Inspirational people Archives - Page 11 of 14 - Clover Hill Diaries

Getting back to you

There have been a few people who are surprised about my post on the Queensland Country Life’s video Get Back to Me. which has attracted almost 30,000 views in 4 days

There have been some strong comments supporting my view and some strong comments from people who don’t feel the same as me. See post here

There has also been a lot of emails and Twitter DM’s of support. Sadly those people have said they are not game to openly support me on twitter for fear of other farmer twitter backlash.

There was also this from Rural Leader Online

From Radio National with great feedback in this article from video creater Ashley Walmsley and farmer extraordinaire Georgie Somerset

The Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champions are also discussing the video on their internal Facebook page with the majority also strongly supportive of the video concept.

So I would like to take this opportunity to put my reasons into context.

Eight years ago I was lucky enough to meet a marketing guru who at the time was a consultant for Dairy Australia. Her name is Vicki Surwillo and we worked on a number of projects together including putting together a very extensive image library for Dairy Australia (who at the time had no images). See previous post here.

Vicki was an amazing mentor to me and taught me a great deal about marketing and image and the importance of being the image you want your customer to see.

That advice started me on the path that has seen Clover Hill Dairies get international recognition for the work we have done behind and beyond the farm-gate which has now also resulted in a number of major opportunity approaches to market the Clover Hill Dairies milk brand directly to the public.

Her advice also saw me connect with a lot of other people in the supply chain who could also mentor me

I am also very lucky to farm in a very peri-urban environment with the community scrutinising our farming practices every day.

Why is this lucky – well I get customer feedback every day, good and bad and that allows our business to understand community values and adapt our business to meet those expectations when we can

Art4Agriculture also offers me the opportunity to engage with the community on so many levels and again get that pivotal consumer feedback.

Today I had conversations with two people at MLA, some-one from the pork industry, Sophie Davidson and Angela Bradburn from Cotton Australia, 5 people from Dairy Australia, Milk Maid Marian, a fellow dairy farmer and boutique milk processer, a marketing consultant, Ask an Aussie Farmer’s Ann Britton, three young farming champions, two young Eco champions, my local council’s economic development officer, my lawyer, a journalist, three teachers involved in the Archibull Prize, Victoria Taylor ( Art4Agriculture comms manager) Kirsty Blades, Art4Agriculture’s Event Director, my graphic designer James, a school teacher who wants to bring his students to the farm on a school excursion and answered 45 emails from people right across the supply chain.

Every single one of those people loves and appreciates Aussie Farmers. I know this because they tell me. Not everyone is as lucky as me and gets to have those conversations

So today I take my hat off to Queensland Country Life because ‘Get Back to Me’ has resonated with one hell of a lot of farmers who aren’t as lucky as me

Me I would rather watch this to be reminded how awesome our farmers are

or this

The best person to tell your story is you

In 2005 I had an idea that inspired Dairy Australia to create a series of images that inspired an exhibition called ‘Impressions of Dairy’

It began with my best friend’s daughter Jo taking a series of photos of her children on our farm.

This is Jo’s son Julian, who is now in high school

What this exhibition taught me was the power of a great photographer and I am very lucky to have met many of those in my quest to tell the great stories of Australia agriculture and the farmers that underpin it

It was recently brought home to me just how powerful my idea was when I saw a presentation 8 years later by Australian Dairy Farmer’s CEO Natalie Collard at recent event and my son appeared in her slide presentation with a much younger version of his dog “bear”

As farmers we need to remember marketing gurus on $150K plus salaries aren’t the only people with good ideas

Stand tall, be proud farmers – the best person telling your story is YOU

Taking the leap

It’s almost 10 years since I stood up and said I want to be part of the team that drives change for agriculture and I must admit I have been overwhelmed by the people who have nurtured and inspired me as part of my journey.

It’s never too late to be who you could have been. – It’s a matter of switching gears, never looking back, and BECOMING the person today that you always knew you were capable of being. Entertain every thought, say every word, and make every decision from their point of view.

