How Farmer Wants A Wife’s Paige Marsh Is Changing The Female Farmer Narrative

Over the past 11 seasons it's aired in Australia, Farmer Wants A Wife has only featured three female farmers. This year, sheep and cattle farmer Paige Marsh will be the fourth for the series as a whole, and the first female farmer since Channel 7 rebooted the franchise in 2019.

"For me, it wasn't a quick choice at all," Marsh tells Refinery29 Australia about her decision to find love on national TV. "It was four days after my last exam. I was ready to make the next move in my career and everything just fell into place."

Female farmers have often been viewed in a one-dimensional light, and there's the presumption they were either born on a farm or married into a farming family. But this 27-year-old's career has certainly panned out differently. Born in Victoria and growing up in Brisbane, Marsh developed an interest in land and agriculture at the age of 15. It wasn't until several years later in 2017 that she moved to a farm for work experience.

"At the end of grade 12, I asked people if they knew about cattle or sheep stations," she explains, "but my research skills were pretty poor at that point. I didn't find the answers I was looking for and so I thought I needed to be born on a farm.

"So I continued with a different path and then the opportunity presented itself in my early 20s to go to an agricultural college and I jumped at that chance."

If it didn't work out, she'd banked on moving back to her old life in Queensland. But with a great mentor during work experience on a farm in NSW, Marsh found her true calling and hasn't looked back since.

Going onto Farmer Wants A Wife will place Marsh next to four male farmers also looking for love. While they hope to meet their future wives, she hopes to meet her future husband through the reality TV experience. It's the fourth time a female farmer stars on the show, after Jenny Blake in 2009 (Season 3), Becky Cassanova in 2010 (Season 5) and Melia Brent-White in 2011 (Season 6).

While there's been fewer women than men on the show over the years, Aussie female farmers are more common than you'd think, and are a group that have historically felt marginalised. Women were not able to list farmer as an occupation on the Census prior to 1994, and a simple Google search of 'farmer' today returns predominantly male images. However, 49% of real farm income in Australia is contributed by women — meaning there's no excuse for such women to not be represented in the media too.

"For the community I'm in now, it's not a boys club," says Marsh, who's based in Cassilis, NSW. "It's predominantly men, definitely," she continues, adding she's worked with some men who are extremely embracing of female farmers while others aren't.

"There are farmers out there that I guess are a bit more traditional... I worked for certain farmers that barely even acknowledged me in the morning or different things like that, but I think that comes down to the individual."

Marsh says that while there may be physical tasks that female farmers struggle to do, women come up with a way to do them better.

"So, I don't want to say it's super hard and you're constantly fighting against guys, but I don't want to say that it's easy either," she says. "Because [when] trying to get a job in the industry, I put so many resumes out there and especially coming in with little experience, it's generally the ones that have been brought up on a farm and have that background that will get through a lot quicker."

But with her career on track, Marsh feels ready to pivot her focus to her personal life.

"I was looking for someone that was kind, open, willing to learn and had integrity," she reflects on her ideal attributes in a partner.

And depending on who she meets, she's also open to life on or off the farm.

"I said to them [the suitors] at the start that I'm willing to move. Agriculture has become a part of me, and it's not just my job, it's part of who I am. But I don't have to be locked into a certain place," she explains.

"If things go somewhere, we can work that out so that it works for them as well. It's about compromise."

Australia will meet Marsh, along with fellow farmers Will, Ben, Harry and Benjamin when the show kicks off with Season 12 hosted by Natalie Gruzlewski and Samantha Armytage.