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For further information contact:
Edwina Clowes, 
RIRDC Rural Women's Award National Coordinator. 
Phone:  07 5445 7282 
Mobile: 0417 727 544
clowesedwina@bigpond.com

© 2010  RIRDC

Megan lives in the western division of New South Wales, where she and her husband run the family property ‘Etiwanda Station’ outside Cobar. 

Megan’s vision is for agriculture and its people to better balance profitability, with the environment and their lifestyles, by embracing Holistic Management and is committed to developing ‘Etiwanda Station’ holistically and into a ‘learning site the for other producers and the betterment of the Western Division. 

Holistic Management is defined as a decision making process which provides a practical and total approach to economically, environmentally and socially managing the property. 

Megan put her $5,000 Bursary towards a project to aid in the controlled grazing and resting of country on the station. The project is now complete and operational and has provided for better control of a large area of the station to begin the process of regeneration. 

Megan believes that the project is already delivering a number of notable and obvious benefits including increased plant coverage, health and diversity, reduced worm burden, increased stock health, increased weaning percentages from younger stock, regeneration of edible scrub species and a reduction in bare unprofitable ground.

 

Suzanne’s vision for agriculture is to offer alternate and value adding opportunities to grain growers to allow them to diversify their economic base from traditional farming.

She put her $5,000 Bursary towards travel both to the eastern states and overseas. The study tour of the eastern states covered Melbourne, Canberra, Young, Parkes, and Narromine, meeting with flour millers and the food service sector and growing her knowledge and contacts within the industry. 

The Singapore trip centred on exhibiting her flour product at the Food Hotel Asia expo. Singapore was previously identified by Austrade as one of the most likely export markets for her flour. As a result of the trip, new contacts have been made and product samples  now delivered, with the prospect of new customers

 

She was instrumental in developing Truckcare, the quality management system for livestock transporters and has for the past six years been Promotions Officer for Truckcare on behalf of the Australian Livestock Transporters Association. Truckcare aims to raise awareness and assist its members improve their individual businesses, their animal welfare practices and customer relations.

Heather put her $5,000 Bursary towards the publication of a Booklet titled Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) The booklet highlights the roles and responsibilities of each party in the livestock supply chain, in ensuring best practice in animal welfare and livestock loading, while promoting a collaborative approach across the chain. 

10,000 copies of the booklet have now been printed and distributed throughout sale-yard venues, transport operators, stock and station agents and farmers organizations offices and relevant conferences.

She is a woolgrower from Victoria’s western division and is Manager of the Community Partnerships Program at the RMIT University’s Hamilton campus. 

Kaye, with the support of her bursary, set out to develop a community of practice along the wool pipeline, with the objective of building a culture of responsibility on the ecological impact of wool on our environment. 

She has in the past 12 months worked with focus groups and has developed and now launched a website: www.envirowool.com to continue discussion and debate on the issue and to make discussion accessible to all. The website will continue for 12 months, and during that period additional and relevant papers will be added to it to further the debate.

Kaye says she already has a group of farmers looking to set up a network of producers supporting ecologically sound practices and she is working with a respected fashion designer, in an effort to bring their perspective to the debate. This perspective is considered vitally important because of predicted consumer trends towards environmentally sound products, and the move towards product responsibility.

She operates her own business, providing expertise on Geographical Information Systems (GIS), aerial photography and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to a variety of industries, including her passion, agriculture and for the past 12 months she has been working on the use of aerial photography and GPS’ s as management tools for rural enterprises.

She has directed her Bursary towards developing and marketing low altitude aerial photography/computer mapping packages for agricultural enterprises and undertaking a pilot project to demonstrate the benefits of global positioning and mapping technology in agricultural enterprises. 

She has also completed a number of training courses relevant to her project, including a Certificate 1V Assessment & Workplace Training (TAFE Tasmania) and a Small Business Management Course (TAFE Tasmania)

Christine says that while she is still far from achieving her vision for every Tasmanian rural enterprise to have access to a fully integrated land management system, the $5,000 Bursary has allowed her to undertake training that she would otherwise have found difficult to justify and to purchase equipment to progress her vision.

Her vision is to continue to grow the business, both domestically and, in the long term, overseas, and to provide alternate value added rural business and employment opportunities to the region. 

Her $5,000 Bursary allowed Teena to attend the Ice-Cream Essentials Course at Griffith University in Melbourne in May last year. This is the only course of its kind in teaching the fundamentals of ice cream manufacturing and is held only once a year.

Teena claims the media coverage, community ownership, and profile the Award has generated has been nothing short of incredible. She has presented at 32 events over the 12 month tenure. She also claims a 20% increase in profit from the business over the past 18 months, as a direct result of her increased exposure. Mammino Gourmet Icecream is now stocked in over 50 outlets throughout Queensland and they are currently negotiating with Queensland Rail with a view to having their product sold on Queensland.