Staying connected: Life on the land through photography

By Benita Woodley

Benita Woodley, along with her three sisters, is part of the sixth generation to grow up on her family’s sheep, cattle and cropping property in Wongarbon, New South Wales. Aged 20, Benita is currently studying a Bachelor of Communication at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, and is on a mission to share stories about farming and rural life with the wider world. Over the past two years Benita has been photographing her family at work on the land and publishing these photographs via her growing Instagram account, @_girlbehindthecamera_. In doing so, Benita aims not only to help educate non-farming and urban populations about the current drought in New South Wales, but also to showcase the important role that her mother and sisters - and women more generally - play on the land.

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‘She works hard. She never stops. She is determined. She is strong.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

This drought we’re suffering, she’s definitely not been easy – to talk about or sometimes to even think about. Regardless it never leaves my mind. I read an article somewhere that compared drought to cancer, how it sort of eats away at you. Seeing the drought unfold from Newcastle where I am studying has been hard. It has killed me not living at home – not being able to physically help and support my family. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed I’m constantly thinking about home and this damn drought. When I return home, I take every opportunity I can to document the drought and show what I think is really happening with many of our farmers.

‘Working with your best friend isn’t working.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

My name is Benita Woodley. I am 20 years old and I’m currently living in Newcastle, New South Wales, where I am studying a Bachelor of Communication at the University. I grew up on a three-thousand-acre family property just east of Dubbo near a village called Wongarbon. Along with my three sisters I am a part of the sixth generation to grow up in the region. My agricultural background is something I never want to lose touch with. I am a country girl and always will be. As the saying goes ‘you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl’. While my career aspirations don’t line up with Ag or rural industries, my photography allows me to keep a strong connection with the land. It also allows me to bring farming to people who have a limited knowledge of what agricultural life is really all about.

My childhood was spent outdoors exploring the wide-open spaces of our expansive backyard and its many beauties. We were constantly surrounded by lots of animals and a few humans and were always ready to get dusty on the back of the ute, on the bike or in the yards.

A childhood photograph of Benita with her three sisters on the family farm, New South Wales. Image: Supplied.

My father, a fifth-generation farmer, has lived in the region his whole life and he, like his father, grandfather and the generations before him, have farmed sheep, cattle and cropping all their lives. The land we work on has been in my family since 1887 when my great, great grandfather Henry and his wife Elizabeth, moved to the region from the Blayney area. Our family home was built by my great, great uncle Les and his wife Amy in around 1916. Prior to its construction my ancestors lived in a small mud hut not far from where our homestead now sits. My mother’s family also comes from an agricultural background. She grew up in a small village on the mid north coast of New South Wales called Eungai, where her father, my Pa, worked as a harvesting contractor and cattle farmer. Her family, the Rheinbergers, came from the Mudgee district where they too worked among rural communities and the agricultural industry since their arrival from Germany back in the 1850s.

Great great grandparents Elizabeth and Henry Woodley and their children. Image: Supplied.

Growing up, women were the lifeblood of our farm. As one of four girls, our home was constantly overrun by women and I often wonder how different our experiences as farm kids would have been if we’d had a brother. Six generations of women in agriculture exist in my family, although the opportunities that they have had to be involved in the physical labour of farming has differed over time. The women in my family are a real inspiration to me.

A childhood photograph of Benita with her three sisters on the family farm, New South Wales. Image: Supplied.

My mother plays a very important role on our farm. While she worked as a nurse in the years before she met my father, she always wanted and was destined to return to the land. She is more than just a ‘farmer’s wife’. She is a farmer with every role that comes with that. She taught us to believe that we could do and be whatever we put our minds to – no matter what it was. When I look back I realise what an incredible role model she was and still is for us girls. As you get older the relationship between mother and daughter changes and I see that now that she is more than just my mother, but is also someone I trust whole heartedly. She has become one of my best friends.

‘Mother. Wife. Farmer. Queen.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_ This particular image depicts Benita’s mother waiting and watching for stock along the road.

Laura, my eldest sister, works on the land along with both my parents, extending our long line of Woodley farmers to six generations within Australia. There is no doubt, my roots are dug deep in agricultural history and it’s something I will forever be proud of. There is not a moment of my childhood that isn’t etched with memories of the outdoors and wide-opens spaces. But with the memories of vast open spaces also comes memories of drought and of floods, of hardships we faced as a family. These things weren’t unusual and it became a common thing for our livestock to require hand feeding throughout much of the summer. Despite the hardships we sometimes faced, growing up on the land and experiencing everything that came with that was the best childhood we could have asked for. We were always apart of everything they did, constantly in the yards with them from a very young age. Being a country kid is something that I’ll claim forever, it’s something that I’m truly grateful for.

A childhood photograph of Benita with her three sisters on the family farm, New South Wales. Image: Supplied.

Despite this, I was never someone who took the greatest of interests in agriculture. I always loved helping out but as I got older I found myself drifting away. I held little enthusiasm to be a part of what my family did. My interests tended to lie in music, film, writing and photography. As a child, I was constantly listening to new music around the home and continually talking to the family about new films they hadn’t heard of or discussing film or music award shows happening around the world. We all knew from a very young age that I probably wouldn’t be a family member that stuck with agriculture. Recently, however, I find myself more connected than ever to the land.

My sister Laura always took a significant interest in agriculture and we always knew she’d be the one to become a farmer. She loved everything about the land and was always doing everything she could to be as involved as possible in what our parents did. She was made to be a farmer and when she was 17 she began to work full-time alongside both my parents.

‘My role model – Laura, my big sister. Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

As sisters, we are all so different, but in many ways, so similar. Laura as a farmer, Elsie as a teacher and Kate on a creative path to find her dream. As for me, I decided to pursue my own passion in a field where I could write and be a part of the creation of art and film. I began my degree in Communication at the University of Newcastle in 2017 and I’m hoping to become a film publicist and work in the advertising and promotion of films – probably not a career you would think of for a rural photographer. Yet, photography has always been a passion of mine. I have, for a long as I can remember loved the way photography and with that, film, has the ability to capture pure moments of emotion, depth and truth. Last year I was able to experience that for myself after purchasing a DSLR camera in January of 2018. I never expected it to have such a profound impact on me or for it to alter my future path.

Benita taking photographs on her family’s property in Wongarbon, New South Wales. Image: Supplied.

Out of an act to gain an understanding of my camera I began taking photos of our farm and the people that worked it. After taking these photographs I realised how they showed such a true depiction of agriculture and the people within the industry. Every time I came home I would go out and take as many photos as I possibly could. I enjoy every bit of being out there with my family seeing them do what they love and allowing myself to bring my own interest to the land. When I first bought my camera I never had the intention of creating the images I have. Photography was purely a simple interest that I wanted to pursue but what it has allowed me to do is reconnect with agriculture and the land, something that I feared I may have been losing.

‘Circle of Life – My sisters cleaning out feeding troughs for the rams. And one day closer to rain.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

‘Sun shining, dust kicking’, Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

The idea behind my Instagram account (@girlbehindthecamera) initially came from the love and respect I had for what my family does. It also revolved around the notion of female empowerment, like my sister Laura taking on an industry that is mostly male-dominated. I wanted to showcase an area of agriculture that is sometimes neglected. Working in a male-dominated industry as a woman isn’t always easy. The words or actions of others can cause you to lose a belief in yourself. It can be very hard to hear the words ‘so you’re still living at home?’ when in fact Laura, and others like her, are in the career that they love, doing the thing they’ve always wanted to do, and in the occupation they have chosen. I wanted to demonstrate this through my photography.

‘She was powerful’. Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_ This image depicts two of Benita’s sisters at work on the family farm.

While my photography started out as a way to empower women in agriculture and in many ways, still does, it soon became something much more than just that. It became a way to reflect on the drought, to bring the effects of the drought to a larger, urban audience, but ultimately it became my way of giving back to the land, of supporting my family and of trying to bridge an understanding between people throughout Australia.

For me the drought rolled in casually. She was tough this drought, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The drought was echoed by a sense of lost hope throughout rural communities. It had gone on for too long, in some areas years, and nothing seemed to be shifting. People were suffering, the land was suffering and for the first time in my life I felt sheer dread. While the drought was going on at home I was in Newcastle listening to the continuous fall of rain on the roof and I wishing to God that he would take the rain with him, way out west where they needed it most. I cannot begin to imagine the hardships that many of our farmers faced during this time, and for some, still continue to face.

‘Crops that aren’t growing, rain that’s not falling.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

Now winter 2019, many Australian farmers still find themselves in drought. In many areas throughout the country little has improved and for those who have seen a glimpse of rain, it hasn’t lasted, the last bit of green burning off before any plead for decent rainfall was answered by the heavens. For me living away from home in a time of drought has been extremely difficult. My grandfather, an 87-year-old fourth generation farmer, who in all his years of life on the land had never seen a drought like this, reinforced for me just how bad this drought has been and continues to be. There is nothing humanly possible that can be done to change the weather. For me the drought of 2018, which continues into 2019, is the first time that I truly felt homesick. In the back of my mind I was constantly aware that I wasn’t at the farm to help and support my family. So, I gave what I could, using what I knew - photography. I decided to direct my photographic efforts at the drought, to show what I believed was really happening with many of our farmers. When I am home I take every opportunity I can to document the drought.

‘Her walk is like a shot of whiskey, neat and strong and full of purpose, and so many underestimate her.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_This image depicts Benita’s sister Laura.

The drought was and still isn’t an easy topic of conversation, but through my photography I hope I can create an understanding. As we head back into what seems is going to be a similar winter to last year, I hope the media begins to once again talk about the hardships our farmers are facing yet again. My photography has become a way to show others what drought is and the impact it has on our land, and in a larger sense, the ripple on effects that it has on our people. Rural photography has quickly become one of the most important things I do and while I haven’t had much chance this year to be at home documenting the land, when I am home, my camera travels everywhere with me - whether it be feeding or moving stock, in the yards or while doing odd farm jobs. I capture the dry landscapes that our earth delivers. In sharing my photographs, I hope it allows people to see the effect of drought and maybe help change the way people think about farmers. I hope that what I have brought to the public through my camera has helped in some tiny way.

Benita Woodley taking photographs on her family’s property. Image: Supplied.

My photography has become a way to share images of the drought but I also hope it reflects Australian rural life. As much as the drought has become my main focus, at times I choose to steer away from that. There’s always little things in life that can simple bring a smile. I try to shine that through in my photography as well - a beautiful working dog, powerful women bringing their love and compassion to the land, the relationship between farming families and our beautiful backyard even at its most barrenness - there is beauty in it all. 

‘Its almost time for smoko right?’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

When I had not long begun my photography, I stumbled upon a quote that read ‘If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph’. This struck me harder than I expected. I feared losing my connection to the land and, as I ventured off into the unknown world, I was concerned that one day I would grow less aware of those who grow the food that ends up on our tables at the end of each day. But what I have found instead is that photography allows me to be more connected then ever with the land. In many ways, it has reconnected me to my roots and made me realise that through my family and my love of photography I will never and was never going to lose my love of the land. So, I re-wrote that statement:

‘You photograph what you fear losing, so that once again it can become a part of who you are and who you were destined to be’ - @thegirlbehindthecamera

‘At the going down of the sun.’ Image and quote via Benita Woodley’s Instagram, @_girlbehindthecamera_

Want to know more?

• Follow Benita's journeys via Instagram, @_thegirlbehindthecamera_

The Best of Both Worlds, Mostly: Queer Women Farmers on Land and in Community

By Jaclyn Wypler

Jaclyn Wypler (wypler@wisc.edu) is a PhD student in the departments of Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States), where she is currently researching LGBT+ farmers. Earlier in 2018 Jaclyn wrote a guest blog post for the Invisible Farmer Project where she reflected on the lives and experiences of queer American women farmers. In this follow-up blog post, Jaclyn shares her experience of travelling to Australia and spending six months in New South Wales and Victoria, where she interviewed queer women farmers about their experiences of farming and community life. She uncovers the stories of Ann-Marie, Carla, Em and Dianne, and profiles how these women have fulfilled their dreams to farm and build strong support systems in the process.

Jaclyn Wypler during a farm visit in Australia, image supplied.

Jaclyn Wypler wearing a 'Farmer' T-shirt during her travels in Australia, image supplied.

Under the shelter of trees during a rainstorm, Bella told me about her recent decision to leave farming in rural New South Wales. Bella felt isolated and lonely as “one of the only queers in the village” where 47% of voters deemed her love unworthy of marriage. “My bloodline is seriously agriculture and farming,” Bella said, “and obviously it’s tricky because I don’t have an audience out there that’s like-minded.” Whereas she previously lived among like-minded people in Sydney—earning a degree in agricultural sciences and running an organic food company—her days on the farm consisted of working alongside her father and declining dates from men, childhood friends thoroughly aware of her sexuality. “My passion is in farming. I absolutely love it. If I could move that farm to the Blue Mountains and be close to Sydney, I would love that. I’d have the best of both worlds,” she told me. Unable to relocate the farm though, Bella made the challenging decision to leave farming and move to an urban area to live alongside more like-minded people.

The farm life in rural NSW that Bella left behind image supplied by Bella.

The farm life in rural NSW that Bella left behind image supplied by Bella.

As I spent six months interviewing farmers in New South Wales and Victoria and I wondered: is it possible for queer farmers to have the best of both worlds, to fulfil their farm dreams and have a like-minded community? If so, how do farmers establish strong social supports as farmers and as queer women?

In my research, I met several thriving farmers surrounded by supportive community. I visited Ann-Marie and Carla – goat farmers and cheese makers – who trained other women and earned the respect of farming families in their rural Victorian community. I spent a morning with Em at Joe’s Garden in Coburg, Victoria, who personally connected with neighbours and established a queer inclusive space on the farm. I spoke to Dianne – a cattle farmer in rural New South Wales – about transitioning in her 60s and creating a gender diverse support group. Though each farmer made it work, their efforts were intentional and involved some concessions. In a moment when it is vital to support those passionate about farming, I hope that the stories of Ann-Marie, Carla, Em, and Dianne provide blueprints for other LGBT+ people to enter and remain in agriculture.

Ann-Marie & Carla: Sutton Grange Organic Farm, makers of Holy Goat Cheese
 

As Ann-Marie and I drove to her farm near Castlemaine in Victoria, we compared Saturn Returns – an astrological period in your late 20s associated with pivotal life changes. Whereas I was in my Saturn Return, marked by living across the world for six months, Ann-Marie reported, “I became a lesbian.” She met Carla during this period, and the two began their journey as life and farm partners. Although they had been living in a tight-knit Western Australian lesbian community, they prioritised farming and moved to Victoria in 1999 to be near better soils. At the time, they perceived the area to be “hostile territory,” but were determined to make it work.

Ann-Marie and Carla with their goats at Holy Goat Farm, Castlemaine, 2014, image courtesy Holy Goat

Ann-Marie in Holy Goat cheeseroom, 2013, image courtesy Holy Goat.

Ann-Marie and Carla created a place for themselves in the community in three ways. First, they demonstrated their commitment to their neighbours by joining the Country Fire Authority. Second, they brought pride to the area by producing quality cheeses. When Ann-Marie and Carla won their first cheese award, the three longest time farmers in the area called to say that the couple was an asset to the community. “We are surrounded by bloke farmers and they think we’re okay,” Ann-Marie told me. Though respected by their immediate neighbours, they differ in farming practices; Ann-Marie and Carla therefore tend to socialise more with farmers who live further away but share their organic methods. Finally, Ann-Marie and Carla surrounded themselves with other women dedicated to agriculture. When I visited, I worked alongside a woman employee in her 20s and met two former employees—women—who each went on to launch farming businesses. Ann-Maria declared, “We are a real women’s farm and I think it’s brilliant.”

Ann-Marie working at Holy Goat Farm, Castlemaine, image taken by Jaclyn during her farm visit in 2018.

‘Staff meeting’ at Holy Goat Farm, Castlemaine, 2013, image courtesy Holy Goat

Em: an urban farming community at Joe's Market Garden

Located in Coburg (Melbourne), 2kms north of CERES Community Environment Park along the Merri Creek bike path, Joe's Market Garden is a two acre plot that has been farmed continuously by Chinese and Italian gardeners for over 150 years. Em is the resident farmer at Joe's, and she regularly runs tours, workshops and information sessions on the farm. I joined Em on a tour of the farm, where she began by detailing the land’s agricultural roots from Wurundjeri cultivators and trappers, to Chinese market gardeners in the 1800s, to the Italian family who bought land in 1945. This family mentored Em, teaching her not only how to farm, but also the importance of community.

Em on tour at Joe's Market Garden, photo taken by Jaclyn Wypler, 2018.

Joe's Market Garden, photo taken by Jaclyn Wypler, 2018.

Em knows the farm’s urban neighbours by name and invites them to farm events, such as “weed dating.” At this event, Em began by asking people to share their pronouns, explaining to the largely straight neighbours that stating pronouns is a way to signal safety and inclusion to queer and trans* people. “It was a good space to have that conversation because they’re open to me in a different way,” Em explained, “[I’m] not just that weird gay girl.” In situations like weed dating, Em does discuss queerness on the farm, yet she intentionally does not centre it every day. Rather, she chooses to make environmental sustainability the farm’s main focus. Nevertheless, Em estimated that many of the roughly 23 lesbians who live within a three-kilometre radius of the farm attend the Saturday market. “They’ve been drawn here,” Em told me by her queerness and the several other queer people who contribute labour to the farm. Though “very closeted” when she started working at Joe’s Garden, Em now proclaimed, “This is the queer farm of my dreams!”

Interview with Em courtesy Moreland Sessions: https://anotherwisequietroom.com.au/tag/emma-connors/

 

Dianne: farming 300 acres and supporting gender diversity

At the peak of her career, Dianne oversaw 3000 acres in rural New South Wales, earned all of her money from the farm, and mentored other farmers. Though worried about sounding conceited, Dianne eventually conceded, “I was a pretty darn good farmer.” Today, Dianne farms cattle, hay, and wheat on 300 acres. She lost much of her land to divorce; when she came out as a transwoman three years ago at 60, her then-wife left her.

