Rural Bank has again generously sponsored two female BCG members and one BCG staff member to attend the 25th Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) conference, which was held in Shepparton on the 18th and 19th of August.
Alise Riley and Rachael McIntyre from Longerenong College and BCG extension officer, Jemma Pearl were selected as the recipients of the Rural Bank sponsorship for 2018.
AWiA was founded in 1998 and is Australia’s peak organisation for women from across all sectors of agriculture. The conference drew farmers and industry representatives from across Australia to focus on ‘Looking back, looking forward; celebrating 25 years of Australian Women in Agriculture’.
The event provided an excellent learning and networking opportunity and presented novel approaches to many of the challenges faced by rural women.
Thanks to the generous support of BCG gold corporate partner Rural Bank, now in its third year, the attendees came away with new ideas and expanded networks to put them in good stead for their careers.
Both Ms Pearl and Ms Riley believed that the opportunity to attend the 2018 AWiA conference was invaluable. For Ms Pearl, a standout of the conference was the fact that the inability to afford land did not prevent many speakers from operating successful agricultural businesses.
“A panel of female entrepreneurs discussed that, while the barriers to buying land can be enormous, it doesn’t mean you can’t participate in a way that is worthwhile,” Ms Pearl said.
“They demonstrated some really out of the box thinking – in particular, Olympia Yarger from Goterra who farms mealy worms and maggots for poultry protein and Eleanor Toulmin from Mimictec who make robots that act as surrogate chicken mothers to increase survival rates,” she said.
Ms Pearl says she took a lot away from the conference, particularly new knowledge about accelerator programs and seed funding that she plans to leverage as she pursues her own project ideas.
Ms Riley said that a highlight of the event was meeting Rural Bank Managing Director, Alexandra Gartmann at the Gala Dinner.
“Hearing about Alexandra’s career path, including her time as CEO at BCG, gives me great confidence in what women can achieve while working in agriculture and living regionally.”
“I’m in my first year of studying agriculture and attending this conference and meeting Alex and other inspiring women has confirmed that I’ve made the right career choice,” she said.