What’s even better is the people who were determined to drag me down form part of a small group who just don’t matter anymore.

Now it’s my chance to give back and support the next generation of people who want to engage as agents of change in their world and make a difference and it’s quite exciting the number of pathways and programs available in agriculture to help nurture them or provide a vehicle to give them the profile to attract and learn from likeminded spirits.

Closing shortly are applications for the Australian Rural Leadership program and the NAB Agribusiness Rising Beef Champion Initiative

The Australian Rural Leadership program is a personal and professional growth training and development program of which part of the process is often called “transformative learning”, which is changing the way that you look at things, including yourself. It also has a reputation (and please correct me if I am wrong) of increasing the divorce rate as participants become aware that successful people have partners who either support them or share their vision or are divorced.

The program is viewed as the elite amongst rural leadership programs and many of the alumni are often almost evangelistic in encouraging others to join their journey.

For me the Kimberley experience and the trip to India are my excuse for not applying but I certainly admire and am extremely happy to support applications from young people that are gutsy enough to take them both on

The Rising Beef Champion Initiative commenced in 2010. The aim of the initiative is to inspire, empower and support young people, who are passionate about the Australian beef industry and to provide them with an opportunity to be directly involved. 2011 Young Farming Champion Alison McIntosh was the inaugural winner

There is no doubt that if agriculture is going to attract forward and future thinking young people who have the potential to grasp the issues, complexities and range of perspectives across the supply chain as well as understand the importance of the big picture and its broader ramifications and implications we must identify those people, engage them, invest in and nurture them

Critically (and sadly where we too often fall down) is agriculture needs to be proactive in determining the pathways and support structures required to retain these young fabulous people

Old grey haired men

Everywhere I go people tell me that biggest problem agriculture has is that it is run by old grey haired men. These grey harried men being a cohort of people developing a position for agriculture in the 21st century based on their narrow view of their little part of the world in the last century.

So, many people I admire and seek wise advice from are very surprised that I have done what I said would never do and put my hand up to enter the world of agri-politics.

These wise people are in one of two camps. They are either questioning my sanity or telling me I am very, very brave.

Why have I done this you ask?

Well there are two keys reasons

Firstly I am truly worried dairy industry policy is being driven by people in the industry who live in a silo hell-bent on indoctrinating fellow dairy farmers and everyone else who will listen that whole world revolves around the dairy industry. Dairy farmers like it or not are just part of a team of people who get the milk from cow and consumer and that consumer drinks milk as a part of diet that farmers from multiple food industries right across Australia contribute to.

Lets not forget feeding people is just part of the story, just as important farmers clothe and house people as well. What is even better is we all have so much to learn from each other right along the supply chain and until we acknowledge this we are thinking in the dark ages

Secondly our wonderful team of Young Farming Champions are hell-bent on making a difference in this world and being the change that agriculture must have. Excitingly they are totally committed to gaining the skills sets to ensure this can happen. Ultimately if I am going to help them do is I had to bite the bullet and go to the coal face.

Let me tell you if my experiences to date are what I have to look forward to its scary out there and more often than not its the friendly fire that takes the most casualties.

Wish me luck

Thank you Cathy Law for sharing this image with me

And may we always remember

“Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn’t measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It’s not winning battles that makes you happy, but it’s how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.”
― C. JoyBell C.

In times of peace plan for war

UK dairy farmer and Nuffield Scholar Joe Delves at the Dairy Research Foundation Symposium in Kiama

Over the years I have been on lots of dairy industry conference committees and I must admit I often found this a very frustrating exercise. VERY FRUSTRATING

Why you ask?

Well in today’s world if you genuinely want to farm for the long haul you have to get everything right. By everything right I mean farms in the 21st century have to be socially acceptable, environmentally friendly as well as financially rewarding.