Despite losing land and love, Dianne found acceptance in her local community. People at cattle sales greet her by name and when she attempted to resign from associations and boards—worried that others would quit because of her involvement—other members refused. “You can be you as long as you’re not in people’s faces,” she shared. In addition to ally support, Dianne created a gender diversity group that holds monthly dinners. Roughly 15 LGBT+ people travel upwards of 100 to 220km in order to attend. Though not optimistic about dating prospects in her community, Dianne is the happiest she’s ever been and remains committed to her land: “I’ll die on the place if I can.” Friends applauded her bravery, but she doesn’t think she’s brave; Dianne is finally just being herself.

Mostly the Best

Queer women farmers can achieve farming dreams and like-minded community, mostly, in their NSW and Victorian communities. Ann-Marie, Carla, Em, and Dianne all personally engaged and invested in their local communities, earning neighbors’ trust and respect. They also created safe spaces in their communities for like-minded people: women in agriculture, queer urban residents, and gender diverse people in the country. Though they have land and community, the farmers have made some concessions: living alongside neighbors with different environmental views, decentering queerness for the sake of a larger environmental mission, and foregoing dating prospects by remaining in a small community. Other LGBT+ may find guidance in these stories, pathways for them to farm and have supportive communities.

A final note: when I last spoke to Bella, she had returned to rural NSW to continue farming and to begin a business selling coffee from a renovated horse trailer. I wish Bella luck and hope she finds like-minded community through the coffee cart, achieving the best of both worlds. 

Bella at her coffee cart, image supplied.

‘Definitely a Farmer’: Sally Hall, trout farming and how ‘the land owns you’

By Catherine Forge (Curator & Photographer, Invisible Farmer Project, Museums Victoria) with Sally Hall (Farmer, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville, Victoria)

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This blog post is based on an interview that was conducted in 2017 between curator Catherine Forge (Museums Victoria) and trout farmer Sally Hall for the Invisible Farmer Project. Using excerpts from this interview, Catherine reflects on meeting Sally and provides an overview of Sally’s journey into farming, her connection to the outdoors and her experiences of being a farmer.

Industry: Aquaculture; fish farming
Name of enterprise: Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm
Location: Harrietville, Victoria

Sally Hall holding a trout on her farm, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Meeting Sally Hall

In May 2017 I packed my camera and audio recording equipment into the car and travelled from Melbourne to the small Alpine township of Harrietville, Victoria, to interview trout farmer Sally Hall. Sally’s family farm, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, is located in a scenic part of the world – right at the foot of Mount Hotham and Mount Feathertop, with fresh water streams and abundant greenery. As I pulled into the driveway I was immediately struck by the farm’s natural beauty; autumn leaves radiated bright red and orange, water gently trickled in the nearby streams and Sally emerged from her landscaped garden to greet me with a welcoming smile.

Sally Hall standing at the entrance to Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria. Sally informed me that the sculptured fish in the backdrop was previously used in the 2006 Commonwealth Games to represent the country of Cyprus.

Being the first aquaculture farmer I’d interviewed for this project I was excited to meet Sally Hall and hear more about her journey into farming. Women contribute greatly to Australia’s seafood and aquaculture industries, yet their stories have tended to go unrecognised, undocumented and hidden to the public eye. Sally’s own story as a trout farmer had not yet been recorded, and there was nothing available about her farming career on the public record or online. In fact, in preparing for the interview I had only managed to find one reference to Sally on Google – a news article in the Weekly Times –  that had mostly focused on Sally’s husband Peter and son David and only mentioned Sally’s name in passing. This absence of information about Sally’s farm life had sparked my initial curiosity in her story and led me to pick up the phone in search of further information: ‘Hi, I’m wondering if there are any women working on your trout farm and if they would be interested in speaking to me about their farm experiences?’, I had asked. ‘Yeap, that’s my Mum Sally and she does everything around here’, responded Sally’s son David, ‘she’s the one that you need to speak to.’ 

Sally Hall holding a trout on her farm, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Pouring me a cup of tea as we prepared to start the interview, Sally confessed to feeling a tad nervous about sharing her story, mainly because she didn’t think she deserved the attention. ‘My story isn’t that interesting or important’, Sally informed me, and admitted to being a bit confused as to why I would want to interview her. This a common scenario when interviewing women who farm; many women tell me that they share a similar fear about being interviewed, and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard phrases such as, ‘I don’t feel my story is important’, ‘maybe you should speak to my husband/partner instead’ or ‘I don’t know why you’d want to interview me.’ And yet, every woman that we have interviewed for the Invisible Farmer Project has had an incredible story to share, and I firmly believe that all of these stories are of great significance. After all, women contribute half the world’s food and fibre and play a vital role on farms across Australia. Their stories, and Sally’s story, deserve to be told.

Sally Hall holding a trout on her farm, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

‘I wasn’t always a trout farmer and I wasn’t born into farming.’

Sally Hall [nee Baldwin] was born in 1958 in Watford, London, and immigrated to Australia as a “Ten Pound Pom” with her parents when she was just four years old. The family lived in Perth, Western Australia, until Sally was fourteen, and then relocated to a 2 ½ acre block outside of Perth in the suburb of Wattleup. It is here surrounded by a neighbourhood of market gardens that Sally was given her first horse, and subsequently developed a strong interest in the outdoors:

“Once I got my first horse I immediately became an outdoor kid. If Mum couldn’t see me it meant that I was outside playing with a horse. I think this passion for the outdoors has lived with me ever since.”

Sally’s love for the outdoors began young, but her life as a farmer didn’t come into full swing until she married her husband Peter Hall in 1980. ‘He was a farmer’, recalls Sally, ‘so I automatically went into farming, and I guess that’s when I became a farmer too.’

Sally and her husband Peter Hall on their wedding day, 1980, Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

Sally Hall with her husband Peter Hall on their trout farm, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), Spring 2018, Photographer: Catherine Forge.

Sally and Peter’s first farm was located in Wialki in remote Western Australia and consisted of 18,000 acres of dry cropping and sheep. Situated on the eastern Wheatbelt of Western Australia, Wialki’s landscape is dry and arid with extremely hot summers. It was a tough introduction to farming, but Sally remembers throwing herself into farming and working as hard as she could:

We ended up doing seven years of farming there, through lots of droughts and the arrival of two children at the time. I mostly tried to be a good wife and a good mother to our two young children, as well as looking after the staff. I did as much farm work as possible. It was a more male-orientated job back then, but I did whatever was needed of me: fencing, truck driving, sheep work, grain carting and whatever came my way.

There were parts of this life that I loved. I loved the great expanse of the remote outdoors, the sense of community, the church and its’ people and the physical work. But droughts were at times severe. We were in marginal country, right near the emu-proof fence, where you would be lucky to get a few bags an acre. And then the interest rates went to 22 per cent and that was the end of us farming in Wialki.

Sally’s husband Peter, daughter Kathy and son David on their farm in Wialki (Western Australia) in 1987. I had asked Sally for some photos of herself during these years, but she wrote on the back of the photo: ‘no photos of me as I was always the camera man.’ Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

After seven years of farming in the marginal country of Western Australia, Sally and her family made the decision in 1987 to relocate to Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, and try their hand at opal mining. Lightning Ridge is a small outback town in north-western New South Wales, famous for Black Opal, a rare and highly sought after gemstone unique to the region. It is here with Peter working in the opal mines that Sally developed a newfound interest in opal cutting and jewellery making:

I found that I was drawn to opals and jewellery making, and that I really enjoyed working on new jewellery creations. It was a completely different world to the remote farming world that we’d previously inhabited. Rather than being outdoors on the land, I was working in an office all the time making jewellery and cutting opal.

Sally Hall, Peter Hall and a friend with a piece of mining equipment, Lightning Ridge (New South Wales), 2002, Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

Much to Sally’s surprise, her jewellery-making hobby soon became a full-time job. She not only found herself opening up a retail store in Lightning Ridge, but also travelling all around Australia to meet with clients and sell her products:

Opals ended up becoming a really big part of my life. I opened a retail outlet under the name “Everything Opal” and had five staff and then travelled around Australia six or seven times a year, for ten days at a time wholesaling. When I reflect on my opal life and my farming life, I feel like there’s two different versions of me. But even though I’m a farmer right now, I still love opals and continue to occasionally make jewellery.

The shopfront window of Sally’s jewellery outlet, “Everything Opal”, Lightning Ridge, 1998, Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

Sally and her family ended up staying in the opal mining business in Lightning Ridge for 18 years (1987-2005). During this time, Sally reflects that ‘farming was still always in our blood’ and it wasn’t uncommon for dinner table conversations to turn to the topic of farming, and how to get back into it. In the end it was the additional income provided by Sally’s jewellery-making business that helped make it financially viable for the family to re-enter farming. A decision was made to purchase 4,000 acres of farm land around Narromine and Trangie, New South Wales, and Sally soon found herself balancing two different jobs – making opal jewellery and farming Angus beef and mixed crop varieties.

Sally holding one of her opal necklaces, 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

For the first five years, Sally and Peter travelled the long four-hour drive from Lighting Ridge to manage the Narromine and Trangie farm sites over weekends while they continued to mine, cut opals and sell jewellery during the week. Eventually, however, they decided to discontinue with the opal mining completely and transition back into full-time farming. Relocating to live permanently in the dry and remote landscape of Narromine and Trangie, Sally dedicated herself once again to farm life. During this period Sally and Peter diversified the farm by planting 1,200 olive trees. They also started to produce their own olive oil.

Workers hard at work on the olive groves, 2018, Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

Due to the remoteness of the Narromine and Trangie farm sites, Sally’s two children David and Kathy left home to attend boarding school and with no children at home to care for, Sally spent more of her time outdoors. Although this work was tough at times, Sally recalls feeling ‘most at home’ when working in the outdoors:

My indoor duties were less intensive without the children home, so I spent a lot of time doing outdoor work in those years – anything from fencing to tractor driving to looking after the Angus mothers and their variously aged baby calves. I suppose it wasn’t what you would describe as an easy life. The work was ongoing and there were always things that needed to be done. But I really liked the outdoor work and the physical work.

For Sally, working outdoors was one of the real joys of farm life – a joy that she still continues to cherish:

There’s something about being outdoors working the land that I can’t describe. It gets under your skin, and it’s where I feel I belong. It’s so beautiful being outdoors too. Sometimes at night time in Narromine and Trangie you could look up into the sky and see hundreds of stars shining. And at daytime the sun would belt down on your back, and the sky would be the most brilliant shade of blue. Yes, the outdoors is where I like to be – under the open skies, on the land.

‘When I first saw this trout farm, it was the lush green landscape that pulled me in.’

Sally Hall feeding trout, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria [MM 145578: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241621].

Listening to Sally talk about farming in Western Australia and New South Wales, she described the colours of the Outback to me – the orange earth, the dry dust and the long empty roads that stretched out to the horizon. It all seemed so different, and so far away, from the lush, green and mountainous region that Sally now inhabits. ‘How did you make such a big transition – from farming cattle and crops in the Outback, to farming trout and salmon by ponds and waterways?’, I asked.

Sally responded with a smile:

We were down here at Mount Hotham on a family skiing holiday actually. And then we spotted this trout farm as we drove along the Great Alpine tourist road and saw the “For Sale” sign. It was love at first sight, and at the time we agreed – my husband, my son and my son’s wife – that this would be such a lovely place to come to. So we sold everything from Lightning Ridge, Narromine and Trangie and came here, and we’ve been here for eight years now.

Sally Hall with her dogs and chooks, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Purchasing the trout farm was a quick decision, however it was one that made sense for the family and seemed like the right step to take. Sally’s son David had been in Tasmania studying aquaculture at Launceston University, and he was keen to bring his training and studies into practice. Sally recalls that there was also a big allure in the natural beauty and greenery surrounding the farm:

I think the reason that we loved it when we came here was that it was green, and there was water everywhere and rivers and freshwater as opposed to Western Australia where it was salty water. It was such a beautiful, beautiful green place, and all the autumn leaves too. Yeah, it was just a completely different climate to our previous farms in Western Australia and New South Wales.

Sally Hall fishing for trout with a bamboo fishing rod, Mountain View Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria [MM 145580: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241623].

After her experience of farming through dust and drought, Sally relished the water that flowed from the snow-capped mountains in Spring, and the abundant greenery that turned into bright orange and red in the Autumn:

We have here 20 acres of beautiful, beautiful country with probably forty ponds on it, and sheds with ponds. Stony Creek comes into our place at the top corner and it gravity feeds right through our farm, putting water through all the fish ponds. And then after it’s settled for a while it goes back into the Ovens River out the front. It couldn’t be more beautiful here, especially the fact that it stays so green over summer too. I’d have to say that green is now my favourite colour! I just love it. I love the water and the freshness.

Sally Hall catching a trout, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm was first established in 1971 and when Sally and her family took ownership of the property, there was a lot of work to do in order to bring the farm back from a state of disrepair. Although Sally and her husband Peter hadn’t had any experience in fish farming, Sally believes that her son’s education –  coupled with the family’s prior farm experience – came in handy:

With David doing the Uni degree in aquaculture there was the technical side already there. But I think because we’ve been farmers on and off all our life, it’s still animal husbandry and a lot of that is just born into a farmer really. You just learn it as you go. You see what needs doing.

Sally Hall with her dog feeding salmon, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Over the past 8-9 years, Sally and her family have increased the productivity of their farm by investing in new infrastructure, technologies and machinery, planting up gardens and introducing new fish farming methods and techniques:

We’re growing about six or seven different varieties of fish now – rainbow trout, brown trout and brook trout, Atlantic salmon, cheetahs, tigers and golden trout. We have worked to make the gardens beautiful for the tourists that come here to fish, and we have invested in new equipment. On top of this we have grown our market and client-base and we are selling to a wide range of customers including other fish farmers, the Government, chefs and local restaurants. It’s been a lot of work to get the farm to where it is now, but it’s been worth it.

‘I can’t quite put my finger on my role here on the farm – I’m sort of in all the jobs.’

Sally has been involved in all aspects of the fish farm since moving there in 2009, however when I asked her ‘what kind of farmer are you?’, she responded that it wasn’t easy to define her work:

What sort of farmer am I? That’s a really hard one! I’m just the back-up person really… I don’t think of myself as just being a ‘fish farmer’, like the men would, because I feel that I do all sorts of general things as well. Whatever needs doing in that particular month, I’m just there doing it.

Sally Hall with her dog on a John Deere utility vehicle, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria [MM 145577: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241617].

For Sally, the difficulty in defining her role is due to the fact that she has so many diverse roles, and that they change every day:

I mean, I am a fish farmer, but I also worry about the garden, and do the paperwork and money things. I package fish, I make pâté, I mow grass, I do orders for restaurants and butchers and I sell fish weekly at various farmer’s markets. Yeah, I guess I’m a fish farmer, but it’s hard to define. It’s anything from chopping wood to moving the tractor to cleaning the shed to feeding the workers. I can’t quite put my finger on my role here on the farm – I’m sort of in all the jobs, where I’m needed.

Talking to Sally about the multitude of diverse daily tasks that she performs on the farm, it is clear that her life’s work is dedicated to her farm and family, and that she plays a pivotal role in keeping the farm running. Yet by initially describing herself as ‘just a back-up person’, I couldn’t help but feel that Sally was inadvertently under-valuing her importance and her role on the farm. Sally is not the first woman that I’ve interviewed who has referred to herself as the “back-up person”, “helping hand” or the “just the Farmer’s Wife.” While these are commonly heard terms, I worry that by using them to describe their role on the farm, these women are accidentally sending a message that their work is somehow less important or less worthy than the work of their male counterparts, which clearly isn’t the case!

Sally Hall with a juvenile fish, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria [MM 145582: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241626].

Sally Hall feeding chooks on her farm, Harrietville (Victoria), Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria [MM 145576: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241610].

In reality, women like Sally play an essential role on the farm, not only in balancing a multitude of different kinds of farm work, but also in keeping their families, farm workers and communities together. Sally believes that women often find themselves performing an additional farm role as communicators and providers, and she refers to this additional role as the “mothering role”:   

I think for women there is more than just the manual and physical work. There is a mothering role that continues on forever when you’re farming. I think farm women do both. They are quite capable of chainsawing and wheelbarrowing and doing all the physical work that is required, but they are also often called upon to do emotional and communication work, which is a different role altogether. I think with the men, there’s a lot of things that they can say to a woman that they won’t say to a man, so being the only woman on a team of men, I’ll often find myself in that mothering role too.

Sally Hall with her son David and fish tanks in the background, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

For Sally, this mothering role doesn't only involve emotional support; it also involves a daily focus on ensuring that the workers are fed and well cared for:

I’m a farmer, but I’m definitely also a mother on the farm. For a lot of farm women like me, there is always a lot of food involved. You do end up taking on that kind of nurturing role with all the staff that you work with – you make sure that they’ve been fed, and that they’ve got a cup of tea. You know, you make sure that they are okay and looked after.

This process of feeding the staff might involve a lot of hard work, but Sally relishes the opportunity that it provides to sit down with her staff and exchange stories:

We eat together, always. So half a dozen of us will sit together. It’s always under the trees around tables, and that’s where we talk, where we plan what’s next, where we laugh, where we tell stories. It’s often around food that we have a chance to communicate. And these are my favourite times really.

‘There’s tourists every day, so it’s always about sharing the farm.’

Sally doesn’t only share stories with the other workers on the farm; she also enjoys the opportunity to interact on a very personal level with her customers. Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm offers farm gate sales and is open to the public five days per week. Visitors to the farm can learn to fish with bamboo fishing rods, catch fish, tour the gardens and then watch the fish be prepared and packaged up to take home. A regular part of Sally’s day-to-day work involves meeting with visitors, showing them around the farm and sharing stories about the life-cycle of the fish. Sally believes that this one-on-one interaction helps to educate consumers and bring them closer to understanding where their food comes from:

The link between producer and consumer is definitely there, especially when people have caught fish for themselves. I mean they catch their own fish, they are excited and then they come to the workbench and have it cleaned. They become a captive audience while I clean their fish, and they usually want to know all about your life and how you clean the fish and how you farm. They want to know all about the farming process, so you interact with the tourist at that level always, every day.

