? So I’ll give another example. This last year we launched a Leading with Numbers financial cohort working with Wild Ranch Solutions, Caroline Wild, who was our educator.
(14:54):
It started out as a 10-week process, all fully remote, and then gathering together in person at our confluence event at the Picinas Ranch this March. It’s costly getting people together in person. And I thought, “Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what the cohort has to say. We’ll see if this is something they would want to do again.” And the survey responses back were that that time in person was invaluable. So here was a program where it was 95% virtual, but then after this extended time of learning together in a small group, that opportunity to actually meet in the flesh and in a beautiful place and to learn in person, it meant a great deal. So I won’t say we have mastered a particular format. What we’re really finding is for reasons of accessibility and increasing anyone’s ability to participate at Women in Ranching, it takes a variety of formats to get that done.
Haley (16:06):
So what are the subject matter? Wha are women facing in ranching today that they need education, they need to learn new ways of doing things? What is a typical gathering look like? What are you guys learning and who’s teaching some of those programs?
Amber Smith (16:24):
So most of our programming, I would say 99% of the work that we’re doing, we’re featuring educators and speakers who are women, most of whom are coming from agricultural businesses, agricultural communities, agricultural work themselves. Folks continue to say that hands-on skill building is big. And so all the way down from how am I putting in electric fence? Would virtual fence work on my property? It’s my first season calving heifers. I could use support and education on that. That was the newest request I saw in my email this morning. We’ve really been pressing into financial education. And so we’ve spent a lot of time doing virtual financial education grazing management. This year we switched it up and our focus was on small ruminants. And let me tell you a big shout out to all the small ruminant folks out there. Small ruminant people are passionate, proud, excited.
(17:34):
I think they maybe feel like underdogs in the United States ag industry. So I love seeing the small ruminant folks show up at women and ranching because they just bring a whole different level of energy and enthusiasm. Yeah, so that’s just a taste. And as we continue with this community re-grant program, we’re seeing things like shearing clinics, fruit tree, pruning workshops, doing emotional and counseling support with the aid of a horse, horsemanship and low stress stockmanship. I mean, it’s really fun seeing the ideas and the skillset that so many women have and them connecting to a platform of being able to share those skills to a bigger audience.
Haley (18:38):
Well, I feel like too, there’s probably, you’ve spoken to some of this and how roles have changed a little bit in ranching, but I’m sure leadership structures and things, at least I’m seeing it a lot in even selling ranches. A lot of the women who are selling or our clients now, they used to be predominantly men and now it’s women who are running the show. So I’m sure even more so there’s a need to hone these skills to figure… You’re talking about the financial piece, running a business. I think we’re going to see more and more women taking these higher responsibilities than ever before as we continue looking on.
Amber Smith (19:15):
I agree. And one of the things that I think about is this next generation of ranchers. So how my husband and I have approached the land, how we have gotten access to land looks completely different than his father’s generation, than his grandfather’s generation. The types of people that we work with, how to put a lease proposal together, how to ask for support in that process and journey. When my husband and I got the opportunity to lease Antelope Springs Ranch, which we’ve been here since the fall of 2013, I feel like time is just flying.
Haley (20:03):
Yeah. It’s different.
Amber Smith (20:04):
It’s crazy. It’s crazy how it goes. The things we had to do to access this land are not things that my husband learned about. And I wasn’t in any sort of animal sciences or natural resources. I was a social sciences degree in college. My plan was I was going to move overseas and teach English, probably come back at some point and get a master’s degree and probably be in the education field. That was my plan. I ended up working on a guest ranch in Colorado. Shout out to the home ranch outside of Steamboat Springs, which is how I met my husband. So that was my step into agriculture. And then we spent seven years in the Sandhills of Nebraska, which is one of the most beautiful places on the face of this great earth. And then the last 13 years here in Montana. But the skillset that we had to have in order to run the business as we are today just aren’t things that you would be learning in school or in other traditional ways.