Up until the Dairy Research Symposium conference in Kiama last week the dairy industry totally shied away from discussions about relationships with their value chain partners and customers. Dairy farmers it seemed (or so previous conference committee members I had worked with thought) didn’t want to listen to anybody talk about anything beyond the farm gate. It was cows,cows,cows.

So to hear the Chairman of Dairy Australia get up at the dinner and say he and the CEO of Dairy Australia thought the conference was the best conference they had ever attended and the reason why was in particular the social content of the program made my heart sing.

One of the speaker highlights was UK Farmer and Nuffield scholar Joe Delves who farms in the south east of England.

I had the pleasure of hosting Joe for a day when he was in OZ in early January. Joe is all personality and his presentation truly resonated with everyone in the room

Lets have a look at some of the insightful things Joe had to say

The biggest thing that influences my life is my attitude to myself and my dairy business. Unknowingly I have built the business around my values

Joe on values

On goal setting

On sharing

On being honest about yourself

On value chain thinking

On being business focussed

On being business focused

On Consumer relations

Appealing to your customer is not as simple as you think and just what are we trying to achieve?

On whingeing

Appreciate what you have in your own backyard

On attitude

Attitude is everything

On self reflection

You can listen to Joe talk to Radio National Reporter Sarina Locke here

Energy can be contagious if we want it to be

The takeaway message from this years Dairy Research Foundation Symposium held in my beautiful hometown of Kiama was most definitely the key to success is to surround yourself with positive people

This post has been inspired firstly this comment made by Brewarrina farmer and guest speaker Graham Finlayson which I tweeted out

Its only takes one negative person in a room of 100 people to drain the energy from the room

That was quickly pounced upon by life coach Caryn @Menabiilly with the reply

negativity is contagious

then Sarah Grayton @farmersonfilm shared this

Salena Godden performs Limp Expectations, an ironic poem about artists and creative people who refuse to give up.

Watch here http://thespace.org/items/e0000p72?t=cnv5f

For all those people who have a dream and need to reaffirm their belief in themselves

Check it out its amazing, it phenomenal, I love it

Thank you so much Sarah

Now I am off to have lunch with @goaheadgreg who also wowed the crowd at the conference Greg will keep my energy levels up for a week

Fertilise the Tall Poppies

It’s that time of year when awards that celebrate our Australian farmers and the people who support them are opening for nominations.

As a person who has been lucky enough to win some of these awards and benefited greatly from the exposure they bring I have also witnessed the impact on my family of the pressure to “live up” to microscope they feel they are under.

Whilst the naysayers don’t interest me, I do understand when quiet achievers like my husband and son would prefer not to be in the spotlight. My son in particular finds the derogatory comments from some of the local farmers hard to take and I find that very sad.

I remember vividly attending the 2010 National Landcare Awards and being so excited when we won and then turning to my husband who said ‘You collect the award I don’t think what we do is any different to thousands of farmers across Australia’. But I knew differently, it’s not how you farm that counts, its how what you do translates into a community good benefit that counts.

I stood tall and proudly accepted because I knew what we did was something to be proud of.

My speech went something like this

Today most media in Australia generated around food is about cooking and eating, recipes and restaurants, with little attention paid to the origins of the key ingredients.

At Clover Hill Dairies we haven’t been fooled into thinking people don’t care.

We believe meeting or exceeding the community’s expectations to deliver affordable, nutritious and ethically produced food is doing the right thing by our business and our customers

There are plenty of Australian farmers committed to ethical food production… JUST AS WE ARE

But there are some things we are equally passionate about that sets us apart

Beyond best farming practices we are dedicated to

Building lifelong relationships between city consumers and rural providers. Because it is these urban communities who will decide the future for primary produces either as consumers, governments and decision makers or as competitors for Australia’s natural resources and workforce. The next generation of consumers and decision makers must see responsible agricultural production as a legitimate use of land, water and other resources.