Sally Hall preparing fish in her Farm Gate shop, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Sally Hall at her Farm Gate shop where she sells produce directly to visitors, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Just a 20-minute drive from the farm is the bustling tourist town of Bright, and Sally also regularly interacts with consumers locally via the monthly Bright Farmer’s Markets, as well as the neighbouring Myrtleford and Wangaratta Farmer’s Markets. ‘Our Alpine Shire is very proactive, so there’s always tourists’, reflects Sally: ‘so the other way I interact with consumers is most definitely at these farmer’s markets, where there is a lot of talking on a very personal one-on-one level.’

Sally Hall selling fish at the Bright Farmer’s Market (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Beyond her local farmer’s markets Sally also travels into the city to Melbourne once a month to sell fish at the Slow Food Farmer’s Market in Abbotsford. ‘I think a lot of people do worry about fresh food and where it’s grown and that kind of thing’, reflects Sally, ‘and I love being able to tell people in the city about our farm, how green it is and to ease some of their concerns about what they are feeding their families.’ Another benefit of selling at farmer’s markets is that it provides an opportunity to reach a wide consumer-base:

There’s money that comes from the farmer’s markets, but there’s also a lot of restaurant owners and butchers and various people wandering around fresh food markets looking for new ideas, or the next thing they’re going to put on the plate. So we do definitely pick up bigger customers by being out there and being seen. It’s great tapping into the city market, and also the local market. All the local restaurants use our fish. Their menus change all the time, but all the local people use it – the pubs and the butchers all round the region really.

Produce from Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, including the pâté that Sally makes with her mother, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

Sally Hall and her mother Rita Baldwin serving customers at the Bright Farmer’s Market (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

After touring Sally’s farm, I had the opportunity to attend the Bright Farmer’s Market and visit Sally at her market stall. I arrived to find her standing alongside her mother Rita Baldwin and the two worked in unison as a mother-daughter team interacting with customers and selling their fish and homemade caviar pâté. I asked Sally about her relationship with her mother and she informed me that their bond is strong, and that she has relished the opportunity to work together in more recent years:

Mum moved to Bright 10 years ago, when we came here. She helps me make pâté (38,000 so far) and she comes to all the fresh food markets with me. She will pop into the farm any day and bring food and anything from town. She’s 86, so there’s obvious limitations, but she has always been there to mother me, even though I’m now 60. She gives plenty of love, comfort and care. Really our parents are our best advocates and I hope I can be that for my kids.

Sally Hall and her mother Rita Baldwin at the Bright Farmer’s Market (Victoria), 2017, Photographer: Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria.

Sally spending some time with family - her mother Rita Baldwin, daughter Kathy and granddaughter Ella-Rose - at the Bright Lolly Shop, 2018, Image: supplied by Sally Hall.

When ‘the land owns you’

 ‘I don’t feel that we own this place – I feel that it owns us’, said Sally when reflecting on her connection to the farm and landscape:

We are here to care for the land really. I feel like I look outside and I know what to do because it’s telling me all the time – you know, fix this, garden that, tend to that. I feel like when you’re a farmer the land owns you, if that makes sense. You can’t just walk away and take a week off or a month off.

Being owned by the land has a romantic appeal, but it is not without its’ challenges. For Sally and her family, one of these challenges revolves around the water and power supply:

Water is always a problem. For us when the creek gets low we have to pump water from the Ovens River, so water is always a concern. Power is our next concern because we’ve got to run generators the whole time to pump water, so power is really expensive at the moment. Sometimes I feel we’re doing all our work just to pay the power bills.

Another challenge is the fact that the farm requires maintenance and ongoing care on a 24/7 basis, which ties Sally to the land and makes it difficult to take time off or go away for holidays:

It’s an every day, all hours of the day job. I mean in summer we’re still checking fish of a night. It’s probably emotionally harder than it looks form the outside, in that you have to commit yourself to being here all the time. You’re definitely owned by the land in that way too.

‘I don’t think farming is a career where it’s easy to make money - you have to love the life’ ~ handwritten reflections on farming by Sally Hall, 2018.

In 2018, over a year after my first interview with Sally, I paid another visit to the farm, this time accompanied by my mother Fiona McLennan. I was excited to see Sally again, and to hear what she had been up to in the past twelve months. ‘Well, we haven’t had any major holidays except for a family wedding recently’, she informed me, ‘and that wasn’t really a proper holiday, just a weekend away really, so in many ways nothing has changed – the land still owns us!’

Flowers in bloom, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

Sally and Peter gave my mother and I a tour of the farm gardens, which were flourishing with a wide variety of beautiful new Spring flowers in bloom. As we chatted and looked at the flowers, I soon came to learn that it hadn’t been an easy year on the farm; the previous summer heat had caused many fish to become ill, leading to significant stock losses. Sally walked us down to the outdoor workstations where new antibiotics were being trialled to prepare for the coming summer. ‘It’s a full-time job and you always have to be prepared for the next thing’, Sally explained, ‘we are always at work here, there’s always something to do!’

Sally and her son working with fish, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Catherine Forge.

Despite the significant challenges associated with the daily realities of farming, however, Sally believes that two things have helped her to stay motivated. The first of these is her faith:

Probably the only thing that has kept me together and continuing on when there’s been droughts and hard times and living in a caravan park for a year in Lightning Ridge with no money, I think being Christian has probably held me together, held my marriage together, helped grow my children into lovely kids.

The second thing that has kept Sally passionate about farming is the connection to the outdoors, and the joy that she gets from being able to produce a fresh, high-quality product.

I think being outside and the fresh air and a love for the land and animals.. and no traffic, no people, no rushing. It’s a very healthy lifestyle I feel. If I have to be inside and do bookwork for an hour I can’t wait to go outside and just do whatever’s out there, whether it’s the garden of the grounds.

I also love that since we’ve been here the produce is a premium now. When we first came it was relatively run down and the fish were hungry and not in the greatest condition. But they are now all being bred by us, fed by us and couldn’t be in any better condition really, so people are getting really good quality produce, and I couldn’t feel more proud to feed it to them.

Sally holding a trout, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Catherine Forge.

Sally and her son working with fish, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Catherine Forge.

‘The men couldn’t do it without us.’

Not only has Sally been a farmer over her career, but she has also managed and operated a small jewellery business, and through this work with opals she was able to provide the family with an additional off-farm income that helped facilitate their re-entry back into farming. When I first visited Sally in 2017, we spoke about her passion for jewellery-making and how her opal business had been a big part of her life, but Sally confessed that she wasn’t sure if her previous career as a jewellery maker was relevant to her story as a farmer. ‘They both feel like two different worlds’, she had told me.

Sally Hall reuniting with Catherine Forge in 2018, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

When I visited Sally again in 2018, however, things had changed. Sally invited my mother and I into the Farm Gate shop and explained to us that she had just started to sell her opals alongside the fish products. As she showed us her beautiful opal jewellery and her homemade caviar pâté, there was something quite lovely about seeing these two worlds – her farming world and her jewellery-making world – come closer together.

Sally Hall showing Catherine Forge her jewellery creations, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

Women contribute to farms in so many diverse ways – they farm outdoors, indoors and in many cases they work off-farm to provide additional income that helps to sustain the farm. It is important to recognise and celebrate all of this work, because all kinds of farm work – from driving tractors to balancing accounting books to providing off-farm income – is work that contributes to the overall productivity and success of Australian agriculture.

Sally Hall in her Farm Gate store with opals and fish in the background, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Catherine Forge.

Towards the end of our visit, Sally generously packed up some trout for my mother and I to take home. We said our goodbyes and as we drove out the driveway my mother turned to me and said, ‘wow, what a remarkable woman.’ Having met Sally a few times now, I have to agree that she is a remarkable woman, and yet I doubt that Sally would openly call herself “remarkable”, or expect to have her work publicly recognised. On the contrary, as we said our goodbyes, Sally confessed that it was unusual for herself to talk about herself, and that she had never really been in the limelight or shared her story with anyone beyond her immediate family.

I believe that Sally’s story deserves to be told though, and that her ongoing dedication to her farm, her family and her community should be celebrated. For Sally is not just a “helper” on the farm – she is a vital part of it, and she has every reason to feel proud of what she has achieved:

Yeah, when I think about the journey so far I’m definitely a farmer. When I look back at my career over the years I can now see that I can drive the tractor, I can drive the truck, I can do anything that men can do, except for the heavy lifting. Physically we’re not made the same really, but there’s mostly nothing that women can’t do. I think we’re essential. The men couldn’t do it without us.

Sally Hall sitting behind her Farm Gate counter, Mountain Fresh Trout and Salmon Farm, Harrietville (Victoria), 2018, Photographer: Fiona McLennan.

 Acknowledgements:

I wish to sincerely thank Sally for sharing her story with us, and for the delicious fish and homemade pâté that she generously provided on both visits. I’d also like to thank her husband Peter, son David, mother Rita and farm worker Jessie for welcoming us to the farm and showing us around. Finally, I want to thank my mother Fiona McLennan for volunteering her photographic skills to the project.

Further Info:

• This interview is now a permanent part of Museums Victoria’s collections, and you can view it online, here: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2241713

• If you’d like to learn more about Sally’s farm, you can visit the farm’s website here: https://www.mountainfreshtroutharrietville.com/ or follow them on Facebook

• Be part of the conversation and join in discussions with the Invisible Farmer Project on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

• If you want to know more about this interview, feel free to get in touch with Catherine Forge via Instagram, Twitter or her website: www.catherineforgephotography.com

Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) Celebrates 25 Years: Reflecting on the Rural Women's Movement in Australia, by PhD Candidate Jessie Matheson

By Jessie Matheson

Jessie Matheson is a PhD candidate with the Invisible Farmer Project based at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with Museums Victoria. She is interested in the cultural history of Australian women, in particular women on the land. She is currently working on her thesis, a history of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement. In this guest blog post Jessie reflects briefly on her experience of attending the 25 Year Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) Anniversary Conference and shares a copy of the speech that she delivered there on Saturday 18 August.

Longstanding members of Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) cutting the 25 Year Anniversary cake at the Shepparton Conference Gala Dinner, 18 August 2018. Photo: Catherine Forge (Museums Victoria).

The AWiA Conference

The weekend of the 17th to the 19th of August saw the annual Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) Conference in Shepparton, Victoria. The Conference was also a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the organisation. The AWiA was formed in 1994 and is a non-profit incorporated organisation that is “committed to ensuring that women influence the agriculture agenda” (https://awia.org.au). Over the past 25 years the organisation has had a significant impact in community, industry and government; lifting the profile of Australian women in agriculture.

Inaugural AWiA president Dorothy Dunn launching AWiA at the 1993 Tallangata Women on Farms Gathering. Photo: this photo was displayed in the conference foyer during the AWiA conference weekend, 17-19 August 2018.

AWiA have represented a community of women who have sought to change the national narratives surrounding rural women. In the story of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement, the AWiA holds a crucial position, connecting rural women with government, globalising the movement, and fostering a community of support amongst its members. The AWiA has always had its eyes set firmly on the future of women in agriculture, however, the 2018 Conference also represented an opportunity to reflect on how far they have come, not just as an organisation, but as a vital part of a globally significant movement. Walking through the historical display of timelines and photos that was afforded pride of place in the foyer was an apt reminder of the strength and value of rural women working together to support one another.

A photo depicting founding AWiA members Lynett Griffith, Dorothy Dunn and Cathy McGowan in 1994. Photo: this photo was displayed in the conference foyer during the AWiA conference weekend, 17-19 August 2018.

The 25 Year Anniversary conference was a testament to the importance of women in agriculture working together, and the strength of women on the land. It was also a lot of fun! Some highlights for me included the chance to hear from some of the impressive women who have loomed large throughout my own research including Cathy McGowan, Val Lang and Elaine Paton. Particularly exciting was Margaret Alston’s and Alana Johnson’s inspiring reminder of the founding principles which have informed past battles, and that will be taken by AWiA into the future; ‘recognition, representation and rights’. In an address at the Gala Dinner, Alana Johnson reflected:

I think there’s absolute commitment by both men and women, that involving women in the agricultural sector is a critical part to our future. So I think we can feel really hopeful, that all you young women will take your rightful place there. And we can thank the work of Australian Women in Agriculture for this.

Jessie mingling with conference delegates at the Friday night opening cocktail event held at the Shepparton Motor Museum. Photo (left to right): Jessie Matheson (PhD, Invisible Farmer Project, University of Melbourne), Laura Coady (PhD, Invisible Farmer Project, Monash University), Maria Brown-Shephard (AWiA Board Member) and Alana Johnson (AWiA Founding Member), Photo: Catherine Forge (Museums Victoria).

It was a real honour to be invited to speak alongside such amazing women at this incredible event, reflecting on the history of Australian rural women, and the ways in which the work of AWiA continues to be of vital significance. Below is an edited copy of the speech I gave on the Saturday morning of the Conference, in a morning session shared with titled, ‘Looking Back at Australian Women in Agriculture?  For a full conference program, click here.

‘Domestic Duties’: Why the ways in which women’s work is defined matters

Hello, my name is Jessie Matheson and I am a PhD student at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with Museums Victoria. Firstly, I want to thank you for welcoming me here today, I am in awe of what is achieved at these events and the powerful role you have all played in Australian agriculture. I’m particularly excited to be speaking to you all here, I was born in Shepparton, and I can’t think of a better place to celebrate the achievements of women in Agriculture.

The Shepparton Fruit Preserving Co, circa 1930. Image: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/2317

My PhD is on the history of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement- a daunting topic considering I am proposing to write a history that you all have, and are, living! For those that might not be familiar with the term “Rural Women’s Movement”, what I’m referring to here is the amazing groundswell of rural women’s activism and activity that began in the 1980s-1990s in Australia, seeking to recognise and encourage the incredible and vital work women are doing, and have been doing on the land for generations.

An image from the Rural Women's Movement: women at a welding workshop during the 1994 Glenormiston Women on Farms Gathering, Victoria, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/4342

Some examples of this include; the vital role women played in the Landcare movement, the formation of the Rural Women’s Network in 1986, the Women on Farms Gatherings which began in Warragul in 1990, and, of course, the formation of Australian Women in Ag, 25 years ago! For the next few years I will be using as well as helping to build archives that document this work. This includes the archives of the Australian Women in Agriculture, and the recording of oral histories, both of which are going to be crucial to constructing a picture of the movement.

A significant publication during the Rural Women's Movement: the Victorian Rural Women's Network Magazine, 1989. To read more about the Rural Women's Network, check out this interview with early founders of the Network Anna Lottkowitz and Jenni Mitchell: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/14503

I’m so excited to be doing this work. I’m deeply passionate about women’s history, and I truly believe heritage and historical context are crucial when telling any story. The Rural Women’s Movement is a great example of that. It was, and is, incredible because of what it was responding to, and the context within which it emerged. I thought I’d use my time today to offer some stories of women on the land, because I think they make the fact we are here today all the more impressive.

Henry Haylyn Hayter, Census of Victoria, 1891, General Report.

I wonder if any one recognises this (above image)? It may be boring and benign looking, but it is crucial to the history of how rural women have been documented in this country;

 Another important change in the Census tabulation was made in reference to the wives and grown-up daughters of farmers, all of whom at previous Censuses were tabulated as engaged in agricultural pursuits unless some other occupation was entered. Although no doubt the female relatives of farmers, if living on the farm, attend as a rule to the lighter duties of the poultry-yard and dairy, it was felt by the Conference [of statisticians] that the statement that so many females were engaged in agricultural pursuits would create an impression elsewhere that women were in the habit of working in the fields as they were in some of the older countries of the world, but certainly not in Australia. It was therefore decided not to class any women as engaged in agricultural pursuits except those respecting whom words were entered expressing that they were so occupied, the others to be classed in the same way as other women respecting whom no employment was entered - under the head of Domestic Duties.

This mouthful was written by a man named Henry Haylyn Hayter in 1891, justifying the decision not to classify farm work done by women as farm work. Can you imagine, in 1891, all the manual labour that those women did? This quote boggles my mind, because he starts by acknowledging the work women do, in fact, he acknowledges that before now- they were reported as working in agriculture. He then goes on to openly advocate for hiding that work in the statistics, not for the good of the women, not for the good of farms or rural communities, but because of how it would make Australia look. This change was made, women were thrown under the bus, in the name of ‘protecting’ Australia’s reputation.

Eloise Vinen hand milking cows at Channel Farm, Nyah West, near Swan Hill, 1924. Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/773890

What’s more frustrating, is that he succeeded. The myth that women did not work on the land, that the work they did, did not constitute farming persisted into the twentieth century as policy makers, statisticians, cultural commentators, and historians looked to this census data to find; rural women doing ‘Domestic Duties’, whatever that meant.

Only recently have researchers been challenging this. A few years ago, the historian Kathryn M. Hunter had the idea of looking at the local council rates books to fill in this story of farm women and their supposed domestic duties. She found that between 1880-1930 women rate-payers represented between 5-25% of ratepayers in rural shires. 7% of farms here in Shepparton had their rates paid for by women, those women held an average of 204 acres each.

A single woman driving a horse and cart in an orchard in Merrigum, near Shepparton, circa 1910

Most importantly, when these women paid their rates they would write their profession, and suddenly ‘domestic duties’ became ‘grazier’ and ‘farmer’ or  ‘dairy maid’, ‘milk woman’, ‘apiarist’ and ‘orchardist’. Hunter also found land-owning women who were butchers, publicans, factory-owners, hotel-keepers, nurses, dressmakers and postmistresses. What a more interesting picture, this paints! When women are given space to define themselves we see the full diversity of rural Australia, and the many fronts on which women contribute to these communities.

Women and children working on irrigation channels near Shepparton in the small town of Merrigum, circa 1910-1920. Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/765157

We also see that women have been farming this land as long as we’ve been here, that the labour of these women has always been part of rural culture and the rural economy, yet for generations, when the question of rural women came before policy makers all we saw was ‘domestic duties’. Even in these rate books, the notion that women’s work was not farming spread; the rates of land-owning women did not decrease, however, Hunter found that over time, the numbers of women self-identifying as farmers, did.

Aboriginal Australian women fishing in Lake Tyers, Victoria, ca. 1867 Charles Walter. Source: National Library of Australia .

The history of women farming in this country started long before Henry Haylyn Hayter. Indigenous women had been fishing and farming this land for generations, and only recently has the work of Elizabeth MacArthur bringing the wool industry to Australia been properly acknowledged.

Author of this novel Michelle Scott Tucker spoke at the AWiA Conference after Jessie and argued that Elizabeth should be a "household name".

