This weekend, The Butler Eagle introduced readers to a local couple who not only sees the future of farming in Butler County but take it upon themselves to actively mentor the next generation.

The Daubenspecks, Guy and Carol, empower and inspire young people who find their way to the couple’s Connoquenessing Township farm to connect to their community as well as the crops in their fields.

“Guy has helped to shape my agricultural life and encouraged me throughout to pursue my dreams of becoming a veterinarian,” said Tarrah Freund, one of the many young people who found their way to the Daubenspeck’s farm who is now out in the world pursuing a future in an agricultural-related field.

Tarrah; her younger sister, Robyn, another aspiring farmer and welder; and Faith McElravy, who also found a mentor in the Daubenspecks on her journey to study veterinary medicine, all join the Daubenspeck’s only full-time farmworker — single mom Emily Zang — in changing the face of farming in yet another very important way.

These four are part of a growing revolution bringing more women to the fields in the scope of agriculture today. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of American female producers increased 31.5 percent in just five years between 2012 and 2017. Here in Butler County, 57 percent of the county’s 945 producers are female.

Nationally, there are almost 1 million female farmers tending more than 300 million acres and making a $12.9 billion impact on the nation’s economy.

Even a fifth generation, 58-year veteran farmer like Daubenspeck recognizes the shift, pointing out how “we found that young ladies are just as capable as young men.”

More and more young women are encouraged and empowered to enter nontraditional fields of work once dominated by men, including science, engineering, construction and other trades, even firefighting and truck driving. Farming admittedly isn’t one of those career paths we hear about too often — for young women or young men.

The USDA also recognizes this trend and established a women in agriculture mentoring network in 2015 to encourage and connect young women interested in farming to mentors. In two weeks, the group will host its “Women in Sustainable Ag Conference” in St. Paul, Minn.

Our region is poised and ready to help the next generation grab the combine by the controls and continue an industry too often considered not viable or sustainable enough to pursue and persevere. This is happening with the help of legislators like state Sen. Elder Vogel Jr., R-47th, who introduced the “New Farmer Tax Credit.”

The effort is aimed at bridging the gap between Pennsylvania’s aging farm population and the next generation by creating an income tax credit for landowners who lease or sell their land, buildings and equipment to beginning farmers. Vogel points out how for every farmer under the age of 35 in Pennsylvania there are four farmers over the age of 65.

The Daubenspecks are helping at least four young women (and several young men, too) with dreams of one day being part of that next generation of farm owners who would benefit from Vogel’s bill. We applaud the Daubenspecks, Vogel and the countless other agricultural mentors out there for planting the seeds of inspiration and tending to the fields of America’s future farmers.