Encouraging and furnishing opportunities for young people to enter food value chain career pathways

Forging cross community partnerships to secure our social licence to operate and right to farm

Winning this very prestigious award offers us the very best possible platform to build on this passion – thank you so much for opening this door

In 2013 I would make a very different speech and I would be less nervous because my journey since that night has been so exciting and so fulfilling and I have so much more confidence and met so many wonderful people who are sharing my journey. One thing that hasn’t changed is I would be just as proud.

Most excitingly there was some-one in the audience who heard me speak and believed in my Young Farming Champions concept and invested in it (thank you Ken)

I recently had an email from a young lady inspired by one of these young farming champions to take up a career in agriculture

It is absolutely beyond my wildest dreams to communicate with young farmers (of their nature) and have been so fortunate to be in brief contact with Richie Quigley after being sent his Art4Agriculture video and contacting him and being mentored by him towards the most appropriate university degree for me next year – his input has been invaluable.

We are far from perfect farmers but what our farm has done very well is to open the door to invite the next generation to visit and experience what we do which one of the Art4agriculutre Young Eco Champions Erin shows so beautifully here.

We do need a new way of thinking about agriculture. We need farmers who are prepared to work beyond traditional boundaries and challenge the conventional thinking of primary industries and individuals.

We need a paradigm shift in thinking and a collaborative re-allocation of resources and responsibilities

We must be able to deploy agriculture’s young people like Richie and Erin into schools to build relationships with the next generation of consumers.

So if you know some-one who has a big picture vision for agriculture then nominate them for awards.

As an industry

‘we can inspire and motivate and galvanise our people or we can ridicule and sap energy from them. Its our choice’ Derek Antoncich

Lets celebrate our farmers sharing their stories beyond the farm gate

Nominate some-one you know today

Farmer of the Year Awards http://www.farmingahead.com.au/FarmerOfYear

You have enemies? Celebrate

I recently had a conversation with the dynamo that is Catherine Marriott and the topic of driving change in agriculture came up and that led to a discussion about how lonely it can be when at times the words of your detractors drown out those of your supporters

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill

In creating the Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champions program one of the key things that drove me was the overwhelming desire to provide support for the changemakers. We all know that that driving change often galvanises those who desperately don’t want change.

Whilst the change resistors don’t represent the majority their fear of change can be so draining and so vocal you often allow them to question your judgement and cloud your vision for the future.

Believe me you can never overestimate the power of surrounding yourself with positive people you can learn from.

Catherine has a great passion to drive change and harness the energy of rural women and I feel the same about young people in agriculture .

To empower and provide rural women with the skills sets to be the change that must happen in agriculture Catherine has set up Influential Women

In Catherine words

Influential Women is a movement that creates conversations that connect urban and rural Australia by building confidence, capacity and skills in rural and regional women. Currently, rural Australia has a huge opportunity to connect with our customers, as people are becoming more interested in how their food is produced. We need to take advantage of this interest by being engaging, fun, informative and innovative in our communication and this communication needs to be two way. As farmers, we have so much to share and are so passionate about what we do, but we haven’t historically been very good at communicating this.

The concept behind the Influential Women’s came from watching the live trade ban unfold. I started to reflect on the agricultural conversations that had been happening across the board and realised that we are under increasing consumer scrutiny. It doesn’t matter if you are in the chicken industry where there are questions about the cages are cages, the pig industry with sow stalls, the grains industry with GM or the beef industry with hormones and live export, we are all facing consumer pressure. The time has come for us all to be a part of the conversation. If we aren’t, the space will be taken by people who have an ill-informed, agenda driven opinion that is anti farming.and it mostly comes from ill-informed groups with a negative agricultural agenda.

Now as farmers, I believe we have nothing to hide, we need to share what we do on our farms openly and most importantly why we do certain things. We need to be proud of what we do in agriculture and share it with an intrigued and interested consumers and celebrate the roles that we play in providing the Australian public with safe healthy and nutritious food and fibre.