My early research has uncovered countless women in rural communities and on farms doing incredible work in the most impossible of circumstances, like Ellen Kelly, mother of Ned who relied on her family knowledge of dairying, and a sly grog shop, to get by after being widowed at 34. There are other, less well-known people like Annie Smith, a World War One nurse who took up a solider settlement in Victoria, and would trade nursing advice for free labour. She also helped soldiers who had returned to the community suffering shell shock. Or Vera Adamthwaite, from Kerang who joined the Country Party in 1950 and advocated for more women to join politics for decades.

Mrs Kelly and family group outside the Kelly homestead, ca 1881. Source: State Library of Victoria. 

Even organisations of rural women struggled to achieve national respect and recognition. Consider the Women’s Land Army, who created a community of women working to feed Australia in times of great stress, yet were not permitted to march in the Anzac day parade until 1981, and didn’t receive official medals until 2012.

Australian Women's Land Army, 1942- 1945: Source: Australian War Memorial. 

There are recurring themes in so many of these stories; invariably these women face the judgements and prejudices of the State, or even just from what the ‘national cultural expectations were’, but thanks to their own personal determination, and usually with help from their local communities- these women are nothing if not master networkers- they make prosperous lives for themselves, and go on to feed our nation, not just in the literal sense, but in a cultural sense.

I hope I’ve made clear, all these women were farmers- in a number of different senses- and their communities recognised and valued the work they did- yet on a national level, they weren’t recognised.

Case Study: The Mildura Fruit Picker's Case

There is one case in particular which has fascinated me; The Rural Workers’ Union and South Australian United Labourers’ Union vs Australian Dried Fruits Association and Others case, which today is better known has the Mildura Fruit Pickers Case. In 1912 a group of women, in front of their bosses and an almost entirely male court room argued for higher wages. Women’s wages had been fixed at a permanently lower rate since the Harvester Judgement in 1907, now in front of the same judge, they argued that they deserved more for their work. The Harvester Judgement had decreed that men deserved a higher wage because they were required to financially support their family, this legally positioned women as dependents, not providers. When the Mildura Fruit Pickers and Packers took the witness stand they told the court about the work they did on the land to support their families.

A woman and man sorting and packing fruit in Mildura, circa 1905. Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/771247

As with the Rate Books Hunter studied, through this case, we get an insight to the sheer diversity of rural women’s work. The women were all members of the Rural Workers Union. They were all seasonal workers, some were pickers whilst others pitted and packed the fresh and dried fruits. Some came from farm families with their own orchids, and this work was supplementing the family income. Others were supporting whole families on this highly seasonal labour. Some lived in town, others on small properties. Some were married, others widowed, others single and never married. They all earned between three and eight shillings a day, it was standard practice that women would be paid 54% of the male rate.

A woman and man picking and packing fruit in Merrigum near Shepparton, Victoria, circa 1910-1920, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/765101

As a historian, the documents from this court case are an exciting resource; women talk frankly about their work on the land and in the factories, the difficulty of working outdoors in the Mildura climate, which is something I’m sure many women here are more than aware of, and the expertise required to do parts of their jobs. They refuted claims from the opposing lawyers that seasonal work was like a ‘holiday’ and a way for them to earn ‘pocket money’. Male and female workers testified that they worked as fast, and often faster than the male pickers. They also talked about their families, many of them worked alongside their teenage daughters and most of them had a family structure which relied on their income, like Rebecca Tizard a 46-year-old widow, living with four of her five children in a three-bedroom house, and totally relied on her picking income and the income of her children.

Men and women working in an apple orchard in Merrigum near Shepparton, circa 1910s. Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/11549

Ultimately, Justice Higgins ruled partially in the favour of the women. He decided that the women who were picking were doing “men’s work”, and therefore deserved the male wage, however, he found the work of packers to be more “naturally” women’s work, and therefore did not require equal pay. Historians remember the Mildura Fruit Pickers case as the case which legally justified the myth that there was men’s and women’s work, and that women’s work should be paid less.

But I think that by studying the evidence of these women, we see the way rural women work is uniquely unsuited to this division. For starters, who has just one job? Many of these women were at one time or another both pickers and packers, and most of them were doing untold amounts of unpaid labour as mothers, wives and daughters. When we talk about a history of rural women, it’s not sufficient to look at how they define their employment on the census, or how much they are paid. I don’t need to tell you that the labour of rural women is better characterised as an incalculable number of tasks, requiring varying amounts of mental and physical labour, and that their contribution to a family income would be almost impossible to quantify given the levels of unpaid work that is expected of many, if not most women. The experience of rural women teaches researchers like myself that we cannot define work by a wage, we cannot define a home, or home duties by the exterior walls of a house and that we should never, ever define a woman by the job of her husband or father.

Men, women and children sharing the fruit picking duties, Silvan, Victoria, circa pre-1930s, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/774208

By the way, the historian Ruth Ford looked into the background of the women who testified in the Mildura Fruit Pickers Case. Despite describing the back-breaking labour of fruit picking and fruit packing, almost every female member of the Rural Women’s Union described their work as ‘home duties’ on the electoral role. This says two things to me; the first, is that just like in 1891 their work was having a real impact, and was being acknowledged in rural communities, but was not being recognised on a national level. But it says something else too, it says that we need to look at what it means when someone identifies themselves with home duties, or domestic duties, or house wife, or farmer’s wife. Because we are talking about a radically different understanding about what it is to work in and support a home, and what is to be a wife.

The Invisible Farmer 

Let’s fast-forward to 1992, to The Invisible Farmer’s Report, the namesake of our project and a real turning point in terms of how rural women were discussed in government. The report argued that: ‘Once broader social attitudes enable the contribution of farm women to be recognised and visible, then men and women farmers will be able to work together to shape the future of agriculture.’ We could have a whole other conference on the findings of this report; it found what many people had always known to be true, that women play a crucial role on family farms and in rural communities. That this role is often unpaid, often unrecognised and often rendered invisible. It called on governments and policy makers to consider the experience of rural women and the debt Australia owes their labour.

Julie Williams, author of the Invisible Farmer Report in 1992. To read more about this report and it's significant to the Rural Women's Movement, head over to Museums Victoria's collections here: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/14509

But I wanted to end with one final thought, or, I guess, a question. What do you think of the title, our name, 'The Invisible Farmer Project'? My first instinct was to react against it, I thought to myself; ‘how silly, women have been on our land forever, women have been sharing their stories and forming communities forever, who are we to call them invisible?’ But then I thought to myself that the term invisible does not suggest that something isn’t there, it suggests that someone is unable or unwilling to see it. My work is about making your work, and the work of the women on the land that came before you easier to see, especially to people who may not want to. Easier to see to all the people that were fooled by Henry Haylyn Hayter’s amendment to the census almost 100 years before the first Australian Women in Agriculture Conference, 99 years before the Invisible Farmer Report. 

A powerful visual demonstration of "invisibility" and what happens if you type the words "Australian Farmer" into Google in 2018 - the majority of images representing men. This slide was taken from a previous presentation by Catherine Forge (Museums Victoria, Invisible Farmer Project).

A small sample of stories/images that have been collected thus far by the Invisible Farmer Project, aiming to make women's stories and histories more visible. This slide was taken from a previous presentation by Catherine Forge (Museums Victoria, Invisible Farmer Project).

I would urge you all to consider the ways in which you define your work, and the work of others, and imagine what it could mean to the future generations of women on the land, and also to the men and women who determine national rural policies. I would urge you all to continue the work you are doing, to force people to recognise the work rural women everywhere are doing to sustain our communities and feed our country.

Women participating in a tour during the 25 Year AWiA Conference, 19 August 2018.

I would like to end by asking a favour of all of you; I’ve begun my research by focussing on the context in which the Rural Women’s Movement emerged. My next work will be to collaborate with the women involved to determine the ways in which the Movement was important to them, to you. If you were involved in the Movement, what does it mean to you? What was it that spoke to you, as a woman on the land? Was it the work of the Women on Farms Gatherings and their focus on upskilling, or succession planning? Was it Landcare, and what it expressed about the importance of sustainability or political action? Was it drought policy, which I’m sure is on many of your minds at the moment? Is it something I haven’t even thought of?

Women on a tour at the 1994 Glenormiston Women on Farms Gathering, Source: Museums Victoria. 

I hope I’ve shown today that the stories of rural women are not always in the documents left behind, that the work we are doing on this project is about preserving your stories, and what’s important to you, for future generations.

Finally, I want to congratulate you. I said at the beginning of this presentation that I am in awe of everything the women in this room have achieved and I would like to reiterate that now. The Australian Rural Women’s Movement was unprecedented, and had global implications. This weekend is a celebration of that, and a promise to direct that creative energy towards the next 25 years, and the challenges they will bring, and I am so very grateful for your time.

Get in touch

Were you involved with the Rural Women's Movement? Do you have a story that you would like to share with Jessie? If so, please get in touch with her using the below form:

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Thank you!

Works Cited

 Hayter, Henry Heylyn Census of Victoria, 1891, General Report (Melbourne, 1893)

Williams, Julie ‘The Invisible Farmer- a summary report on Australian farm women’ (Canberra, 1992)

Ford, Ruth. “‘I Am Not Satisfied’: Identity, Unionism and Rural Women’s Labour in 1912 Australia.” History Australia 2, no. 1 (2005): 1–12.

Grimshaw, Patricia, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath, and Marian Quartly. Creating a Nation. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1994.

Hunter, Kathryn M. “The Drover’s Wife and the Drover’s Daughter: Histories of Single Farming Women and Debates in Australian Historiography.” Rural History 12, no. 2 (2001): 179–94.

Lake, Marilyn. “Annie Smith: ‘Soldier Settler.’” In Double Time: Women in Victoria - 150 Years, edited by Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly, 297–305. Ringwood: Penguin Books Australia, 1985.

———. “The Trials of Ellen Kelly.” In Double Time: Women in Victoria - 150 Years, edited by Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly, 86–97. Ringwood: Penguin Books Australia, 1985.

Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu : Black Seeds Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books, 2014.

Tucker, Michelle Scott. Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2018.

White, Kate. “Vera Adamthwaite: A Countrywoman in Politics.” In Double Time: Women in Victoria - 150 Years, edited by Marilyn Lake and Farley Kelly, 431–37. Ringwood, 1985. 

"A Rewarding Career in Ag'": Rayali Banerjee

Rayali Banerjee was born in India and spent her childhood in Malaysia and Singapore before her family moved to Australia in 2003. Rayali became fascinated by farming and agriculture whilst travelling in rural India at the age of 13. She went on to study a double degree in Agricultural Sciences and Business at La Trobe University (Melbourne) and is now pursuing a career in Australian agriculture. She is currently working as a graduate Analyst in the Regional and Agribusiness Banking segment at Commonwealth Bank. In this blog post Rayali reflects on what she learnt during her travels through India, her experiences of studying Ag at University and working in the Ag sector, along with the challenges and highlights of coming from a non-farming background. She also leaves her readers with a call to action and encourages YOU to get in touch if you have further questions about pursuing a career in Ag.

Rayali Banerjee on a farm in Temora, New South Wales.

Dear readers,

My name is Rayali Banerjee and I have just completed a double degree in Agricultural Sciences and Business at La Trobe University, Bundoora. I was approached by the college of Science, Health and Engineering to share my story regarding my motivations for undertaking a degree in Agriculture (Ag), the challenges I faced not being from a farming background and the opportunities I chased that allowed me to kick-start a rewarding career in Ag.

My Background and Journey into Studying Agriculture

To give you a bit of a background about myself, I was born in India then moved to Malaysia with my family and lived in Kuala Lumpur for 2 years. My family then moved to Singapore and we lived there for 6 years before moving to Melbourne in 2003. Growing up in Singapore and Malaysia I had a childhood that was predominantly "urban" due to the fact that I was surrounded by concrete jungles and high-rise apartments. I certainly did not grow up on a farm, however I was drawn to nature and animals from a young age and remember dragging my parents along to playgrounds and interacting with wildlife at the local zoo or beach. 

Rayali enjoying an outdoor park in Singapore as a toddler.  

Although I didn't grow up on a farm, agriculture and its challenges have been a part of my life from a young age. I was thirteen when my family took me on a trip to visit my grandparents in Kolkata, India. I remember driving through the countryside on a hot summer’s day to visit some temples (places of worship) when my family stopped to visit a farming community on the way. The images of huts made from straw and clay, wooden beds and lack of infrastructure are still vivid in my memory.

A photo taken in Kolkata, India, showing Rayali (left) holding a baby goat. "This is where it all began", recalls Rayali, "I had my first interactions with farmers in this village, and spoke to them about the farming challenges that they faced." 

As a curious thirteen year old, I questioned some of the farmers about their livelihoods. These farmers spoke to me about their sorrows and desperation they faced trying to save their crops from pests, disease and drought. They mentioned that they did not have access to basic Ag inputs, farm management knowledge and government funding to sustain their livelihoods and feed their families.

This phenomenon led me to ask many questions throughout my teenage years including: how is it that in Australia we always have access to fresh food? How did some of the poorest farmers in India support their families and work towards addressing the nation’s food insecurity issues? How is it that farmers who are unable to sustain their own livelihoods were the happiest and most giving people I had met? When it came to choosing a degree at the end of year 12, I knew I had to study something that allowed me to apply my curious and innovative mind-set and nurture my passion for supporting farmers, the environment and animals.

"This is one of my granddad in his home in Kolkata sharing his wisdom with me. My granddad (and grandmother) is one of my biggest sources for my inspiration and he is currently helping me grow one of my start-ups, even at the age of 81!"
 

"This photo was taken in front of my grandparents house. The man with all the plastic goods on the bicycle does his rounds selling his product everyday in my grandparents neighbourhood."

My mum found the double degree at La Trobe and after speaking with Peter Sale (previous Ag Science course coordinator) at the La Trobe open day, I was convinced that the double degree was the best option for me. An aspect of the degree which appealed to me was the 3-month work experience component which equips students with vital hands-on experiences. I remember that on my first day of University I was so excited to get to class that I forgot which buses and trains I needed to take to get there! Luckily, I left three hours before my class began and made it just in time.

A photo during Rayali's studies at La Trobe University: "This photo shows a stall that I set up at La Trobe. Along with my course co-ordinator and professors, I attended the La Trobe open day where I was speaking to students from year 10-12 about careers in Ag and advocating for the Ag Science degree at La Trobe (one of the best ones going around)!"

Looking back, the first year of Uni was the hardest as I had big goals that I wanted to achieve but those goals seemed distant as I struggled to understand basic Ag concepts. When I spoke to my peers who had grown up on farms, they were always on top of the content and through many discussions it became evident that coming from a farm helped immensely. However, I did not let this stop me and although I did not know it at the time, I believe with the benefit of hindsight that coming from a non-farming background was actually the biggest advantage I had.
 

Agricultural Work Experience in Bangalore, India

Throughout first year, I was knocked back from several internships so I began to brain storm ways in which I could turn my adversities into opportunities. I thought about the reason I wanted to study Ag which is my passion for enhancing the livelihoods of farmers. To act on this passion, I liaised with the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India who accepted me as a student intern and allowed me to have the experience of a lifetime. Upon arriving in Bangalore and working with farmers, I immediately noticed that not much had changed. Farmers still did not receive funding from the government and lacked basic farm management skills.

Rayali whilst interning with the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India. Here she learns how to till soil manually with a local farming group.

Rayali sharing some chocolate with a local boy in Bangalore, India.

I worked with a senior agronomist who provided agronomy services to thousands of farmers and this meant he did not have time to advocate for farmers’ rights. This fuelled my motivation to make a difference in the lives of as many farmers as I could reach. I worked 14 hour days, seven days a week to put my plan into action. I compiled research and travelled to many parts of Bangalore to speak to local governments regarding funding, I conducted industry workshops to empower farmers to start selling their produce nationally and internationally and worked with agronomists to generate integrated pest management (IPM) programs.

"The village Panchpir where I was working with smallholder farmers. In this photo, I had just bought the kids some chips and chocolate (shop pictured behind us)."

"This is an innovative version of a pesticide sprayer made from an old scooter", says Rayali. 

It was such a thrill to see that my hard work started to pay off during and after my work in Bangalore; many farmers began to successfully implement and see reduction in pest populations; they also began to sell outside local markets and secure funding from their local government for basic Ag inputs such as pesticide sprayers and fertilizers. This experience was exhilarating, rewarding and fulfilling. As well as the direct Ag work, I also enjoyed being able to work with younger Bangalore students and help to teach them English in the classroom, as well as sharing stories with this younger generation about farming in both Australia and Bangalore. It was an amazing overseas internship opportunity and I learnt a lot.

Rayali teaching students English in a classroom in Bangalore.

The power of networking and persisting despite setbacks 

Once I arrived back in Australia, I took the energy and inspiration that this project had given me and decided to do something meaningful with it. I knew I still had a long way to go to develop and nurture my leadership skills and experiences in the Ag industry and I wanted to gain more experience to implement this. I applied for an internship with a multinational (MNC) company (Syngenta) that I had been following for a few years. I took the knowledge I had and thoroughly prepared for the interview. I found out a few weeks later that I did not get through and although it was another setback, I immediately started brainstorming ways I could create an opportunity with this company.

I had been following a senior leader who worked for Syngenta on social media for a while and although he was based in Singapore at the time, he was attending a conference in Melbourne and I jumped with joy as I thought I had finally figured out a way to meet him. The next barrier to entry was that the conference entry was $2500 USD. However, I did not allow this to be a barrier and I picked up the phone and called the company who were organising the event. They were based in New York and Hong Kong and so that involved a lot of late nights, emails and persistence. I was finally given the opportunity to attend this conference where I would be amongst Australian and international leaders in agribusiness, members of the government and producers.

Rayali believes that conferences and public Ag events provide a great opportunity for networking and career growth. Image taken at an Intercollegiate Meat Judging Association (ICMJ) event that Rayali competed in. 

Throughout the day of the conference, I had the opportunity to listen to inspiring, funny and insightful panel speakers. I remember during the first break I was looking around at a room full of CEO’s and thinking “how do I approach someone so successful without anything to offer?” To overcome my thoughts and insecurities, I pictured the big goals I had in my mind and I took a leap of faith and approached the Managing Director of a successful Australian agribusiness. The conversation I had ended up being one of the most important to date.