(21:23):
And so what I’m seeing in the women and ranching community is people showing up with really interesting questions because the opportunities are very different. And so whether it is leasing from an absentee landowner, whether it is managing for a landowner who’s based on that location, this looks a lot different than inheriting it from mom or dad.
Haley (21:54):
Big time.
Amber Smith (21:55):
And so the skill sets that you need to have and I’ll use an example. It’s a story I love to tell. So as we took on the opportunity of trying to lease this place, we did not have the cashflow to make that first payment that would be required. So we went to our grazing clients. We were custom grazing at the time and said, “This is the opportunity. We want to stay on this landscape. We want to keep having you as grazing clients. However, we don’t have the cash to pick up this lease.” We didn’t know at the time that our grazing clients had also put in a bid to lease the ranch. So when we told them we’re really trying and we want to do this, they actually pulled their bid out of the offer, which theirs much higher than ours. So that was the first generous gift.
(22:55):
And then the second generous gift was us saying, “If you will prepay for your grass in the summer of 19,” and this is August of 2018, “If you will prepay us that cash, we will guarantee your grazing spot here this coming summer. And I think we did three and a half percent interest on the money and we will have paid you back before the end of 2019.” And they said yes. So we had gone to several banks, all of whom they’re like, “I mean, this is the thing. And this is the thing for a beginning farmer or rancher. You go to a bank with a really solid business plan. And we had a solid business plan because we’d already been managing the ranch for four or five years at this point. We knew what we could do. Well, the first thing a bank wants to know is what are your assets?
(23:57):
At that time, we had seven horses, a beagle dog, and a stock trailer from literally 1972. So that was our asset base.
(24:12):
Why were they going to lend us money? Which is what they all said. Do you have someone to co-sign this for you? ” And it’s like, “No, we do not. ” So it took other people in the ag industry who believed in us, believed in our skills, who cared enough to see our work continue to step up to the plate. So these are the kind of creative opportunities that we’re going to have to put together if we want to continue seeing the next generation in agriculture on these landscapes. And that’s the type of creative thinking I see every day in the women who show up at women in ranching. At a recent event, one of the speakers said, “Well, I had shared opening the event. I’m just tired. I’m tired generally. This is really hard work. So if anyone in this room feels similarly, feel free to come talk to me.
(25:12):
I’d love to hear why you’re feeling tired.” And what she shared was I work so hard to have the opportunity at working so hard every day. And that’s the truth. And so if this is what it’s going to take for us to feed ourselves and our neighbors, we need a community around us who wants to see us succeed. And what better community than other people who are centered in the same work that you’re doing?
Haley (25:44):
Well, you’ve already given a ton of examples of how this community and what community can do to your operation, to your family, to your bottom line. But can you give me an example of maybe some women you’ve worked with that entered into Women in Ranching and came back or came out a different version of themselves and how Women in Ranching got them there?
Amber Smith (26:08):
Well, I will share a really fun story. And this is also a great plug because these are folks trying to build fantastic educations on their ranch. But the Red Wing Ranch down in Colorado, we had a gathering. I can’t quite remember what year it was. Must have been 2022 maybe. And one of the participants shared, “I was just able to purchase this ranch. I’m really excited to get it started. I have a strong vision for what I want, but I need the right ranch manager.” At that gathering, she found the right ranch manager. The person who’s now her educational director was also at that gathering. And so I absolutely love the story. And that’s Kristy Wykoff at the Red Wing Ranch, her ranch manager, Fiona, her program educator, Erin Sheridan. And I just love using that as an example of what’s possible. When folks put their needs out on the table quite often the answer’s already in the group.
(27:28):
And that’s what I find so much at Women in Ranching is we all feel like we’re alone with our challenges or with our needs. And then when we share what our needs are, the solution is almost always right there in the room with us already.
Haley (27:44):
I love that. Well, I think that speaks to, too, at the very beginning when you pushed back on the virtual thing and you were like, “These women deserve all of our resources and our energy to make these things happen. And this is a clear indicator of why, because it’s as much energy and love and money and things that you guys put into these things for them to be what they are and for women to get out what they need.