As farmers we need to have a voice……. and that voice needs to be constant, articulate and concise, friendly, engaging…. and delivered regularly.

How exciting is it for me to find some-one equally determined to not only drive change but most importantly invest in it .

At every opportunity I find ways and means of exposing our Young Farming Champions to the like-minded networks that Catherine gathers around her at her workshops.

In the words of Beef Young Farming Champion Hannah Barber who attended an Influential Women’s workshop recently in Holbrook

Having heard of Influential Women and the fantastic work this organisation does to connect and empower rural women, I was very grateful to the Holbrook Landcare group for their sponsorship to attend a workshop. Flanked by two other Young Farming Champions Steph Fowler and Jasmine Nixon, we met a range of impressive women of all ages, from all backgrounds involved in a variety of industries with one thing in common, our love for agriculture. Of these amazing women, leading the way forward was facilitator Catherine Marriot, who, teamed with her mother Cath, make up the very aptly named Influential Women.

Catherine’s talent as a presenter and facilitator are matched by her personal warmth and genuine desire to help rural women be the best they can be. Nearly every break Catherine forwent the casual conversation and refreshments to personally connect with & continue conversations with attendees.

After lunch on day one, a bare-footed Catherine presented a vital section on social media, something Steph, Jasmine and I were able to assist other women in the room to connect to, and understand the various social media avenues. The isolation of our rural societies was in the past, a major issue and blockade in the quest for farmers to connect with each other and consumers, thanks to the development of the internet and social media we now have the opportunity to be heard in our cities and have our issues recognised and addressed; we have a voice and united we can achieve great things as we have seen particularly over this past month.

I walked away from the Influential Women’s workshop very proud of our rural women, the Art4Agriculture program and with a virtual schoolbag of skills and knowledge I will be able to apply to various sectors of my personal and professional life. The networking of talented and driven women at the workshop and the guidance of Catherine who makes herself unreservedly available to workshop alumni, made the Influential Women’s workshop a very worthwhile way to spend my first two days of uni holidays and I highly recommend the workshops to women of all ages, abilities and industries, you will gain friendships and knowledge guaranteed.

and this from Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champion Steph Fowler

Over the years I have done personality profiling type exercises and have long known that I am an extreme extravert, intuitive, thinker, perceiver or ENTP in Myers Briggs. While I have known what it means for my personal strengths and benefits, I haven’t seen how to apply this knowledge in a social context. Until the Influential Woman’s workshop in Holbrook that is. During the Myers Briggs session at the workshop, once we had all figured out our personality types, Catherine divided us into opposing types for the different sections and gave us a task which highlighted the differences. For me this opened up a whole new world where suddenly I can identify what I can do for other people to help them get what they need out of a situation rather than just allowing my own personality to dominate, objectify and focus on the big picture. The Myers Briggs personality type was one session out of many that provided not only the knowledge but also enabled us to apply it within our context and to things that were relevant to us. I gained so much out of this applied approach to the sessions and after spending two days with some of my fellow country woman who are all amazing in their own right, I am now more empowered and motivated than ever.

Catherine and the rural women who attend her workshops and the Young Farming Champions inspire me to get out of bed everyday, block the detractors from my mind and celebrate change. I salute you all

Robots bring the cows home

Everybody who knows me knows that the last thing I ever wanted to do was farm but when the people I love most in the world decided that was what they both wanted to do I wanted to make sure that farming would deliver the best possible life for them.

Now lets not kid ourselves only the very brave farm in a world where supermarkets control the supply chain and the people who run the supermarkets in the main have absolutely no idea of the challenges and constraints farmers face today to farm in a socially acceptable way in the 21st century.

There is something else about farming that excites me beyond my wildest dreams and that is the innovation and technology and the resilience of Australian farmers and great minds who help them feed and clothe not only in Australian consumers but many other people around the world. So I am so excited to be able to share this story with you.