During the next few breaks, I spoke to almost everyone who attended the conference and through my conversations with the attendees, I realised that my passion and my willingness to go above and beyond was my strongest asset. Attending this conference was a turning point for me as I met some of my most inspiring mentors here. During the conference, I wrote down every piece of information I was given and afterwards, I followed up with all the connections I made. Because of my persistence and willingness to step out of my comfort zone, I was given the opportunity to undertake an internship with a Melbourne based agribusiness and the MNC that had knocked me back just a few months prior.

Part of Rayali's work experience and internship: "Here I'm immersing myself in beekeeping. On a side note, did you know that 65% of agricultural production in Australia depends on pollination by European honeybees and that one in every three mouthfuls of food that we consume comes from the aid of pollination by honeybees!" 

During my time working with the Melbourne based business, goFARM,go I had some amazing hands-on experiences on farms and spent a lot of time with beekeepers, biosecurity officers, farmers and on the company farms that grew grains (wheat and barley).  My work was wide and varied; I researched and investigated potential investment opportunities in the apiculture industry; I learnt about bee keeping and visited apiculture farms; developed an understanding of agricultural asset management, due diligence and return potentials for various high value cash crops; generated cash flow and predictive models relating to current and future investments; managed goFARM's relationship with leading apiculture professionals and provided recommendations and strategies for investment opportunities in apiculture to senior board members and stakeholders. 

Part of Rayali's work experience and internship involved visiting lots of farms, including grain farms: "grain bags filled with grain right after harvest has finished. Grain bags are suited for short-term, high volume grains to assist with harvest logistics."

During my internship I always had access to senior management and worked in an environment where I was encouraged to make the project I was given my own. I was supported to travel, visit farms, network with stakeholders, attend conferences and undertake any opportunity which I deemed would be necessary for the success of the project. I also had the opportunity to present and make my own recommendations to the board. These experiences boosted my confidence, equipped me with essential corporate skills, allowed me to strengthen my networks and make a positive contribution in an industry I am passionate about. Having access to senior management was incredible as I learnt about each team member’s journey regarding where they began their career, challenges they faced and the successes they made from their hardships.

Travelling throughout developing countries in Asia

After this stint, I travelled around Asia with Syngenta and I was able to make a contribution towards Ag in developing countries. During these travels I met some incredible people and learned about new methods of farming. Together with community members and farmers that I met, we worked towards creating initiatives that would enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers; an essential part of these initiatives was the time I spent communicating with many smallholder farming communities.

"This is me with a bunch of smart primary school kids who are ecstatic to have had a system built in their school which will provide them with access to clean drinking water." Photo taken during Rayali's travels throughout Asia.

This travel and work was busy and exciting - I immersed myself in corporate social responsibility projects, flew to a new city almost every day, networked with members of government and the global Syngenta team, learned how to breed rice for varying climatic and soil conditions and implemented apps and created business plans which support the efficacy of data collection in Ag systems. The words that come to mind when I reflect on these overseas experiences are inspiring, challenging and life-changing. 

"Sharing jokes with Naik, a woman who advocates and inspires other women to pursue a career in Ag."

Pursuing my career in Australian Ag

After arriving back in Melbourne, I continued to network with everyone I had interacted with during my internships. Alongside this, the inspiring experiences I had with passionate people continue to fuel my own passion for Ag. This allows me to implement my life motto which is to wake up every day and pursue my passion in Ag. I continued to attend national and international conferences, grow my network and strengthen my understanding of Australian Ag by competing in various student based agricultural competitions and gained hands-on experience in farm management through working in dairy, cropping and beef properties as well as on a research farm. These empowering experiences added value to my personal brand and equipped me with essential soft skills. I was able to secure a job before I graduated with Commonwealth Bank in their Regional and Agribusiness Banking graduate program.

Rayali gaining work experience on an oyster farm in Wonboyn, New South Wales.

Words cannot describe the extent to which these experiences, leadership opportunities and my academic and professional mentors have inspired me to excel in my studies and supported me to kick-start my career in Ag. Once I had a clear picture and a pathway to my goals, I went from being a credit average student to a high distinction student. Because of the inspiration, motivation and life-changing experiences I have transformed into someone who is constantly seeking knowledge, creating ideas, innovating and curious about all things Aussie Ag. I have found that not being from a farm has been the biggest blessing as I am always questioning the norm and providing solutions to do things differently and more efficiently in farming systems.

Rayali gaining work experience at a cropping farm in Balranald, New South Wales.

Aspirations to make a difference and help others

From a young age, I have undertaken humanitarian work with charities, orphanages, animal welfare organisations and in various other areas. In my spare time, I teach English to Sudanese refugees, mentor young students, travel to developing countries once a year and run different initiatives to empower smallholder farming communities. My humanitarian-focused philosophy has been ingrained in my mind-set since I was very young. This, alongside my experiences in the Ag industry so far, has instilled my aspirations to make a difference in the lives of farmers, farming communities and provide the opportunities I have had to students studying agriculture and any related degrees.

Rayali's graduation in December 2017, La Trobe University.

I have founded two start-ups because of my personal philosophy. The first is focussed on providing sustainable and affordable electricity to rural communities in developing countries. The second is a national initiative which is all about connecting consumers and farmers and providing students with access to global internships, career boot camps, conferences and mentoring opportunities. I encourage my readers to get in touch with me if you would like to hear more, get involved, take up internship and conference opportunities and fast-track your career in Ag. Even if you are not studying Ag and want to know how to find your own path, or learn more about Agriculture, get in touch with me as I run a mentoring initiative part of which aims to educate young people about careers in Ag. 
 

Rayali on a farm in Temora, New South Wales.

Advice to young women considering a career in Ag

Here are the most important lessons I have learned so far. I hope these lessons inspire you to begin your own journey into an area you love:

1.     When choosing a degree, make sure you study a topic or many topics that you are curious about. If you have a vague idea about what you like studying, follow it and take every opportunity to unravel the layers to discover what your passion is. You could start by joining student associations, attending career fairs, networking events and undertaking internships. Don’t study a degree for the sake of it or because it’s what your friends and family want you to do. Do your research, talk to people in your chosen industry and find out about the career opportunities.

2.     When you come across an interesting organisation, pick up the phone and give them a call. Most of you probably have unlimited calls to Australian numbers and you may have minutes allocated for international numbers too. Employers love initiative!

3.     Make sure that you have a coffee with EVERYONE. You never know where it will take you, what you can learn from them, how you can make an impact in their life and what opportunities will come out of it.

4.     It is quite normal to have a vision about life and how it should work out. However, if it doesn’t happen and we have setbacks, we often think of giving up. But life is a test and a trial and tests are not meant to be easy. If you are expecting ease from life and life gives you lemons, make lemonade and do not blame life for that. It is OKAY to fail, fall and have setbacks. When you fail, accept the failure, get back up and work even harder to achieve that goal, because you value the hard work it takes to set yourself on the path to success.

5.     Break down your goals into yearly, monthly and daily goals. When I used to glance over an entire semesters worth of work, I would stress about the quantity of the content. I soon realised that we all have the potential to do more if we break things down. My daily goal was to read five chapters a day but break it down to complete one chapter an hour. After each hour, I would then take a break and do something I love such as tend to my garden, ride my bike or chat to my family. To achieve your goals, you must apply discipline and be consistent everyday. When you begin the semester, plan ahead and strategically write down what you wish to accomplish everyday. Hard work truly works. You will feel successful after the semester is over when you reflect on your accomplishments. Do not be afraid to jump in joy when you have succeeded in something you set your mind on but remember to keep moving forward.

6.     Once you find yourself running forward and progressing along your path, don’t forget to look behind you and help someone else out. Don’t aspire to just make a living, aspire to make a contribution in all walks of life.

7.     Soak up the perks of being a student especially when it comes to attending events, reaching out to your teachers and interacting with leaders and peers in your chosen industry. Do not forget that you are the future of the industry and employers, companies and leaders who are already established want you to flourish to ensure the future of that industry stays successful.

8.     Happiness in life, career, studies and other aspects that you value lies in gratitude so take the time to reflect on how far you have come. Be grateful and make the most of each and every moment. 

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'My deep connection to agriculture': how 21-year-old Laura Lewis quit her academic studies in Melbourne to pursue a lifelong dream to live and work on an Outback station

By Laura Lewis

21-year-old Laura Lewis grew up on her family's sheep and cropping farm in Nerrin Nerrin, Western Victoria, and now lives and works at Riveren Station in the Northern Territory. She is passionate about the agricultural industry and is currently studying a Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management by correspondence with Charles Sturt University (Wagga Wagga). We would like to thank Laura for submitting this story about how she came to find herself working in the Australian Outback, and what led her to quit a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne to pursue her passion for farming, agriculture and Outback life.

Laura Lewis on horseback at Riveren Station, Northern Territory, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

I grew up on my parents’ sheep and cropping farm, Nerrin Nerrin, in Western Victoria. I am the middle daughter of three girls. Having all daughters ultimately forced my dad to have a gender-equal workplace – whether he wanted to or not! But, especially as we entered our teens, Dad loved capitalising on his home-grown workforce. Having my incredibly capable mother involved on Nerrin as a role model also shined the way for us to have confidence in our own strength and brains, just as she did on the farm. Mum’s work was limitless and included mustering and working sheep with quad bikes and kelpies, all the yard work from drafting to drenching to rousabouting at shearing and crutching, operating a plethora of machinery for both the sheep side and cropping side of the farm (such as front-end loaders and tractors for feeding sheep), working the paddocks for sowing, and then learning to operate the air-seeder and boom-spray, carting grain with chaser bins and trucks, and spending endless hours on the header at harvest time. We did all of these jobs between the ages of 12 and 18. I remember that, at the time, I didn’t feel all that capable when compared to a lot of other farm kids, and it wasn’t until much later that I came to have a little pride in what we did as kids for our family farm.

Laura as a child on the family farm in Nerrin Nerrin, Victoria, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

Laura as a child with her two sister on the family farm in Nerrin Nerrin, Victoria, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

When I finished high school in 2015, my favourite subjects were English Literature, Music and French. I felt that I had two distinct sides of myself each pulling me in a different direction for my future – my love for language and my deep connection to agriculture. My ATAR score was good enough that I could do whatever I wanted, but I felt that this made my choice that much harder. After hours of emotional deliberation, I enrolled to study a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne and commenced in February 2016. I hated it! I rang my mum in tears night after night, wondering why I wasn’t happy. Not only did I feel like I didn’t fit in, but I couldn’t find any sense in what I was studying – where would this lead me? How could I use this degree to live a life that I wanted? I spent exactly four weeks living on campus at Ormond College and studying the degree. Eventually, in one of our teary phone calls, Mum said to me; “It’s ok Laura. You can stop if you want. You always have a job on the farm if you want it.” So, I deferred the next day and returned home to Nerrin to work for the next 5 months, paying back my parents for the cost of college.

Laura and her sister Alice on the family farm in Nerrin Nerrin, Victoria, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

Frustratingly, I was still unhappy. I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Like I was doing the same things over and over and not learning anything new. I wanted more. My Mum, younger sister Alice and I went on a road trip that June around country New South Wales (NSW). We visited a few friends on sheep and cattle stations around there. The weekend that I turned 19, we were at a friend’s station near Lightning Ridge, NSW, and I was inspired. I decided I was going to look for a job on a station. It was something I’d always dreamed of doing, but never felt like I was capable enough. I didn’t care where the station was and I didn’t care if it was sheep or cattle – I just wanted to try it. I was terrified and doubted myself immensely – I had no experience with cattle or horses or anything like that, and above all, I just didn’t think I was tough enough to handle station work or lifestyle. Nonetheless, I eventually got a job through my parents’ friends on a cattle station called Inverway, in remote NT, as a gardener (with no experience in gardening). I arrived mid-July 2016.

A road trip selfie from Laura's travels with her mother and sister in the New South Wales Outback, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

A road trip photo from Laura's travels in the New South Wales Outback, Clay Pan, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

I remember my first few phone calls to my parents. They said it was happiest I had ever sounded. And I was! After a few weeks, one of the backpackers in the stock-camp left. I pestered our headstock-person, a girl named Samantha, every single night to tell the manager she needed an extra pair of hands for the next day’s job so that I could come along. Eventually, everyone just accepted that I was part of the stock-camp! And I absolutely loved it. I was learning something new every single day. I was using muscles I had never used before and falling into bed every night exhausted and exhilarated. I learnt to ride a two-wheeled motorbike and a horse, and to use them to muster cattle. I learnt to work cattle in a yard starting with the simplest things like vaccinating, ear-tagging and working the race, and moving up to things like pound-drafting, working the back-yards and dehorning at branding. I had my fair share of injuries, and during that September spent 2 weeks in Darwin Hospital after I jammed my finger in a gate and a cow collided with it, chopping off the top of my finger. It was in those two weeks that I decided to return the next year after the wet season – I knew I hadn’t had enough of the experience yet and, besides, I still didn’t know if or what I wanted to study.

Saddling up at Inverway Station, Northern Territory, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

Mustering at Inverway Station, Northern Territory, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

In 2017 I spent a full year in the stock-camp on that same station. I continued to learn so much and grow my skill-base, including doing jobs such as bore-running and road building. That year, our stock-camp was made up of 5 females and 3 males. It was a great balance, and all the girls stepped up to take on jobs that I had only ever seen done by boys. It was inspiring; every shred of praise I got from our head stockman, Rick, or our manager, Gavin, I held on to for weeks. I wanted to be the best and the strongest and the most efficient at everything! It was tiring but I loved it.

Helicopter mustering whilst working at Inverway Station, Northern Territory, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

The neighbouring station was owned by the same company as us, and we shared a helicopter for mustering, which meant their pilot, Jamie, was often working and living with us at Inverway. I fell for him as soon as I met him, back in mid-2016, but we didn’t start ‘dating’ (as much as you can ‘date’ someone 600 kilometres from the nearest town!) until mid-2017 when he had moved to Inverway to be the overseer. By the close of the year, he and I had been offered the overseer’s position at the neighbouring station. I was incredibly nervous, having only been working on a station for barely 18 months, but I see now that this job is by no means for one person. Despite dealing with the odd accusation of having ‘slept my way to the top’, I know I can maintain that I have enough skills and natural leadership to uphold this position with pride.

Helicopter mustering whilst working at Inverway Station, Northern Territory, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

So just before Christmas in 2017, we moved next door (150kms away) to Riveren Station. It is now mid-June and we have been overseeing the workings of this cattle station for over 6 months. I am mostly in the office or bore running, as well as managing my garden (not sure if 2016 me would have seen this coming – back in the garden)! We have a crew of 10 staff; some complete rookies and some who’ve been working in the industry for 10 or more years. I have definitely found this hard – not only from having just 2 years of station experience, but appearing to be in a position of authority because of my relationship status. I’ve learnt to select wisely the people whose opinion matters to me, and to always be able to prove myself if I ever feel the need. Every so often, I get called out to fill in for a yard day or branding, and it’s definitely satisfying to remind everyone, including myself, that I can do this work just as well as the next ringer. Every single day presents new challenges. As with any agricultural enterprise, sometimes we hate it and sometimes we love it. Most of the time though, I just can’t imagine living anywhere else or doing anything else.

Laura with her partner Jamie, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

A common daily view for Laura as she studies her Bachelor of Agricultural Business remotely, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

Just before we moved over to Riveren, I applied to study a Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management, part time, by correspondence with Charles Sturt University in Wagga. I have just finished exams for my first completed semester, which I had to do at Inverway with my old boss as my examiner, as I’m too far from a remote exam centre! While figuring out the work/uni/life balance has been, and still is, a challenge, I am really enjoying not only stretching my brain again, but being a part of a community striving for change in the agricultural industry. It was actually through one of my subjects that I came across the Invisible Farmer Project and came to be sharing my story today.

Laura captions this photo of herself, 'demonstrating OHS principles in the office'! For Laura, her duties include a combination of office work and outdoor work, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

I think that the most important idea I want to share with women through this platform is, to not be afraid. I know it’s intimidating stepping into an industry that appears to be dominated by males – but, in truth, there are women everywhere out here. I was always scared that I wouldn’t be ‘tough’ enough to measure up with the ringers out here, especially the boys. But I am, and you can be too! It’s all about getting through that first step of ‘scary’ and being open to learning. If you always aim to be the hardest worker in the yard, people will want to teach you. Once you’ve started, opportunities keep arising and things happen. Your knowledge and skills and strength, both physical and mental, will compound and grow. Try to have the confidence to start – to make that first baby step, whether it’s asking around for any kind of farm work or moving to the territory as a gardener with a secret plan to become a station hand! Whatever it is, there is an ever-growing place for women in agriculture – make the most of it! I'm sure glad I had enough confidence to make my first step into the ‘scary’. I hope you all will be too.

Laura with two of her female colleagues at Riveren Station, image supplied by Laura Lewis.

'Something Magical about Farming': 24-year-old Emily Mueller of Glenbrook Dairy, Murray Bridge, South Australia

By Catherine Forge (Curator, Invisible Farmer Project, Museums Victoria) with Emily Mueller (Farmer, Murray Bridge, South Australia)

Industry: Dairy farming
Name of enterprise: Glenbrook Dairy
Location: Murray Bridge, South Australia

Emily Mueller photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, South Australia, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243774

Emily's Story:

‘I’ve been around farming my whole life so it’s second nature to me… I guess it’s hard to get it out of your blood when you’ve been around it so long… I’m just passionate about the farm.’

24-year-old Emily Mueller [nee Miegel] was born in Murray Bridge, South Australia, in 1994 and spent her childhood and teenage years growing up in Coonalpyn and Murray Bridge with her family. Emily’s family were livestock and grain farmers, and Emily reflects that farming was in her blood from a young age. As a child and teenager Emily worked both indoors, and outdoors. 'I have fond memories in the shearing shed and being in the piggery doing daily duties', she recalls: 'The best part of living on the farm was walking up through the paddock to Grandma's house to do some baking, and I also loved tractor rides with my Dad, and having little lambs to look after.'

Young Emily and her brother with lambs on the family farm, image supplied.

Emily as a child holding her toy cow, image supplied. 