Amber Smith (28:13):
100%.
Haley (28:15):
If you’re looking five to 10 years down the road, where do you kind of see women in ranching, but also just the role of women in ranching in general? Where do you see that headed?
Amber Smith (28:29):
Well, that’s a really good question. I will say if we can continue growing our support, I would love to see regional directors at Women in Ranching. I’ve seen so much benefit from folks being in their home community. And I’ll use Tiffany as an example. She’s a rancher. She’s a mother. They’re a rodeo family. I mean, they’re a busy family and there’s a part of her heart that also wants to be creating education opportunities and gathering opportunities for other women. And so when I’ve seen that consistent support over time, both for her showing up at our weekly meetings on Mondays, checking in, this morning we were talking about stinking grizzly bears trying to eat the 4-H pigs. So there’s that level –
Haley (29:27):
You deal with so much harder stuff than we do.
Amber Smith (29:31):
So there’s that level of being seen and support inside of the organization when you’re leading something, but then all the way down to the soil surface of being a participant who’s showing up at these events, checking in at the virtual gatherings, having the opportunity to apply for the financial cohort. I want to see this work grow. I Now, one of the ways part of our 2034 vision is that this be global, which when I hear the word global, I’m immediately panicked of like that’s a really big ask. However, this year is the international year of rangelands and pastoralists. And so we’ve been participating in a global gender working group leading up to being in Nepal here at the end of this month. So one of my board members will be traveling to Nepal to be with that group. And when I think about women in ranching as something global, our work with the gender working group has increased participation, particularly in Mexico.
(30:49):
And the purpose of that gender working group is to create policy to then take forward to the United Nations to ensure a coherent voice across pastoralist women around the world who are caring for the world’s landscapes. And as part of that group, we’re talking about, yes, resources getting to these women, education opportunities. We’re also looking at violence against women. We’re looking at the ways that women’s voices and work are silenced and patriarchal dominant societies. And last week, one of the women who has been a part of this work, Lena Rodriguez from the Mexican Association of Women Livestock Farmers was murdered in Chihuahua. And Women in Ranching has a board member, Nancy Hernandez Rodriguez. She is a rancher and now a university professor in Chihuahua. And it creates awareness around how much work there is to do, how much resources are needed to ensure that women have the opportunity to do this work and to also find safety in this work.
(32:23):
So when I think about where women in ranching was when we launched as our own nonprofit in 2022, when I think about where we were when we were a nascent group of women showing up on host ranches in California back in 2016 and now acknowledging here we are in 2026 participating in a group of women from all over the world. So on our last call, we had nine different languages represented. You can imagine the time those calls take is like interpretation is occurring and people are using
(33:05):
Interpretation AI to walk ourselves through it. I get to feel really excited about the vision that Women in Ranchings Board put forward for us to hit in 2034. And I can’t see a time when this work won’t be necessary. I mean, I hope one day it’s not necessary. I hope as I look at my kids, my son is 13, my daughter is 15. My hope for my children and this next generation is that all of them recognize the need to have them back in our rural communities, that we need their creativity, we need their strength, we need their wisdom and vision regardless of how long it takes for them to come back or what gender they are or we need it all. And so these very narrowly defined ideas that the American West is a bunch of cowboys, it always has been and it’s always been the men getting this work done, not so much.
(34:20):
That’s just never been the whole story. There have always been women involved in this work and they just haven’t been elevated and still aren’t elevated in the way that they should be.
Haley (34:33):
I think it’s beautiful. And I think as someone who is in the business of selling ranches, a lot of times these families do have to sell because their kids don’t want to take it on because it’s just it’s… But I think a lot of that stems from the fact that these kids grow up and they don’t have that sense of community or that sense of belonging or, oh, I see myself in these ranchers. And so the fact that they’re creating this safe space I think will also in turn allow, to your point, your kids don’t want to come back because you don’t feel isolated. You do feel like you have people that look like you or talk like you or care about
(35:14):
The things that you do. So I think that’s awesome what you guys are doing on the broader scope of what this can do for rural communities at large. So it’s amazing. What are some of the things right now that you’re really excited about that you’re working on? I know 10 years down the road we’re really excited about what we’re going to do, but what’s kind of the here and now that gets you excited every day?