Now as my regular readers know the Australian dairy industry so frustrates me. Driven by the mindset at Dairy Australia our farmers are forced to live in this cocooned world that means they rarely get to interact with all the other exciting people who not only farm in other industries but also the amazing people who support people in other industries.

One shining light is the Dairy Research Foundation (DRF) team and the Future Dairy Project. These people are amazing beyond belief and I am so honoured to sit on the board of the DRF and have insights into what is happening with the Future Dairy Project

Let me show you what I mean

With increasing numbers of Australian dairy cows now being milked by robots, researchers are looking at a range of exciting ways to use robots on farm, and one that has already shown promise is the use of robots to herd cattle from the paddock to the dairy.

Delegates at the Dairy Research Foundation’s symposium, to be held at Kiama on 4 & 5th of July will get a sneak peak of Rover, a prototype robot, in action.

Cows at the University of Sydney’s Corstophine farm were unfazed by the presence of a robot which herded the cows out of the paddock calmly and efficiently

Researchers from the University of Sydney’s Dairy Science Group and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, have used an unmanned ground vehicle (robot) to herd dairy cows out of the paddock.

Dairy researcher Associate Professor Kendra Kerrisk said the team was amazed at how easily the cows accepted the presence of the robot.

“They weren’t at all fazed by it and the herding process was very calm and effective,” Dr Kerrisk said.

“As well as saving labour, robotic herding would improve animal wellbeing by allowing cows to move to and from the dairy at their own pace.”

The robot was developed by researchers at the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics for tree and fruit monitoring on tree-crop farms. It was used in the initial trial with very little modification for the dairy paddock.

We are keen to explore further opportunities with the Australian Centre for Field Robotics. They have a range of robotic technologies which could have exciting applications on dairy farms,” Dr Kerrisk said.

“While the robot showed exciting potential for use on a dairy farm, it would need to be adapted to operate autonomously on the terrain of dairy farms and its programing would need be customised for dairy applications.”

In addition to robotic herding, some of the possible applications include collecting pasture and animal data in the paddock; monitoring calving and alerting the manger if attention is needed and identifying and locating individual cows in the paddock.

“The research is in its very early stages but robotic technologies certainly have the potential to transform dairy farming, in terms of reducing repetitive work, increasing the accuracy of data that farmers collect and making data available that we currently can’t capture.

“Robotic technologies will have a role in increasing the productivity, sustainability and competitiveness of Australia’s dairy farms,” Dr Kerrisk said.

Does agriculture get anymore exciting than this and let me assure this is not reducing jobs in the dairy industry it just means we can now attract the best and the brightest minds.

If you want to come and see Rover in action to register for the Dairy Research Foundation Symposium visit www.drfsymposium.com.au

What does it take to reach 18 million people with your story

Farmers in this country are less than 1% of the population and number 10 on Reader’s Digest most trusted professions list.

Above us are ambulance officers, doctors, nurses , pharmacists and fireman. Why is this you ask?. The answer is easy. If you are an ambulance officer, a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist or a fireman there would be a time in most people’s lives when they would be reminded just how important their profession is.

With food in abundance in this country there is little opportunity to remind the community just how important our farmers are.

I recently had the pleasure of sharing the podium with Michael Trant at the Agconnect conference in WA two weeks ago. Michael Trant for those of you who don’t know him is the very passionate sheep farmer behind the #Hadagutful campaign

The conference was attended by WA’s most passionate young people in agriculture. Young, enthusiastic, dynamic people determined to carve out a future for themselves and their peers in agriculture in this country and bursting at the seams to be heard.

Advocacy was a hot topic and number 1 on their list of big ticket issues that must be addressed if we are going to have the dynamic, innovative, exciting and profitable agrifood sector we all crave.

As is the norm with young people there was quite a lot of admiration in the room for the French farmers model. A model we all know that involves quite a lot of militant tactics.