Emily Mueller photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243766

With her passion for agriculture only growing as she got older, Emily was educated at Urrbrae Agricultural High School and subsequently completed a TAFE certificate 3 in Business. ‘I knew from a pretty young age that I wanted to be a farmer’, reflects Emily: ‘I guess it’s just that interaction with the land, interaction with the livestock, and just that feeling of being on the farm is an incredible thing. You just can’t put it into words.’

Emily Mueller photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, South Australia, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243771

Emily holds a firm belief that there's ‘something magical about farming’, and in many ways her own journey into dairy farming has a magical element to it. ‘I always had dreams to marry a farmer’, Emily reflects, and these dreams became a reality when she married her dairy farming husband Trent in 2015. The wedding was held in Murray Bridge with photos taken on Trent’s parent’s farm. ‘We wanted our wedding photos to reflect us’, recalls Emily, and ‘were so happy our photographer was happy to work the farm into our memories.’

Emily Mueller on her wedding day, Murray Bridge, South Australia, photographer: Deb Saunders Photography, Source: supplied, Emily Mueller. 

Emily and Trent Mueller on their wedding day, Murray Bridge, South Australia, photographer: Deb Saunders Photography, Source: supplied, Emily Mueller. 

The fairy-tale for Emily and Trent began years before the wedding though, back in 2009 when the young couple got to know each other through a chance meeting at the Royal Adelaide Show. Trent’s family were presenting a dairy heifer named Begonia at this Show, and Emily took a liking to the sweet-natured, mild-tempered cow:

I went up to Trent’s family, and I asked them if I could borrow this cow, Begonia, to participate in a handlers class… A couple of years after she kept coming to the Adelaide Show and she’s become quite a pet to us now. Trent and I both look at her as being a bit iconic, because she got us together in many ways. She’s a bit special I think.

Young Trent and Emily at the Adelaide Show with Begonia, image supplied.

Emily with her favourite cow, Begonia, photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243754

Emily with her favourite cow, Begonia, photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243769

Since marrying in 2015, Emily and Trent have welcomed a daughter, Renae Alma Mueller, and the young family now live and work together – alongside Trent’s parents – on the family farm. Named ‘Glenbrook’, the enterprise produces approximately 3 million litres per year and is spread across three properties; the main dairying operations in Murray Bridge (approximately 500 acres), the cropping and pastures down the road (approximately 1000 acres) and another property in Meningie holding livestock.

Emily Mueller feeding the chooks, Murray Bridge, South Australia, photographed by Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243781

Emily on the farm, Murray Bridge, photographed by Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria; https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243756

Emily currently works on the farm in a number of capacities, both indoors and outdoors, including bookkeeping, accounting, farm safety awareness, cooking, domestic duties, yard work, tending to the animals, maintenance and management of staff. Indoors, she spends more and more time helping her mother-in-law with the book-work: ‘I’m starting to help out doing some book-work, starting with doing some wages and invoices.’ Emily enjoys spreadsheets and computer work, and has been pleased to bring the skills she learnt studying her Certificate 3 in Business at TAFE to the farm business.

Emily Mueller at her laptop computer doing accounting and book-work, photographed by Catherine Forge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243782

Emily is increasingly involved with the outdoor operations on the farm, including the research that goes into milk productivity, breeding and nutrition: ‘I’m starting to learn the milk side of it now, the nutritional side of it – different things that they change in the feed, to different aspects that we can change in the dairy, and to one day make it more productive.’ In order to enhance their farm skills, Trent and Emily attend local Leading in Dairy courses, as well as Farm Safety courses. They have also been actively learning about cow knowledge, and cow breeding, from Trent's father: 'It's incredible the amount of cow knowledge that Trent's Dad has accumulated over the years. I hope we can keep this knowledge alive as well as we can.' Emily believes that there are a lot of benefits from inter-generational farming, and sharing ideas between older and younger generations: 'there are so many various things to learn off the older generation, but then I still also believe there's a lot of things that us younger people can help with, such as doing the wages electronically and so forth.' 

Trent and Emily Mueller photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, South Australia, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243776

More recently, Emily has attended some women’s dairying events, including the 2017 Dairy SA Ladies Luncheon, where she has been able to mingle with other like-minded women in dairy. Emily believes that her connection to the local community has grown through attending courses, events and workshops, and in doing so, she feels that this community networking has helped to enhance and grow her confidence on the farm. ‘I definitely feel like the networking has helped me to learn more about my role on the farm, and to grow more confident in my abilities’, she says.

Developing confidence has been of importance to Emily, particularly given that both her farm work, and her off-farm work at a local pig abattoir, have both seen her working in a ‘very male-dominated sector’. According to Emily, she has sometimes felt the need to prove herself to her male bosses, or break through stereotypes that women can’t perform as well as men:

I think sometimes women aren’t particularly looked favourably on in the farming sectors... Women sometimes find it a bit harder to talk and to portray themselves to male bosses. Just personally, it can be a bit daunting. The males can be a little bit dominating. But it’s good that the women are standing up, and it’s an equal playing field out there now, which is good for the older generation and the males in our industry to see as well. I think males now are starting to realise that if there wasn’t females around, there wouldn’t be much happening. Without the females in their lives, it would be a whole different story. And I guess the older generation is starting to see the capabilities that women bring to the farming industries, which is really good to see.

Emily with her favourite cow, Begonia, photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243772

Reflecting on the older generations in her own family, Emily notes that things are different for her own generation when compared with her grandmother’s generation: ‘I’m thinking back to my grandparents that were on the farm. My grandma stayed inside and cooked and looked after the children.’ Now though, according to Emily, more and more women are taking on multiple roles on the farm and increasingly balancing the domestic roles her grandmother performed with more hands-on outdoor and manual roles. In doing so, Emily believes that these women are helping to change public perceptions about farming and farm life: ‘it’s the women who get out there and really give it a go who are changing the minds of people in the future.’

Emily on the farm photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243777

At Glenbrook Farm, the family’s dairying enterprise has received resumes for contract work from female milkers, and Emily has been happy to see that ‘one: women do put in their resumes for farming and two: it’s not looked negatively upon.’ The farm currently operates with four milking contractors, two of them women:

Half our workforce here on the dairy farm is now female which is just amazing, compared to how it would have been 20 plus years ago. The dairy industry tends to be male-orientated unless you’re born into it or married into it, but it’s good that two of our milkers out of four are female, and they are doing a great job. They are good to the animals, and good to the farm.  

Emily on the farm photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243761

Emily herself doesn’t regularly milk cows, and when asked the question, ‘would you call yourself a farmer?’, she initially responds with hesitation: ‘I wouldn’t technically call myself a farmer’, she answers, ‘but I guess it’s still the stereotype of people thinking that a farmer has to be out on the tractor or milking all the time. When you start thinking about it though, what I do on the farm is really a full time job.’

Emily with her favourite cow, Begonia, photographed by Catherine Forge, Murray Bridge, Source: Museums Victoria: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243773

Emily’s job with Glenbrook Farm is multi-faceted, and her roles are varied and diverse, indoors and outdoors, on-farm and off-farm, domestic and technical. Farming for Emily – and for many women in dairy farming – is a job that incorporates multiple and diverse roles. So while Emily might not always be out milking every day, she plays a vital role on the farm – a role that she hopes will only increase more and more as time goes by:

In the future I want to still be farming. I guess it’s a pretty simple, straightforward answer. It’s something that I’ve always dreamt of continuing to do… I’d love to be a productive farmer and be able to have something which can give back to us in a positive way. Having good, happy, interactive workers, both male and female. Going forward, I’d just love to be able to carry on the good work that our grandparents and parents have set forward for us, and take it into the future.

Emily looking over the farm, Murray Bridge, photographed by Catherine Forge, Source: Catherine Forge.

As she ponders her future and the likelihood of one day inheriting the family farm, Emily is aware of the challenges and hardships associated with dairy farming; the long hours, the tough times, the variable and ever-changing climate and the difficulties that come with working 24/7. ‘You have your hard times’, comments Emily; ‘you’ve got climate to worry about, you’ve got milk prices to worry about, and you’ve got workers to worry about.’ With the recent dairy crisis, Emily is also increasingly aware of mental health concerns among farmers, and the fact that ‘depression in farmers can be very traumatic.’ She hopes that more can be done in the dairy industry to support farmers, and that more can be done to increase consumer awareness of the hard work that goes into producing milk. ‘I guess some people just expect that cows get milked and its simple and just happens’, she says, ‘but they might not be aware of the background work that needs to be working well to be able to produce good milk from good cows.’ Emily has recently been working on a program called the Little Foodies Program, and ‘getting little kids aware of where their food comes from.’ She hopes to get more involved with consumer awareness into the future, and help play a role in promoting the hard work of dairy farmers.

Emily Mueller with her mother-in-law Julie Mueller and baby daughter Renae, Murray Bridge, photographed by Catherine Forge, Source: Catherine Forge.

Towards the end of my interview with Emily, I ask her one more time: ‘would you call yourself a farmer Emily?’. She responds more surely this time:

Yes, now that I’ve had time to think it over, I’m definitely a farmer and  I’m a farmer because it makes me feel happy. That’s about as simple as I could put it. Yes, there’s always a lot of long hours that has to go into farming, but I don’t think that I could imagine not being around the farm now. I’m just passionate about it all – the animals, the land, everything! And I hope we can do our family, and the wider dairying community, proud.

Want to Know More?

• This story was based on an interview conducted between Catherine Forge and Emily Mueller in 2017. Visit Museums Victoria's Collections Online to see a record of this interview, here: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2243744
• Learn about Dairy South Australia here: https://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/about-dairy-australia/dairy-regions/south-australia

2017 Victorian Rural Woman of the Year Kirsten Abernethy on Supporting & Recognising Women in Seafood

By Kirsten Abernethy

Kirsten Abernethy is a fisher-woman, social scientist and researcher based in Port Fairy, Australia. In 2017 Kirsten was awarded Victorian Rural Woman of the Year by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC, now Agrifutures). She used this award to give a voice to women in the seafood sector, and to encourage women to seek out positions of leadership. In this guest blog post Kirsten reflects on her experiences in the fishing industry, along with her hopes for a vibrant and sustainable future for the industry, and the women working within it.

Kirsten under Point Lonsdale Pier, near her parent's house, at the heads to Port Phillip Bay, 2017, image supplied.

My name is Kirsten Abernethy and I have been working in wild-catch fisheries for more than ten years. It is hard to put my finger on how I got here. Unlike most people involved, I don’t have a family history of fishing. I was raised in the suburbs of Melbourne. But on school holidays to the beach, I’d always try to convince someone to go fishing with me. And from the moment I stepped onto my first professional fishing boat I knew I was in this job for life. There is a romance about fishing – they are the last of the hunters. There is also a great potential for a sustainable source of nutritious wild food. I think it is this combination of romance and culture, with my views on sustainability and food security that drew me to fishing. I’ve worked in different capacities in fishing communities - as a researcher, a teacher, and as an advocate. My partner is a fisherman, so I guess we are now starting our own family history in fishing.

Kirsten out abalone diving at Lady Percy Island, Port Fairy, 2017. Kirsten's job as 'deckie' is to meaure each abalone (industry-led data collection used to monitor the fishery) and pack them for sale as a live product, image supplied.

I’ve worked in fisheries around the world, from Cornwall to the Pacific. I have seen a lot of fisheries facing a challenging future. In 2011 to 2014 I worked in the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. These communities absolutely depend on the sea for their food security, and I saw the effects of the changing environment and how the communities were working together to respond. When I came home and started to work with Victorian fisheries, the potential I saw was unique. There is a lot to be proud of in Victoria, and in Australia more generally. Our fisheries are highly ecologically sustainable, often harvested using methods and knowledge passed down through generations in families, and they provide beautiful fresh and healthy local seafood for our tables. Our fishing families are the stewards of the sea, they are our eyes on and under the water, and are fundamental to the fabric, history and identity of our coastal communities.

Kirsten on Ataúro Island, Timor-Leste, in 2012, pictured alongside a local woman selling dried fish. During her time at Timor-Leste, Kirsten worked with a research and development organisation called 'WorldFish' that aimed to better understand the role of women in fisheries and their participation in governance systems, image supplied.

The Slow Food movement in Melbourne has embraced the Victorian fishing industry. Slow Food is an international movement which seeks to preserve local food traditions and reignite people’s interest in the food they eat – where it comes from, how it tastes, and the impact of food choices. Alison Peake, who heads up Slow Food in Melbourne, has become very interested in Victoria’s local sustainable fisheries and ways to support and secure our local sources of seafood. So much so, that Alison and chef Rosa Mitchell decided to showcase the local catch at the inaugural Slow Fish Festival held in April this year in Melbourne.

Locally-caught fish being prepared at the Inaugural Slow Fish Festival, 2018, Photographer: Llawela Forrest.

Books for sale at the Slow Fish Festival, 2018, Photographer: Llawela Forrest.

The Slow Fish Festival went beyond tasting local seafood, as the public learned how to cook seafood, fillet fish, and hear the stories of the fishers and the challenges facing Victorian fisheries. The Slow Fish festival gave consumers the chance to talk to and put a face to the fisher, as well as to those who market, and really understand how seafood gets all the way to Victorian plates. There are sardines caught in Williamstown, sea urchins caught in Port Phillip Bay, and prawns caught in East Gippsland, to name a few. What is clear is that not many people in Victoria know what we have on our doorstep. When they find out what's on offer they want to support our local fisheries, through their purchasing choices, but also politically. The rights of the Victorian seafood consumers to access local fish have not been adequately defended, and we have witnessed a huge reduction in fish caught in Victoria due to competing interests with professional fishing. Now Slow Fish wants to be part of the conversation and demand rights for seafood lovers – the largest stakeholder group given the seas are a public resource. It was an honour to be asked to speak at this Slow Fish Festival, and to be part of Australia's emerging Slow Fish Movement.

Promotional logo for the Inaugural Slow Fish Festival, 2018.

Women mingling at the Slow Fish Festival, 2018,  Photographer: Llawela Forrest.

I feel lucky to have the opportunity to work among passionate, motivated, and innovative women involved in the fishing industry here in my home state - whether they are women who are on the boat or behind the computer supporting the family fishing businesses, women working in the wholesale, processing and retail sectors, women in science and research, or women who want to promote and advocate for local fish on our plates, like Alison and Rosa. I met with a group of women in fishing last week – women who had spent their lives around fishing and the family business and are proud of their industry and what it contributes. Fishing and the way of life is intrinsic to the identity of fishing families, and also to the coastal communities that have depended on it for generations.

Kirsten photographed by Andy Rogers in 2017 for a Weekly Times article, courtesy Weekly Times: https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/victorian-rural-womens-award-nothing-fishy-about-kirstens-win/news-story/185b6e6106cde07046fbacdaef478980

In 2017 I had the honour of being presented with the 2017 Victorian Rural Woman of the Year award. To be honest I was quite surprised to win this award, especially given that the fishing industry is a bit isolated from other agricultural industries. However it was an experience that I am incredibly grateful for, as it has introduced me to women from other sectors and given me the opportunity to promote the work of other women in our industry. I have a firm belief that more needs to be done to support women in the fishing industries. Although women make up half of the worldwide seafood workforce along the chain, less than 5% are represented in decision-making or executive positions. A 2015 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), for example, highlighted that approximately 56 million women work in the seafood industry worldwide, but significant barriers stop the majority of these women from advancing into management and decision-making roles. The report argued that “the work women engage in is often low-paid or unpaid with unofficial status, and this is a barrier to access to financial resources and policy support for these women.”

Kirsten at the RIRDC Rural Women of the Year awards with Westpac sponsor Roddy Brown and rural women's advocate Alana Johnson, image courtesy Alana Johnson, Twitter (@alanatjohnson)

In Australia women have actively networked and lobbied for greater support and recognition. The Women’s Industry Seafood Network Community (WINSC) was established in 1996 and aims to:

• Recognise and enhance the skills of seafood women.
• Develop effective partnerships with government agencies and other industry stakeholders.
• Take a professional approach to all activities and relationships with other stakeholders.
• Create a supportive environment to ensure women of the fishing industry reach their potential.
• Actively encourage the involvement of seafood women.
• Provide community education on all aspects of the seafood industry.

I am an active member of WINSC and am always encouraged by the support and leadership that women show to each other, and with their communities and fisheries. These women work tirelessly, unpaid and often unrecognised, to promote what they know and love about wild-catch fisheries, the people and the way of life, are an inspiration to me. However there is still a long way to go.

Conference Booklet from the Women's Industry Seafood Network, 2015.

What is clear to me is that women are good at telling stories about what it means to be in the fishing industry, the pride in being a fishing family, but also how hard it can be and how dangerous, and how it is so different to any other way of life. Women are good at seeing the connections between fishing families and their businesses, and the economic and social outcomes in regional communities. Women are good at encouraging people to try local fish and learn more about professional fishing. I think women can provide an important and different perspective when given the opportunity, especially when confronted by discourses of greed, mistrust and over-fishing, which can often dominate public perceptions, perceptions that have not been informed by facts.

Kirsten posing for a promotional photograph after becoming Victorian Rural Woman of the Year, 2017, image supplied.

I believe this is one of the biggest challenges facing the fishing industry in Victoria and Australia – demonstrating to the seafood consumer that the industry can be trusted to take care of our seas and provide a beautiful source of healthy wild-caught food, and convincing the public that the fishing families have the biggest stake in ensuring the future sustainability of both the fish and the communities they live in. If we can demonstrate to the public what we already know is true, and get the support of the people behind professional fishing, then I believe our industry can thrive. Supporting and recognising women in fishing could be one key to unlock this support.

Farmer or Queer? Researching the Herstory, Challenges & Triumphs Surrounding Lesbian & Queer Farmers

Guest post by Jaclyn Wypler, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

Jaclyn Wypler is a Ph.D. student in the departments of Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In this guest blog post, Jaclyn chronicles her passion for uniting farming and sociology, and sharing her research on lesbian and queer sustainable farmers across the mid-western United States. She is currently based in Melbourne and expanding her project to LGBT+ farmers across Australia and New Zealand.

Jaclyn on a farm with a donkey named Zorro, Wisconsin, 2016, image supplied.

