2009 Rural Women's Award State Winners

Home
Entry Form
Selection Criteria & How to Enter
Award Background

Winner of the Australian RIRDC Rural Women's Award 2009 and Victorian 2009 Winner - Roma Britnell

Roma Britnell has been actively involved in the dairy industry, both at a farm gate and an industry level for the past decade. She began share farming with her husband ten years again, they purchased their first dairy farm three years ago and today own three dairy farms, employing managers on two and running the third farm themselves.

She has been President of her district dairy farmers’ council and Deputy Central Councilor and now represents her industry as Chairman of WestVic Dairy, the industry development body for western Victoria.

Roma is committed to improving the financial viability of dairy farmers and the image of the dairy industry, an industry she says has given her amazing opportunities. She believes that given the complexity of the business of dairying and the number of big issues it faces, from drought to GM foods to climate change, farmers are finding it tough keeping abreast of the changing environment, in particular their industry’s structure and ownership and its impact of their future viability.

Roma’s Award ambition is to grow her knowledge and understanding, to explore options and strategies, both within Australia and overseas, and to ignite broad discussion on future structure and ownership options for her industry.

Queensland - Barb Madden

Runner-Up of the Australian RIRDC Rural Women's Award 2009 and Queensland 2009 Winner - Barb Madden

Barb Madden is a co-owner and Chief Finance Officer of Smithfield Feedlot, a 20,000 head intensive beef production enterprise, situated in south east Queensland. Barb is also the part-time Chief Finance Officer for the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council.
Barb is strongly committed to primary industries; to her community and to rural women and has established a number of key women’s groups within her region. These include ‘Submission Sisters’ a group of women committed to sourcing funding for community projects and ‘Mothers Playgroup’ a social support network for rural mothers.

Barb has recently graduated from the Australian Rural Leadership Program. Her vision for primary industries is to create national partnerships between indigenous beef producers and key supply chain sectors, through the development of a commercially sustainable cattle feeding and training business model. She plans to trial a pilot program between the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council and her own business Smithfield Feedlot, forming industry partnerships and providing on-site training throughout the beef supply chain.

Cherbourg cattle will be brought to Smithfield Feedlot for fattening. Key indigenous workers will follow these cattle into the feedlot and undergo on-site training. Cherbourg workers will then follow their cattle on to the abattoir and supermarket to gauge an understanding of the complete supply chain. Barb believes the benefits to the beef industry will include; improved efficiencies with indigenous owned land and cattle, tighter biosecurity through better management of indigenous cattle and land, and an improvement to the beef industry’s social image. She believes the benefits to the indigenous beef producers will include building the capacity of indigenous people, through up-skilling and fostering a culture of ownership and purpose, building relationships and sharing knowledge and resources with mainstream primary industries along with more efficient utilization of their land, cattle and people resources.

Barb anticipates, the pilot if successful, could be adopted and extended throughout the industry, linking indigenous beef producers across northern Australia with all aspects of the beef industry, from breeding and backgrounding to feed lotting and the live export trade.

New South Wales - Kim Currie

2009 New South Wales Winner - Kim Currie

Kim Currie has committed the past 25 years to working with farmers in developing innovative ways of promoting and supporting the rural sector through food and wine tourism.

Kim’s career has included farmer, restaurateur, regional food and wine consultant to caterer to national food and music festivals. She is currently Executive Officer for the Brand Orange project, established to promote and develop the Orange region of central west NSW. Under Brand Orange she has established Slow Food Orange including the Glenroi Community Kitchen which provides cooking lessons and weekly meals to communities in need and Slow Summer a new 10 day food festival for the Orange region.

Kim was instrumental in establishing the central western farmers markets, a circuit of four farmers markets across the region, and the development and adoption of the national farmers’ market charter. She is deeply committed to fostering relationships between farmers and consumers through venues such as farmers markets which she believe believes have returned big benefits, including an alternate income stream to farmers, direct contact between farmers and consumers and new relationships within farming communities.