It was Michael Trant’s response that I believe most resonated with the audience. Michael recently had a one on one meeting with Federal Agriculture Minister Senator Joe Ludwig to discuss and hopefully find a solution to that wicked problem Live Export. A meeting which at the time was recorded as quite hostile in the media.

Michael told the people in the room that he listened very closely to what Joe Ludwig had to say and he gave these wonderful young people in the room the same sage advice.

“We can do things that will piss people off like dump wheat on the docks at Freemantle or I can let rams loose in Kings Park or we can come up with campaigns that actually resonate and generate empathy and understanding with the 18 million people on the Eastern seaboard.

I agree and so should all farmers but farmers telling their story and having two way conversations with the most important people and the white elephant in the room otherwise know as consumers and voters is not something farmers in general have the skill sets or expertise for. In the past we have let anti animal livestock lobbyists tell our story and that has been a disaster of momentous proportions and it is one of the key reasons why agriculture is currently on its knees in this country.

So how do fix this. We can do it. I know because I have found the successful model and I am going to share it with you over the next 12 months. Like any idea its not the concept but the people who make it work and for agriculture it will be our young people. They are out there. I have a whole cohort of them in Art4Agriculture’s Young Farming Champions program. Our Young Farming Champions are now working side by side with our Young Eco Champions to tell agriculture’s story in a way that DOES resonate with the 18 million people on the Eastern seaboard.

Like most farmers (and like me) not all these young people were born these skills sets and expertise. They need to be identified, engaged and nurtured and supported every step of the way. It is imperative we invest in them I know this because this is my journey to where I am today and I relive it though them by sharing my learnings, positive and negative, by introducing them to the wonderful people who support and nurture me.

I am using Art4Agriculture as the vehicle to introduce them to the people who can supply them with the necessary skills sets to deliver on behalf of industry. I introduce them to supportive industries, the key influencers, to the doers and most importantly I introduce them to the most important people in the room, the people who give agriculture its social license to operate and they are the people who buy our goods and services and the people who vote

What does it take to have young people who can talk like this, who can inspire other young people to follow in their footsteps. What does it take for our young people to be the change that agriculture so needs to have?.

I have the formula and the results speak for themselves?. Listen to the video. Follow their journey

THE 2012 YOUNG FARMING CHAMPIONS

BEEF

Sponsored by Meat and Livestock Australia Target 100 program

Stephanie Fowler
Wagga Wagga, NSW

Steph grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales in a small coastal suburb, Green Point. A decision to study agriculture in high school created a passion for showing cattle and in 2012 she started a PhD in Meat and Livestock Science, with a project that is looking at the potential of Raman Spectroscopy in predicting meat quality.

“When I was growing up I never dreamed that I would end up joining an incredibly rewarding, innovative and exciting industry that would take me across the country and around the world.”

Read Steph’s Blog post HERE

View her video HERE

Bronwyn Roberts
Emerald, QLD

Bronwyn is a Grazing Land Management Officer with the Fitzroy Basin Association. Her family has a long association with the cattle industry in Queensland and her parents currently run a 5500 acre cattle property near Capella.

“I believe consumers have lost touch of how and where their food and fibre is produced. In these current times where agriculture is competing with other industry for land use, labour, funding and services, it is important that we have a strong network of consumers who support the industry and accept our social license as the trusted and sustainable option.”

Read Bronwyn’s Blog post HERE

View her video HERE

Kylie Stretton
Charters Towers, QLD

Kylie Stretton and her husband have a livestock business in Northern Queensland, where they also run Brahman cattle. Kylie is the co-creator of “Ask An Aussie Farmer” a social media hub for people to engage with farmers and learn about food and fibre production.

“The industry has advanced from the images of “Farmer Joe” in the dusty paddock to images of young men and women from diverse backgrounds working in a variety of professions. Images now range from a hands-on job in the dusty red centre to an office job in inner city Sydney. So many opportunities, so many choices.”

Read Kylie’s Blog post HERE

View her video HERE

COTTON