Though I grew up in the “Garden State” of New Jersey, USA, I lacked a connection to farms in my densely populated New York City suburb. This all changed in my early 20s when I was studying sociology at Dartmouth College and visited my college’s organic farm—a vegetable plot nestled along a river in New England. I was enthralled by rows of sun gold tomatoes bursting with sweetness and lettuce growing in tilapia fish tanks. The manager described his journey into farming through the back-to-the-land movement, igniting my passion to meld farming and sociology in order to learn about the lives of those who grow and raise food.

Dartmouth Organic Farm manager instructing Jaclyn on harvesting cucumbers in a retrofitted greenhouse, image supplied.

I gained insight into farmers’ experiences by working on small farms in the United States and with women farmers in Peru. As a queer woman, I was supported and out on one farm, hoeing weeds alongside another queer employee who shared thoughts on gender identity and expression. On another farm, I remained closeted, feeling apprehensive and alone as a result of a coworker’s homophobic remarks. I wondered: Did other LGBT+ farmers find acceptance or isolation? How did they fare among fellow farmers and within their communities? Entering a sociology Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison allowed me to research this question, focusing on lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer sustainable farmers in the Midwestern United States.

Friends initially reacted with surprise to this research focus, doubting that I would find such farmers. American conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh expressed similar—though deeply political—remarks in 2016: “I never knew that lesbians wanted to get behind the horse and the plow and start burrowing. I never knew it.” Despite such incredulity, lesbians have a deep legacy on farmland, notably within the landyke movement. Beginning in the 1970s, the movement drew on back-to-the-land and radical feminism to establish communal lands and intentional communities. On these lands, women grew food, practiced rural skills, and hosted events in order to serve as socially- and environmentally-just land stewards.

Publication: 'Lesbian Land', 1985. View book here.

Publication: 'Landykes of the South', 2015. View book here.

By attending women farmer events and sustainable farming conferences, I have met and interviewed 42 farmers for my project. Ranging from 20 to 70 years old, the farmers were predominately white, lived in rural communities, and also identified as artists, veterans, mothers, scientists, musicians, mechanics, librarians, and engineers. While some were new to farming, others had decades of experience, like Nett who has been raising organic vegetables in rural Minnesota for 35 years. She coined the term ‘landyke’ and co-founded Lesbian Natural Resources—a non-profit organization that supports lesbians living and working on the land.

Jacyln with Nett on her Minnestota Farm, image supplied.

Trained in ethnography—“the science of hanging out”—I collected data by visiting farmers and attempting to gain insight into how they see and move through the world by doing what they were doing. On farms, I helped pull weeds, herd goats, hoe beds, butcher chickens, and trellis tomatoes. I accompanied farmers to markets, on deliveries, and to run errands, all the while recording our conversations or typing field notes into my phone.

Longtime participants of Jaclyn's research, Lori and Leann, with goats on their Wisconsin farm where they run Lucky Dog Farm Stay. They also own a local food restaurant in their town, Cow and Quince, a means to support other farmers and a safe space for members of the LGBT+ community, image supplied.

Four years into the research, I am learning that while the farmers did not center their sexuality, identifying first and foremost as women or as farmers, they encountered unique hurdles and opportunities tied to their queerness. Networks between farmers provide an example of this duality.

Though many farmers in the project drew on women farmer groups for support and resources, one farmer ceased attending a regional conference for women farmers due to participants internalized patriarchal values. Women at the conference fed cattle, cleaned stalls, and milked, yet defined their role on the farm in relation to their husbands, calling themselves ‘farmer’s wives’ and not ‘farmers.’ This mentality was “too heterosexual and too dairy” for the lesbian farmer, so she no longer participated and potentially missed out on fruitful resources. Another farmer felt at odds among other sustainable farmers; she was the sole queer vendor at the farmers market and the straight farmers did not acknowledge her queerness. At the same time, her queer friends—non-farmers—did not understand why she had to leave watching queer television shows early to milk her goat. “My queer community is not my farming community and my farming community is not my queer community,” she told me. She felt as if she had to pick one of her main identities: farmer or queer.

In contrast, farming and queerness united during the 2017 season on a Missouri farm. The farm owner Liz, a lesbian, ended up with three lesbian workers for the season. She did not actively seek lesbian workers, nor did the employees search for a lesbian-run farm, but the arrangement provided pathways for young lesbians to have support and solidarity in agriculture, catalyzing their long-term visions for a career in sustainable farming.

Liz on her Missouri farm, image supplied.

Miserable in the insurance industry, Amanda quit her job and began working on Liz’s farm. “I can’t remember if it was the first day or soon after I got here, but she [Liz] asked me, ‘Are you a lesbian?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and she was like, ‘DYKES, YEAH!’ and was screaming in the field, so excited about it,” Amanda recounted. “It was pretty welcoming.” Amanda had been closeted to her Catholic family for ten years before coming out and still struggled to feel positive about her sexuality: “I’m not super comfortable being out and being gay, and it’s not something I’ve been particularly vocal or proud about.” Being on the farm around Liz, however, provided her with a role model to imagine embracing her queerness. According to Amanda, Liz created a “safe space”:

It just feels really like this is a place where I can be myself and I feel comfortable talking about me and my partner. At the gym that I work at, I do not feel safe there. It’s just not a place where there are a lot of other lesbians. And I just haven’t known a lot of lesbians in my life or gay people in general, so it’s just been really awesome to have other lesbians around me that I can lez out with. And Liz is just so like, ‘F*ck it.’ She’s so proud and she is who she is and she’s a role model for me, where I can be like, ‘Oh, it is fine to be this person. Look how successful she is and she doesn’t give a f*ck and you should not give a f*ck too.’ Sorry for cursing.

Lauren, Amanda and Kerry on Liz's farm.

Amanda planned to work on Liz’s farm for as long as she could, but was aware that she would move when her partner completed graduate school. Amanda wanted to pursue another farm job at that point and described criteria for a boss:

Definitely a woman farmer, if possible. I feel like we have to support each other and I just feel more comfortable around women, especially since the assault. I just kind of struggle with males in general and so I think in all future endeavors that’s going to be a big factor. And I think that I wouldn’t want to work for a place that would be uncomfortable with me being gay and so I think it would absolutely be a factor in deciding where I go. Big time.

In light of her experiences on Liz’s farm—where her sexuality was celebrated by a proud lesbian role model—and a recent assault by an unknown man that left her hospitalized with multiple skull fractures, Amanda desired a career in sustainable agriculture, yet working for women-owned and gay-friendly farms.

Despite issues in women farming and sustainable farming networks tied to sexuality, some farmers in my project found the unique opportunity to work on lesbian-owned farms, blooming in their queerness and blossoming dreams of a farming career. They did not have to pick: queer community and farming community could be one in the same.

Jaclyn working on a tractor, Minnesota, 2017, image supplied.

I am excited to now extend my project to LGBT+ farmers in Australia and New Zealand! I am looking to interview farmers in person or over the phone from mid-February to mid-May. Participants' names and identifying information remains confidential unless the person requests otherwise. I aim to publish the findings in academic journals and eventually a book. If you are interested in learning more about the project or would like to share your story, I would love to hear from you! I can best be contacted at wypler@wisc.edu, or via the below form. Thank you! 

Register your interest 

Name

*Feel free to use a pseudonym if desired

First Name

Last Name

Email Address *

Phone (if you are happy to be contacted by phone)

Location

Type of farming

Message

Thank you for getting in touch. I will be in contact shortly. Best wishes, Jacyln :) 

** Excerpts taken from an article written by Jaclyn in 2015, full text here: http://ourlivesmadison.com/article/queering-the-farm/

Making History: An Interview with Liza Dale-Hallett, Invisible Farmer Project

By Kira Middleton (Student Intern, University of Melbourne)

My experience exploring curation at Museums Victoria

As an undergraduate history and anthropology student at University of Melbourne, I have a passionate (and somewhat nerdy!) interest in history. Throughout my studies, however, Australian farming and rural women had never been presented to me as subjects with a history that would draw my attention. I have never considered myself to have any background, or even any interest, in farming, and I have never lived outside of major cities. Through a Bachelor of Arts course at university, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work on the ‘Invisible Farmer’ as a student intern, however, this prospect was initially daunting as I felt overwhelmingly disconnected from the subjects of the project, and unsure of how I could ever be qualified to write about these women and their experiences.

Student intern Kira Middleton working at her desk on blog posts for the Invisible Farmer Project website, Source: Supplied, Catherine Forge

On my first day, however, curators Liza Dale-Hallett and Catherine Forge launched me into a wealth of knowledge and understanding, that has permanently altered not only the way that I think about women in farming, but how I think about farmers and farming industries in general. Throughout my internship, lead curator of the project Liza has taught me not only about the many strong and innovative women who tirelessly feed, clothe and house Australia, but she has taught me how to study, record and present history with a completely new mindset. I interviewed Liza as part of my work on the project, and I hope that her experiences and knowledge shared here can increase understanding of the both the project and the museum industry, and continue to shine a light on the contribution of Australian women in agriculture and farming.

Chas Dale (Liza’s twin brother, left) and Liza Dale-Hallett (right) rounding up sheep at their family farm, Tynong, 1967, Source: Supplied, Liza Dale-Hallett

Liza has worked as a museum curator at Melbourne Museum for thirty years with a focus on rural women's histories, and her connection to the project is personal. Liza’s family owned and ran a sheep and beef farm from the time of her birth until she was in her 20s in the 1980s. After developing a strong interest in history at high school, Liza completed her bachelor degree with honours in history at Monash University.

Liza began working with Museum Victoria in December 1987. Her first curatorial role was to complete the installation of the first exhibitions at the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, Queensland, in time for the opening in April 1988. She then worked in the newly created Social History Department at Museum of Victoria and developed the Work in the Home Collection. In 1993, she became the curator of primary production and responsible for the Museum’s agricultural collection, which is one of the most significant collections of its kind in Australia. Through this, she has led projects such as the H. V. McKay Sunshine Collection, the ‘Future Harvest’ travelling exhibition, the Victorian Women on Farms Gatherings collection, the Victorian Bushfires Collection and of course, the Invisible Farmer Project. It was a thrill to interview Liza and to learn about innovative curatorship and the role of oral history in the Invisible Farmer project. I hope you enjoy reading this excerpt from the interview recorded in July 2017 in the Conservation Sound Studio at Melbourne Museum.

Liza Dale-Hallett at Lake Eyre, 2017, Image Supplied, Liza Dale-Hallett

Excerpts from my interview with Liza Dale-Hallett

In as few words as possible, can you explain the purpose of the ‘Invisible Farmer’ project?

I suppose fundamentally, it’s to redefine ‘farmer’, to include all parties, men, women, and children, who are responsible for producing the things that we enjoy as consumers… It’s also to uncover and record the untold stories of women on the land. It’s to facilitate conversations about the critical need to understand where our food and fibre comes from, and who produces it, and why gender equality is so fundamental in addressing issues that keep emerging such as climate change, rural decline, globalisation and urban sprawl.
 

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) being interviewed by Kira Middleton (right), Melbourne Museum, July 2017, Source: Supplied, Catherine Forge

What would you say your view of ‘history’ is as a history curator? Specifically, how you think it should be presented to us and how should it be defined?

The single most important take-away from my university history degree was the word ‘relevance.’ So that’s my touchstone. That is the most important part of how I determine why it matters, what to do and how to do it. The other key words that shape my view of history are: impact, meaning, community ownership. And recognising the fundamental continuity between the past, the present, and the future.

So when I think about history, this is history. We’re making history now as we sit here doing this interview. This is a moment in time that keeps passing, and I keep sharing my ideas, and that gets recorded, and the people who listen to this in the near future, or the long future, they’ll engage with it as a piece of history. But it is actually history right now, too.

I like to think that the museum has a role to play that makes a difference, that adds value to people’s lives, that stimulates positive outcomes in the community. And I think the only way that you can know that you are going to contribute something of benefit is to be relevant.

Every museum has a huge responsibility - they are assumed to be holding and creating our memories for future generations. As a history curator, I can’t look at the past without also looking at the present. It is important for museums to look outside all the time, and as a curator to look at the big issues of the day, and ask ourselves how does history help us understand how we got here, and how the museum might help to facilitate a space that allows people to understand, appreciate and perhaps think creatively about their own lives and futures. 

So for me, history is a dynamic space, it’s about continuity. It’s about being relevant and responsive. It’s all about story and community, and helping individuals to participate in a very active way in making meaning.

Liza-Dale Hallett (far left), Rhonda Diffey, a member of the Women on Farms Heritage Group (second from left), Alan Rendell (third from left), Merlyn Rendell (second from right) and Georgia Harvey (far right) working on the Museum Victoria Heritage Displays, Women on Farms Gathering at Horsham, 2004, Source: Museums Victoria, MM90816

Given that artefacts and objects have such limitations, how have you gone about engaging the community and capturing their stories?

When I became the curator of primary production in 1993, I went on a little investigation of the collection, which is one of the most significant collections of agriculture in Australia, and I looked around and I thought, well, where are the women? Where are their stories? I couldn’t see them. I could see lots of agricultural technology, but I couldn’t see how it was possible to make sense of women’s lives through that collection.

So that was a provoking question. Where are the women? And, how do I access those stories, and how do I document the role women have played over the generations in agriculture, to fill those gaps?

Liza Dale-Hallett at a workshop, Women on Farms Gathering at Glenormiston, 1994, Source: Museums Victoria, MM90502

The 1993 Women on Farms Gathering at Tallangatta, was my way in to trying to answer that question. And what I found, at that Gathering and the many other Gatherings I attended, were women who were coming together, supporting each other in the face of very critical changes impacting those communities and those agricultural industries. They were learning new skills, investigating, exploring all sorts of alternative forms of agriculture. They were daring to call themselves ‘farmers' and challenging terms such as 'farmer's wives' or 'helpmates'. They were really extending themselves into spaces that would hopefully sustain them and their families and their communities. And they were also using story, and symbols, as a way of making meaning and connecting with each other.

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) with Anna Lottkowitz (right), who developed the Rural Women’s Network in 1986 and is now a partner of the Invisible Farmer Project, at the Women on Farms Gathering at Horsham, 2004, Source: Museums Victoria, MM90830

So, through these Gatherings I was able to witness history being made and expressed from all parts of Victoria. The stories and symbols, which were a central feature of these Gatherings, helped me see creative ways to document these untold stories. The Gatherings also helped me make connections with any number of people and to develop partnerships which have been fundamental to my practice as a curator and which continue to inform the work I do.

The Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection is the basis from which the Invisible Farmer project has emerged.

Icons that form part of the Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection, a cowpat from the 1992 Numurkah Gathering, a Mallee sands and seeds bottle from the Ouyen 1998 Gathering and a computer motherboard from the 1997 Bendigo Gathering, Source: Museums Victoria.

Why do you think it’s important for curators to reflect the process of ‘making history’ and what does this process entail?

History is a construction. It’s a collection of things and stories that are either deliberately preserved, or accidentally preserved.

As a curator, I’ll have certain questions and areas of interest that I want to pursue and document. And then when you listen to people, they also have a story that they have framed in a particular way, that they consider important and meaningful. And so you come into this space where you both are curating that story and making judgements about its significance.

This is an important part of the concept of living history - it’s never just about the past. The history could be generations old but still be very powerful and personal space to be in - it still needs to be handled very carefully. I think enabling the agency of each person - allowing them to help shape how their history should be documented - is really important.

We all make history. And we all need meaning in our lives. The Women on Farms Gatherings taught me the power of collaboration and the Future Harvest project demonstrated how critical it is to involve the community in framing relevant questions.

That process of making history and making meaning, in partnership with communities and individuals, is very powerful and can be really transformative for those involved.

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) and Robert Zugaro (right) filming for the Invisible Farmer Project at the Warragul Farmers Market, 2017, Source: Supplied, Catherine Forge

How important do you think images are in recording history and how relevant are they to this project, to work in conjunction with the oral histories that you’re collecting?

One of the most graphic ways of demonstrating the invisibility of women in agriculture and farming, is just to do a Google Image search. In every ten images you’ll be lucky if you find one woman. Most of them are white, middle aged blokes. It’s such a discrepancy with the reality. The fact is that women create half of the real farm income in Australia – but their half of the story is missing.

So, there we have a resource, which most people, and certainly every child, considers as a go-to encyclopedia presenting images that don’t reflect reality, that present a very skewed view of farming.

Part of what we’re trying to do is fill in these gaps.  Sometimes images are a good way to do that, as it might not be possible to collect artefacts…perhaps there isn’t an artefact that properly represents that person’s life but there is an image that does. Images are a really important tool for social history, to understand some of the changes that happen over time. They are a great compliment to interviews and oral histories.

We live in an age of images, you know, everything is visual. Social media is peppered with fabulous photos. So we sort of have to use the medium to try to help shape people’s understanding about the diversity of the ways in which women are involved in production on the land in all its many guises. Using images is a prime tool in our social media campaigns.

The other critical thing about images is you can’t inspire girls and young women to participate in agriculture if they can’t see images of other women in agriculture. There’s a lot of innovative women, but unless you represent them visually, you can’t inspire a new generation towards that field of endeavor. You need to have the images to make that sort of shift; and also to challenge the assumption that the farmer is always a bloke.

An image taken for the Invisible Farmer Project depicting farmer Amy Paul, Walkerville, South Gippsland, 2016, Source: Museums Victoria, Photographer: Catherine Forge

What do you think the role of language is in this project and in the wider rural women’s community?

Language is a tool to connect, to communicate, but it can also be a tool that excludes whole communities. So that’s why ‘farmer’ is so important. Why should it be only associated with men? It’s a word that describes a commitment, an activity, an involvement, a connection to the land, and to primary production.

So language is a critical part of this project because we’re wanting to redefine those cultural assumptions, those cultural habits. And through the stories of women we are revealing the complexities and diversities of ‘farmer’.

‘Invisible’ has been a word that provokes a response. There’s a lot of women who aren’t invisible. Clearly they’re not; they’re leaders, they’re active community members. The word is intended to provoke people to make more visible that which is not so visible from any number of perspectives. Whether it’s Google Images, or the person in the supermarket who hasn’t got any idea that women are involved in producing all of what they eat, or the stories we choose to remember in our national histories.

The Invisible Farmer project is wanting to create change. We are stimulating discussion, we are getting people to think about what matters, and hopefully the words we use will do that.

