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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

© 2008  RIRDC

Abi Spehr is partner in a fourth generation mixed grazing and cropping property on South Australia’s Limestone Coast and a successful rural facilitator, coach and mediator.

She has held a number of positions on boards within the region, including Regional Farmbis Coordinator and member of the Limestone Coast Regional Tourism Marketing Committee

Abi believes that sustainable and prosperous agriculture is not just dependant on economic factors but intrinsically tied to environmental and social factors. She also believes that family relationships along with succession planning are critical to the long term stability and sustainability of the family farm business. 

Her particular interest is the relationship between the mother and the daughter in law in family farm situations. The lack of quantitative and qualitative research data on relationships has become the inspiration for her project to write and publish a book on Mothers and Daughter in Laws. 

Her proposed activity involves a fact finding tour of rural and regional South Australia,  interviewing  women involved in family farm businesses about their relationships, before publishing a book and developing and facilitating an education program based on her findings. 

Abi hopes the project will open up conversations within the family farm unit and provide government departments and community groups with a new insight and understanding of the issues facing family farms. She hopes that her book will act as a catalyst to improving family farm dynamics and the viability of farm businesses.
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Rachael Treasure is a southern Tasmanian sheep farmer, a breeder and trainer of working dogs, published author and mother of two small children. 

For the past eight years Rachael has facilitated working dog education schools in Tasmania and during the winter months she works part time as a truffle sniffer dog handler. 

Her novels, Jillaroo, The Stockman and the soon to be published The Rouseabout, deal with issues pertinent to contemporary agriculture including succession planning, rural youth issues and life on the land and to date have sold over 100,000 copies. The aim of her writing is to inspire young people to choose a career in agriculture and to educate city-based readers about modern life in farming families.

Rachael’s vision is to educate and improve the way women and men, livestock and working dogs interact, so that stock work is more efficient, economical and enjoyable for people in agriculture. 

Her proposed activity is to create a book and DVD on working dogs and women who work them to be titled ‘Wild Women and Working Dogs-Natural Dogmanship.’, The project is based on her own journey with her husband, John, in finding a happy working relationship with livestock and dogs.

The aim of the book is to empower and educate people and particularly women in the livestock industry, to improve their dog and livestock handling skills for the benefit of  their farm businesses and families.

Rachael strongly believes that there is huge demand for information on dog handling, whether in the city or country, and she wants to share the huge gains she has discovered, both economically and emotionally in valuing working dogs more and in lifting the standard of livestock handling. 
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Tracey Leo has been intrinsically involved in the Northern Territory horticultural industry for the past 20 years, from mango farms, to tourism bus operator, to tropical fruit and flower marketer to human resources manager. Throughout her seasonal employment in primary industries Tracey has continued to develop her own business. 

Tracey is currently employed as Principal Officer of the Northern Territory Horticultural Association with her primary responsibility being employment and human resource issues including labour shortages. 

She believes that the Northern Territory is still in its early stages of economic development, and that primary industries and the rural communities it supports, will be critical to the general economy reaching its full potential, and that they must be nurtured and supported. 

She also believes that with labour costs representing over 50 percent of total production costs for many rural industries, understanding labour requirements and developing strategies to address shortages will be critical to the territory’s rural industries future and success. 

Tracey’s proposed activity is to develop a profile of the Northern Territory’s horticultural industry’s future labour requirements and the capacity for industry to manage those requirements. 

She plans to travel to horticultural regions across the Territory, to interview growers and stakeholders first hand and learn from their experiences and challenges of securing labour. The trip will also include the National Harvest Labour Information Service in Mildura to review strategies already employed by more mature horticultural regions.

Tracey believes that by conducting the review with strong input from its growers and stakeholders, the industry will be able develop a comprehensive understanding of future labour requirements and the capacity for industry to meet those requirements. She believes that only through substantiated data will industry be able to develop successful future harvest labour strategies.
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Deborah Bain works with her husband David on their wool growing property in western Victoria. She has a passion for promoting the importance of agriculture to the broader economy and to the urban population. 

In 2006 Deb pioneered the concept of Farm Day, providing the opportunity for a city family to be hosted by a farm family for the day. Farm Day is a simple and effective way to promote agriculture and to profile farmers as effective and efficient business people. 

Farm Day enables farmers to showcase their skills and their commitment to producing food and fibre and to protecting their environment. City people are given a unique chance to connect with a family on the land in a positive and hands on way, providing them with a new insight and appreciation of the realities of farming. 

Farm Day was successfully trialed in Victoria last May. It was overwhelmingly received by farmers and agricultural organizations alike, as a simple and extremely effective way to promote agriculture. 

Deborah’s vision is to go national with Farm Day and provide an opportunity for at least 350 city families across Australia to visit a farm. Farm Day is scheduled to go national on 26th & 27th May this year. 

The Award will provide her with critical business and governance skills and the capacity to help develop a cohesive group of people in each state to match families and promote the event. 

Her project has the potential to deliver significant and long term gains to agriculture in bridging gaps and in changing the mindset of the urban population towards farming and rural communities. 