Kim’s ambition is to take the farmers market experience as a connector between farmers and consumers to the next level and to develop a template for other rural communities. She plans to travel to Europe to learn from their tradition of farmers markets and town centres and their experiences in enriching communities and reinforcing the role and importance of farmers.

Western Australia - Kirsten Skraha

2009 Western Australian Winner - Kirsten Skraha

Kirsten Skraha has worked in natural resource management for the past seven years and has been farming on her husband’s family wool, prime lambs and wine grape farm for the past five years.

Kirsten currently coordinates the BestFarmers Environmental Management Systems project, a not-for profit community landcare organisation run by the Blackwood Basin Group. The project has won a number of national Awards and has since expanded from the west into northern NSW and southern Queensland.

Kirsten believes that better environmental management practices if adopted across the viticulture industry, such as improved water, energy and input efficiencies would support the industry’s future economic and environmental sustainability and ensure that growers are better equipped to promote and sell their produce at a time of significant surplus.

Her Award ambition is to visit producers and companies who are successfully implementing sound environmental practices, attend relevant industry conferences and capture the changes made and benefits others have achieved, to translate this information to the broader industry.

Northern Territory - Mischelle Hill

2009 Northern Territory Winner - Mischelle Hill

Mischelle Hill has been actively involved in the Northern Territory mango industry for close to ten years. She has managed the packing shed on their family farm for the past seven seasons, she has taken over responsibility for all quality food safety management programs, developed a detailed training program for seasonal staff and streamlined the packing process to achieve a 15 percent increase in productivity.

Mischelle is acutely concerned about the increasing pressures on primary industries continued sustainability and viability, including globalization and population growth and the impact of larger corporations and the demands of their shareholders on smaller producers.

She has witnessed first hand on the family mango farm the impact of mounting costs and seasonal staff shortages and the challenges of remaining profitable in primary industries today.

Mischelle’s Award ambition is to gain essential knowledge and contacts throughout the major food producing regions of Australia, to raise public awareness and support for Australian made and grown products and to establish a direct from farm food outlet with profits going into research to ensure the sustainability of producers and of their rural communities.

2009 South Australian Winner - Susi Tegen

Susi Tegen is a livestock and crop farmer from the Limestone Coast in the south east of South Australia and the Managing Director of FREE Eyre.

FREE Eyre is a primary producer owned and driven company which seeks to identify, incubate and commercialize new business opportunities for the Eyre Peninsula. FREE Eyre was the result of several years of drought, unreliable commodity prices and widespread fires and was born out of the need for the region’s farmers to take control of their future by having a stronger influence over the supply chain, building alliances and value adding opportunities the region’s primary produce.

Susi believes that groups of farmers by working together are able to achieve economies of scale that brings bargaining power, better research, development and innovation, and consistency of supply and quality. They are then able to not only change to meet demand but to also drive change.

Her Award ambition is to research ventures similar to FREE Eyre in Europe, the United States and Canada, to learn from their successes and setbacks in developing business ventures, in setting the foundations and in managing relationships in such a way they are able to grow and succeed. She believes the research will be of benefit not only to the Eyre Peninsula but to greater rural Australia.

2009 Tasmanian Winner - Jane Lovell

Jane Lovell is Managing Director of Tasmanian Quality Assured, a not for profit association established to assist primary producers come to terms with the requirements of food safety and quality assurance.

Jane in her position with TQA has worked with many producers, industry organisations, and state and federal government agencies in delivering training and developing food safety, quality and environmental assurance systems and audits.

She has played a significant role in advancing the debate on quality and environmental assurance and food safety systems, she initiated the first on farm food safety and quality assurance national conference, has published and presented widely and has contributed to the development of a number of food safety and environmental codes and quality systems.

She believes that primary producers have reached the point of frustration with the multitude of assurance systems which they are currently required to comply.

Her Award ambition is to develop an environmental assurance framework that will promote the uptake of environmentally sustainable practices, but that respects the commercial realities of primary production in a changing environment. She plans to further develop her leadership, facilitation and negotiation skills, to communicate and unite the industry behind one environmental assurance framework.

Home

Return to top