Sharon Furches doesn’t know a life without agriculture. Furches grew up in Calloway County and worked in the fields with her two sisters and parents on their grain, tobacco and cattle farm. 

During her decades-long career in ag, she has been involved in several ag-related organizations, including the Kentucky Farm Bureau.

 Furches became the first woman to serve on the Kentucky Farm Bureau’s executive board in 2019, which she called groundbreaking. 

“We have a lot of women involved in leadership roles even though we had not had anyone on the executive level,” Furches said. “We’ve had women serve on the board currently, and that’s all good, but it was really nice to have somebody at that executive level. I was pleased to be able to do that.”

Furches said she is happy to see more women in leadership positions. 

“I was aware of when I was younger that oftentimes in seating different boards and leadership groups that they only had one or two women,” Furches said. “I’d like to think that… I’ve really proven myself and certainly have been asked and normalized in recent years because of my abilities and my reputation and the respect in the ag industry that I’ve worked for on behalf of different organizations all these years.”

The number of women involved on farms has increased drastically over the years, Furches said. 

“I’m aware of siblings that farm together and fathers that farm with daughters or maybe sons and daughters, but they’re involved in the farm equally now- that’s something relatively new I’d say within the past 10 to 15 years,” Furches said. 

Kentucky Farm Bureau offers several programs, including the Women’s Leadership committee, ag literacy, Gold Star Reports and grant opportunities geared towards women in agriculture. Furches said these opportunities help to support and educate women in the state.

“They have really championed ag literacy, ag education and Ag in the Classroom,” Furches said. “Some of those topics have been so good at bringing students to the farm and also taking farms into the classroom and educating consumers as well.” 

Since she became involved with the Kentucky Farm Bureau, Furches said she thinks the stigma around women in agriculture has diminished. 

“It’s barely perceptible in leadership roles anymore, and rarely did I run into any situation where I felt that I was being slighted because of my gender,” Furches said. “I was embraced 1,000% by men and women in every age group [and] I absolutely felt there were absolutely no limitations whatsoever. There were rare occasions when we might be in a meeting with another group and there was just a little bit of ‘where did this lady come from?’”

Besides her career with the Farm Bureau, Furches runs a farm with her husband, Tripp. They have a large grain operation and grow corn, soybeans and canola. 

Her love for agriculture stems from her family farm growing up. Her dad worked at a local factory and farmed part time, and Furches said that was normal for most during that time. 

“We had cattle and we raised tobacco, so my dad was more involved in part-time farming,” Furches said. “[My sister and I] bought an old used car with our tobacco money when we turned 16. Then in later years of life, he ran heavy equipment and did a lot of building of infrastructure and waterways and farm ponds and those types of things for other people who were heavily involved in agriculture.”

As her term ends in December, Furches decided not to run for reelection, but she still plans to be involved on the local level. 

“It took a lot of time, and I have five grandchildren,” Furches said. “My oldest is a middle school sports guy and everything happens during the week. When they were smaller I could be home on the weekends, but as it started being weeknights, I realized how much I was missing.”