Amber Smith (35:42):
I am really excited about the community regrant. I’m excited to keep developing a fund of dollars where people want to see women’s work and leadership elevated. They want to see more of it. They want to learn from other women. That’s what we hear all the time of like, I come to women in anching because I want to learn from other women and us building a stable set of resources that we can kick out the door every single year. So right now my goal, I would love to see us having 25,000 a year to be doing that. I think in a couple years I’m going to be saying we need 75,000 to do that. And I can easily see by year five, we need 150,000 to do that.
(36:30):
I mean, people want it and we want to support women leaders on the land. So what better way? I also think about women in ranching comes from a place where we were doing all the facilitation. We were putting together these events. We were hosting all of this, which was a lot for a small team to carry. And when you look at who is caring for our landscapes, it is very diverse across our geographies. And part of the way that we can ensure folks in each of these communities are able to step up and take on leadership roles, I’m starting to envision how is Women in Ranching the educator of the educators instead of Women in Ranching always being the educator? So whether it’s facilitation support, learning how to put together a budget, learning how to write grant requests, which you have to do. If you’re going to pull these things off, grants and sponsorships, it’s all a necessary part.
(37:45):
And that is something I hear like, would Women in Ranching do a grant workshop? Would Women in Ranching put together how do you host an event workshop? We haven’t done any of that yet. So as I look forward into the future, I’m seeing a lot more education being developed at Women in Ranching with easy accessibility, virtual opportunities, tools and platforms developed that a person could take and then plug and play in the way that they see fit. And I just think it also has to be tied to resources. And so folks being able to access resources through Women in Ranching and through an organization that can see the beauty that they want to create, the skills that they want to deliver. Right now we’ve very specifically done skill building as one of the key parts of the application. However, when I look at applications coming in the door, there’s a lot of mental health and community wellbeing type of stuff.
(39:02):
Yeah. And so that’s going to be the next part of that is how are we making sure for as many skills as people want to grow in, that there’s also access to those mental health supports and more community wellbeing engagement. And women also like being a part of that kind of work. So I’m not surprised that women are reaching out to us seeking re-grant dollars to host those type of workshops in their communities.
Haley (39:38):
Well, I think they’ve probably been inspired, but what you have all done with running these communities –
Amber Smith (39:43):
Totally.
Haley (39:44):
These events be successful. And they’re like, how can we play a part and be just as successful at gathering interest or help or what have you? So it’s neat. So you’re inspiring a lot of women around you, Amber. It’s very cool.
Amber Smith (40:02):
I hope so. I think I would just share that if you are on your ranch or in your rural community and you’re not sure if you have a part to play, you’re not sure what part you have to play, you know you want to get your hands busy in some way, keep at it. We need each and every one of you in these communities. We need your children. We need your energy and your passion and your charisma and your grit and your get it done nature. These rural places won’t exist in the future if women don’t continue stepping up into their leadership. And we’d love to see you at Women in Ranching. So join us.
Haley (40:57):
Awesome. Well, thank you, Amber. I have been on the message boards. I need to come to an event one of these days because I’ve watched from afar for a couple years now. But Ed Roberson speaks highly. WLA. I mean, it’s such a cool group of people and with you at the helm, you guys have just been so successful and I’m excited to see where you guys head. So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to speak with me today, but excited to see where Women in Ranching goes next.
Amber Smith (41:27):
Thanks, Haley.
Haley (41:28):
Thanks. See you guys next time.
Thanks for joining us today. To learn more about the ranch real estate market or our ranch marketing process, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website at mirrranchgroup.com or give us a call at 303-623-4545. See you next time.