Deb is establishing Farm Day as a not for profit entity and has appointed a board of directors to ensure all principles of good business are followed and to explore other avenues to help bridge the city-country divide. Her aim is for Farm Day to become a recognizable and eagerly awaited annual event.
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Sonya Maley is Managing Director of Resis Australia, a company she established to commercialise sugar cane products using alternative milling technology. 

Sonya is committed to finding sustainable rural solutions for north Queensland and has worked with dogged determination in finding alternate and value adding opportunities for the cane industry. 

Her contribution to innovation in the sugar industry led to her appointment as a Diversification and Value Adding Advisor to the Far North Queensland Regional Advisory Group-a committee overseeing the strategic restructure and revitalization of north Queensland’s sugar industry.

In collaboration with the CSIRO Division of Sustainable Ecosystems, she initiated the Commercial Agroforestry Production Systems (CAPS) project, which went on to become a CSIRO National Flagship project under the ‘Healthy Countries’ program. She assisted the Bio NQ cluster review opportunities identified in the CAPS project. Its principal recommendation was the establishment of a cane separation plant in North Queensland to achieve a much higher value from cane. 

Sonya received funding under the Sugar Industry Innovation Fund to undertake market and product review of separated cane products and with the backing of local farmers, rural businesses and investors she established Resis Australia to build Australia’s first pilot cane separation processing facility at Mossman in 2006. 

Cane separation technology differs from traditional milling in that it allows access to clean separated streams of fibre, juice and waxes, for further value adding all of which have significant potential for the growing functional foods industry.. 

Sonya’s proposed activity is to undertake a study tour to the United States to investigate cane separation technology, identify past technical constraints, identify prior product research and apply her new knowledge back to her work in Australia. 

She believes the potential for functional foods from sugar cane, including human dietary fibre and juice concentrates is enormous and is already attracting considerable interest from Japanese and Australian manufacturers. She believes the venture once commercial will have profound ramifications not only for the sugar industry nationally, but for the viability of sugar dependent rural communities across North Queensland. 
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Eleanor Cook is partner with her husband in an organic beef cattle operation and a strong community advocate for the Coolah district and for regional communities.

Her dedication to her community has been instrumental in the Coolah district successfully receiving $1.5 million worth of community development funds, which has contributed the development of the Heritage Restoration Program, the Community Technology Centre and the Healthy Living Program. 

Eleanor was instrumental in establishing the Coolah Community Development Group and for the past ten years has been a Group Director along with serving on several sub committees involved in community projects. 

She believes that rural towns and agriculture are intrinsically connected, with towns providing vital services and infrastructure to rural industries along with flow on employment opportunities, and at the same time nurturing a social environment for the community, with agriculture providing vital resources to support businesses and the community. 

Her vision is to seek out a model for community managed trusts, whereby trusts can receive bequeaths and individuals, families and businesses can donate funds tax free to the community of their choice, thereby taking pressure off community fundraising effort, while ensuring the long term survival of rural communities and agriculture.

The model, Eleanor believes if successful, will provide rural communities across the country with a successful investment strategy and an opportunity to attract investment from outside the region, into rural industries and their communities. 

Her proposed activity involves seeking out professional advice on suitable models for community trusts that would manage the investment portfolio, and engaging with local communities and government on the feasibility and implementation of community trusts. 
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Pamela Lincoln is a boutique winemaker from Albany and a passionate and proactive advocate for the Great Southern Region and its produce. ‘Oranje Tractor’ has been producing wines since 2001, has continued to expand upon its selection and has gone on to win a number of boutique wine awards.

Pamela was responsible for establishing the Albany Farmers Market, which five years on continues today and sat on the Great Southern Region Marketing Association inaugural board. 

She currently sits on the Management Committee of the Qantas WA Wine Show and in 2004 she was awarded one of only three Australian Vin de Champagne Awards. 

Pamela’s personal vision for agriculture is one which builds and value adds to the produce, producers and markets of today through new and innovative ways of marketing and branding our produce, for the sustainability of our producers. 

She is focused on educating consumers on the high quality of fresh and clean regional produce and wines and to creating stronger relationships between producers and consumers and links with agriculture and tourism. 

Her proposed activity is titled Ross Markets-Regional, Organic, Sustainable and Seasonal Markets-A Strategy to Enhance Regional Agriculture and Culinary Tourism. 

The project involves establishing a number of weekly produce markets at wineries across towns in the Great Southern Region, to provide a market outlet for smaller and new food producers at a time of limited space at established markets, thereby increasing the overall market size for producers and exposure to regional produce to consumers. 

Pamela plans to establish markets at wineries in Albany, Denmark, Mt Barker and Porongurup and to trial the markets for a period of nine months. 

She will use the Award to do a lot of the ground work to establishing the markets, including developing marketing plan, consulting and work shopping with potential producers and improving her own marketing and publicity skills. 

She believes that the strategy will further lift the profile of the region’s producers and lead to further value adding and marketing opportunities for their products. 
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