Women in Agriculture
Anne Cuyt
Dairy Management Support, Belgium
From an early interest and fascination with the care and management of cows, to studying industrial engineering biosciences, becoming a Dairy Management Support, and guiding farmers with practical actions extracted from data—All to see cows, their performance as well as health, flourish.
Read about her upbringing, her motivation, her thoughts on purpose, her predictions for the future and the change she wants to see for women in agriculture.
What brought you into agriculture / farm technologies?
As a child, I have spent a large part of my childhood on a farm, albeit on a farm with beef cattle. I have always been fascinated by the care and management of animals. This fascination stayed with me into adulthood, leading me to choose industrial engineering biosciences as my field of study, specializing in applied animal sciences. During my studies, I also began to delve into dairy cattle.
What makes your work meaningful to you?
During my studies, I discovered that I really enjoy working with data. Figures can tell you a lot when interpreted correctly. As Dairy Management Support, I enjoy passing on this knowledge to customers and teaching them to look at their herd in a different way. Not just with their eyes, but also with the help of data. When I see the performance and health of the cows improving, the dairy farmer satisfied and our automatic and digital solutions being used efficiently, it gives me enormous satisfaction.
How does your role contribute to the future of dairy farming?
More and more dairy farms are opting for automation and digitization. I expect this trend to continue in the future. Automatization and digitization go hand in hand with data. Translating this data into practical actions and guiding dairy farmers through this digital evolution is my contribution to the dairy farming of the future.
What will modern dairy farming look like in 10 years in your opinion?
In my opinion, automatization and data are the future. While the older generation still prefers to engage in real manual labor, we see that the younger/next generation is more inclined to choose automatization and wants to do business based on data. In this way, their cow management can also be adjusted in a more targeted manner, so their performance will improve.
What change would you most like to see for women in agriculture?
It would be great if more women became interested in dairy farming. I can already see a positive trend here in Flanders. When I started at GEA Farm Technologies Belgium four years ago, I was the only woman who visited dairy farmers on their farms. Now there are four of us (Griet Boermans – after sales, Lotte Decalf – sales engineer and Chloe Van Onacker – Dairy Centre Manager)! Let's hope this trend continues, because it's a fascinating sector!
International Year of the Woman Farmer
The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to promote action toward closing gender gaps and improving women’s livelihoods worldwide, while also raising awareness of the vital role women play in agriculture.
GEA Farm Technologies spoke with women in agriculture across the globe to talk about their experiences, their upbringing, as well as their motivation, purpose, predictions for the future, and has asked them about the change they would like to see for women in this line of work.