An image taken for the Invisible Farmer Project depitcting farmer Sallie Jones, Gippsland Jersey, Jindivick (Victoria), 2016, Source: Museums Victoria, Photographer: Catherine Forge

You wrote a wonderful tribute to your mother on the ABC Open ‘Invisible Farmer’ website. How much of your interest and your dedication to this project would you attribute to your personal history, specifically your mother?

My family owned a farm in Tynong, Gippsland. It was a weekend farm.  We lived in Melbourne and every Sunday (rain or shine) we worked there.

My mother was a farmer. I think we were all farmers. Though father would have identified himself as THE ‘farmer’; but he definitely couldn’t have done it without us, and certainly not without my mother.

Everything was undeveloped when they bought the property.  In the 20 plus years we had the farm there was never any power connected. They built everything by hand, that meant all the fencing, yards, sheep dip, sheds, and the whole house was built by hand. The clearing was all done by hand. So everything was very physical, very manual. My mother did as much work as my dad did. But she probably did more because she also had to feed us all after a full day’s work in the sun or the rain.

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) with mother Muriel Dale (centre) & brother Chas Dale (right), at their leased farm, Mt Worth, near Warragul, 1978, Source: Supplied, Liza Dale-Hallett

How much of your interest and your dedication to this project would you attribute to your personal history, specifically your mother?

My mother worked hard. We all did. Yet it was my father who was apparently the ‘farmer’. I didn’t really think about this at the time. But when I became involved in this field as a curator, that inequity, and blindness, became a very strong motivating force for me. Why shouldn’t women’s work be counted and properly acknowledged in our culture and history? So writing the tribute to my mother was one way to say thank you to her, and to finally call her a ‘farmer’.

 So would you say that your love of rural history, sort of combined with your love of the land?

Yes, I have a deep connection with land and farming. And when we were children we went on long road trips, often staying on farms. So I have been very lucky that throughout my life I have travelled to many parts of Australia. I’ve seen and tasted and experienced its diversity, its beauty and its challenges. Travelling within Australia, especially beyond the fence line, is one of my grand passions - it absolutely informs who I am, and my work as a curator.

Liza Dale-Hallett crossing the border between Queensland and the Northern Territory, 2017, Source: Supplied, Liza Dale-Hallett

In terms of my interests I suppose they come from so many different places…but I think once you start meeting all these amazing people, men and women, it’s just naturally inspiring. And then you realise that there’s all these gaps in our understanding and knowledge and our histories. And so much of our rural history has not been told, and the inequity of that, and especially the gendered inequity of having so much of our landscape peopled by men but not by the women, who are obviously there, but it’s just so much harder to find them.

Liza Dale-Hallett meeting Kylie Camp of Floraville Station near Burketown in QLD, Source: Supplied, Liza Dale-Hallett

Travelling to really remote parts of Australia, it's quite humbling to realise that I’m in a position where I can do something about helping to uncover and share these women's stories. I hope that through engaging with the community, we will make some sort of difference that is worthwhile and valuable, and that perhaps might even effect some change in the way people think about women on the land, about agriculture in our lives and the essential connections we all have with it.

So then it’s sort of like a double imperative; it’s not just about being inspired, it sort of comes back to why I’m here and the opportunity it presents. I’m here to document the history of agriculture in that broader sense - to see these amazing stories and to try to create an equal balance of women’s stories and history within the collection, and beyond.
 

Throughout the project so far, what have been the biggest roadblocks that you’ve come across and were you ever concerned for the project gaining traction, were you ever worried that people wouldn’t care or wouldn’t pay attention?

Oh look there’s always road blocks. I think it’s about timing. I think there’s a will to support and acknowledge rural communities in the broadest sense. And there’s a time now when people just think it’s ridiculous that we haven’t properly acknowledged women on farms.

There was a lot of energy in the 1980s and early 1990s to acknowledge and enable women, but then there was a sort of backlash…there was a sense in which someone had ticked the gender box and considered it had been done. Well it hasn’t been done, it’s an ongoing challenge, but I think it’s a good time now for society to reflect on equality.

We have not had anyone who doesn’t get excited by this project. Because it’s fresh, it’s innovative, it flips people’s ideas about farming, farm work and what it means to be a 'farmer'.

More importantly, it’s empowering, and it gives something back that’s desperately overdue, and hopefully it will yield some really positive outcomes for communities and for consumers. I’m so excited by the amazing farmers that we are continuing to meet through this project, and the stories we are capturing and celebrating.

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) with farmer Sallie Jones (centre) from Gippsland Jersey and Invisible Farmer Project curator Catherine Forge (right) at the Warragul Farmers Markets, July 2017, Supplied: Robert Zugaro

Liza Dale-Hallett holding an item in the Invisible Farmer Collection, Heather Mitchell’s hat (currently on display at Melbourne Museum), Melbourne Museum, 2017, Source: Museums Victoria

What do you see the final outcomes of this project being, and what do you hope it will achieve?

I would love to see greater involvement of girls in agriculture, to find role models where they can follow and be inspired to be innovators, to buy land, to take up farming, to explore all the options that agriculture might offer them. I’m hoping it might stretch our minds and redefine our concepts of ‘farmer’ to include the diverse and innovative array of women working across the industries and sectors in food and fibre production.

I’m hoping that our heritage collections might be properly documented in a way that allows us to find those histories.

Finally, I'm hoping the Invisible Farmer Project will help us to reflect and be a bit more aware of some of the issues impacting our futures. We are all dependent on farmers. We should be supporting, celebrating and documenting their stories. Women contribute half of the world's food supply, and it's vital that we understand and recognise their significant contributions. Making farm women's stories more visible is not just about the past; it's essential to our future.

Want to know more?

• Follow the Invisible Farmer Project on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
• View Liza's profile on Museums Victoria's website

Emma Steendam of She Sows Seeds on family farming, rural life & the perfect Christmas spuds!

By Emma Steendam

Emma Steendam is a farmer based in the potato-growing region of Thorpdale, Gippsland, and an award-winning blogger and photographer at www.shesowsseeds.com In this guest blog post Emma reflects on her thoughts and experiences with family farming and country living. She also shares a recipe for the perfect Christmas spuds! Photographs by Emma, with some family photographs by Colour of Life Photography and Lisa Hayman Photography. 

Growing up on a potato and sheep property in the rolling Thorpdale hills of green Gippsland, I don’t think it occurred to me that I would ever live anywhere other than on a farm. My siblings and I spent our childhood running under irrigators, stomping on a wool press and waking to the thunk-thunk-thunk of spuds hitting the picker’s buckets at dawn. I just assumed that my own children would experience the same.

Then, as fate would have it…I married a farmer. Ten years after finishing university in ‘the big smoke’ (photography for me and ag science for him), we’ve had a variety of experiences and roles in agriculture – from producing embryo transfer Angus and Charolais calves in north east Victoria, to the heartstrings pulling us home to Thorpdale for a year of growing potatoes and prime lambs, myself working in my family’s produce trading, transport and farming business, throwing in some cropping experience in the southern Mallee and my husband milking cows growing up, to heading north to cut our teeth on some larger scale beef operations in outback Queensland, then bumping our way along outback tracks around Australia before landing on a 10,000 acre beef and sheep property in South Australia…it seems we really are jacks of all trades and masters of none!

I followed my high school sweetheart to ‘go bush’ after uni, to a 1200 acre beef property, somehow falling into a job treading the boards of the Yea cattle sales with Elders, weighing and tagging calves in the Murrindindi fog and sleet with absolutely zero experience with cattle! That same farmer boy proposed atop that cattle property…then promptly took off in a cloud of dust in the ute to deal with a prolapsed heifer, leaving me with the kelpies, a diamond ring and a bottle of champagne. Welcome to life married to a farmer (I ended up helping him pull that calf in the dark by the lights of the motorbike, and we saved the heifer).

We spent our honeymoon working on an outback station in central-west Queensland, mustering wayward mickey bulls, wrangling equally bull-headed twins in the schoolroom through Longreach School of Distance Education and chasing snakes out of our donga. A romantic baptism of fire into life as a woman in agriculture. Eventually we bumped our way around Australia (and to Papua New Guinea with some more beef experience and learning how to run a large-scale farm in a tropical third world country thrown in there), with no planned destination or end date, literally driving down dirt tracks wondering if this would be ‘home’. We followed our noses to Cape York and along the Savannah Way, into the Northern Territory and through the Kimberley, down the West coast, across the Nullabor and eventually found ourselves on the Limestone Coast of South Australia, pulling up stumps and working for a year as beef overseer near Padthaway.

But we have serendipitously found ourselves back where I started: on my family’s farm in Thorpdale, raising our young family in a farming community…just as I imagined. Full circle. My husband, Matt, is from farming stock (his grandparents farmed in Kardella, South Gippsland), but his parents were not farmers. Our path through the agricultural landscape has not been the traditional ‘son returning to the family farm’ scenario. It has been varied and not without big questions and searching for the right fit, but I think it’s important to highlight that this path we have taken (at times unwittingly!) has opened doors for us through chances grabbed and leaps of faith taken.

The sometimes unconventional path which has twisted and turned to land us back ‘home’ is a story which I wish someone had told me ten years ago could happen. A career path in agriculture, especially for women, needs to have flexibility and scope to grow and change with you across a lot of different scenarios. Adaptability has become my middle name as I have found my feet with unfamiliar beef cattle, summer fodder crops, living remotely and out of our ute for 18 months, to the more familiar work of dealing with Dad’s dispatch book and truck paperwork on a busy April Friday afternoon at the peak of spud season. All of it has been important work to shape the role I now see as my most important ever: mother to two possible future farmers. Growing good spuds and hard working girls in this rich soil of my childhood, I am excited to see where the agricultural landscape could take my girls – because I know every woman in ag’s story is completely different and unique. Mine is testament.

My husband currently works off farm in agribusiness finance – a role which we had long contemplated being a possibility, so when the opportunity arose we took it. Working off farm is one thing, but living off farm and raising our children not in a direct farming environment was not on our agenda. And so, we live on my family’s sheep and potato farm in Thorpdale, our girls Eleanor and Harriet are the fourth generation to be growing up here. As well as raising our children as part of a family farming operation, being involved in a small rural community is also important to us, both having had the same upbringing ourselves we wanted the same for our girls. When I moved from Melbourne to Yea to be with Matt, I re-discovered my love for small country towns, for the community that envelops you, for sharing half a dozen eggs as a currency down the street and knowing the UHF channel of the bloke halfway to town who’s left the gate open to his steers.

Over ten years being involved in lots of different farming communities, the one constant is generosity of spirit and genuine humility. Country people are kind, generous and hard working. If that’s all of the attributes my children obtain from their country farming childhoods then my work is done. We are not complicated people: I spend my days stomping about in the veggie patch and talking to my chickens with my toddlers in toe. My love of simple country living knows no bounds, from making jam with plums on the trees overhanging our road that I forage with my girls, to growing my rambling roses and pumpkins up the back of the veggie patch, very simple things are very important things to me.

Life gets busy, but being grounded in our home on the farm soothes my soul. When we were homeless gypsies living out of our ute with no home and no job (and no money!), we knew only that farming was where our hearts were. No matter what, we would be on the land somewhere, somehow. When I stop to think about it, farming has been the one constant in my life, since the very beginning. It is so ingrained in me I don’t think it could ever be removed – farming gets under your skin, deep into your veins, scratch my surface and you’ll find chocolate Thorpdale soil I’m sure (and maybe some leftover jam that has bubbled over on my stove…)

My days are busy…but in a good, simple kind of way, doing the important work. Some days we feed shearers or go into town to the lamb sale, some days I pick up a spare part for a tractor, or try to pay wages and build lego with the other hand. We are no different to any other farming family across Australia, busy (so busy) with young children at my feet but jobs to be done regardless. And increasingly, a story to be shared. Social media and blogging has opened a huge array of doors for me through sharing our simple country life in our little farmhouse on a hill here in Thorpdale.

The disconnect between city and country is being bridged by social media, whilst at the same time our world is seemingly getting smaller as we are more connected than ever. It is a strange paradox. Sharing our farming adventures and what exactly goes on with crutching our ewes or planting spuds come Spring or drafting lambs ready for sale, I see my role as a blogger and social media influencer as very much a part of being involved in farming. I have unwittingly become an agricultural advocate and voice for farming in Gippsland (apparently?!) without even intending to. But this is the path that I have created for myself in a modern farming scenario, which speaks volumes of the diverse way you can use skills in farming. You don’t need to be driving a tractor or milking a cow to make a difference or contribution – that has taken me some time to acknowledge. The agricultural industry has changed enormously in the past ten years to when I tentatively dipped my toe in…I could have never imagined that my blogging or humble Instagram account of what was happening on the farm could connect in the way it does now. Simple farming stuff is big important stuff. I truly believe that and is why I keep hitting publish, sharing and starting conversations about farming with my online community.

Although I am busy with two young children these days, I like to keep a hand in the running of my family’s farming, produce trading and interstate trucking operation. My brother and his family also live on farm and together with my dad we run a multi-generational family farming business. There is a huge amount of pride involved in that. Although I now don’t share the surname on the front gate, there is definitely a sense that myself, or my sister-in-law, feeding the shearers and paying the wages and doing a truck drivers paperwork makes a difference…even if it is just to us, but I like to think it matters to our long time suppliers and customers also.

Sometimes when I’m in the office I might answer the phone to be greeted by a grower who remembers when I was running around the truck yard as a toddler my girls’ age, or I’ll pass a cup of tea to a shearer in the sheds who has been throwing fleeces over that wool table since my grandfather was getting $50 for a lamb in the Thorpy saleyards. Things like that are what matters to me as a farmer, being involved in a family farming business, and I really try to instill this love of the land and of what we do here to my girls. It’s a way of life, and they probably don’t think much of it, which is half the point: it’s just an ingrained unspoken way we live. But it’s vital to both myself and Matt for them to see simple things like working together as a family unit to sow, grow, reap and harvest something of worth. To know the value of hard work, to understand boom years and drought years, of seasonality and the vulnerability that comes with farming. The good, the bad, the tough calls and the simple joys, and particularly being a woman farming – paddling hard below the surface or forging their own unique path to new opportunities. Or making delicious jam to go on the shearers’ scones, one of the most important jobs on the farm in my opinion: fueling farmers to feed the world.

Christmas Spuds

Being a third generation potato farmer, one of the most commonly asked questions fired at me is "how do you get the perfectly roasted potato?" (along with "do you eat potatoes every night?!"*) Well, I'm glad that you asked...because with Christmas less than a week away (nobody panic, are you panicking?!) it's time to brush up on getting those roast 'taters juuuuuust right. You want gorgeous crunch and lovely crisp edges, those scrumptious corners that truly make a good roast potato, with a fluffy pillow of potato goodness on the inside.

Who doesn’t love a good spud?! Especially at Christmas with all the turkey and ham and pork crackling to boot. For some families Christmas has connotations and food memories of freshly shucked oysters or a whole snapper on the barbie, Nan’s trifle or Aunty Pat’s pavlova, hydrangeas and magnolias on the table, shortbread left out for Santa, and brandy cream to wash it all down. For us, it’s the new season potatoes arrival which heralds Christmas (…and lamb sales and chasing irrigators and gearing up for harvest…) There is nothing better than fresh spuds, dug straight out of the paddock and into my oven literally moments later. And Christmas is the time for the best potatoes in Australia, grown right here in Thorpy, to be making their way onto your Christmas lunch tables, to be shared with your family, from ours…

Potatoes – I am surprisingly not sold on any particular variety for roasting, it really depends on what you like! My advice would be to experiment, you’ll soon discover your roast potato groove (and the array of potato varieties available whilst you experiment!) For this recipe I used Colibans, which are a more floury potato (not waxy). I like this to get that cloud of fluffy potato inside the cooked spud. But at this time of year any new season potato is going to really rock the socks off being roasted in this way. Sebago’s will be similar to the Coliban. Dutch Creams are also good. If you want to support Thorpdale potato farmers, buy brushed (the dirty spuds!) potatoes in Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, green grocers from January to June. Chances are a Thorpdale potato farmer grew them.  
Oil – I generally use a good extra virgin olive oil to cook my roast potatoes in. The alternatives would be butter or any sort of fat (duck or goose). Extra virgin olive oil gives a lighter flavour, but a butter or fat is pretty decadent and scrumptious for a special occasion like Christmas. 
Salt – a good quality sea salt gets liberally thrown about over my roast potatoes. My mum once told me to treat roast potatoes almost like you would pork crackling – when you think there’s enough salt, add a bit more. 
Herbs – rosemary is always my go-to with my roast spuds. But it often depends what I’m serving them with, if it’s roast lamb I generally use mint, or a lighter meal sometimes sage. Rosemary is classic, and readily available from my huge bush at the back door!

Firstly, preheat your oven to 190-200 degrees Celsius. Cut your potatoes into halves or quarters, or keep whole, depending on the size of your potatoes to begin with. The key is to keep them all fairly uniform in size so that they will cook evenly. Here is an example of the size I tend to aim for (and yes I have a freckle on the inside of my pinky finger)!

Peeling them is a personal preference. For roast potatoes I don’t generally peel them, a lot of the goodness is in the skin. But with new season potatoes, freshly dug, these ones had pretty delicate skins anyway so I kept them on. A light scrub to get the dirt off and I broke some of the skin anyway. This could actually be beneficial in creating more edges for crispy goodness! Pop your potatoes into boiling salted water for 10-15 minutes. This par boiling is essential to getting great roast potatoes. This ‘pre-cooking’ of sorts releases the starch out of the potatoes, so when it comes time for the oven they can just concentrate on getting deliciously golden and crispy on the outside. Drain them in a colander – and now this is also a key element to getting them juuuuust right: give the colander a little shake around so that the edges of the potatoes rough up. This will create some texture and little edges to your spuds, those parts are key to getting crisp and perfectly roasted potatoes. 

Put the potatoes onto a roasting tray, ensuring they are all one level, don’t pile them on top of one another. Bake in the 190-200 degree oven for 30 minutes. Pull them out and give them a little squash, just another little rough up, with the back of a spoon or a potato masher if you’re that way inclined (my mum always mashed her spuds with a fork, never a masher!) Throw some more oil or salt on the spuds if you think they need it, also some rosemary or garlic cloves. I like to add my herbs halfway through the cooking so as not to totally incinerate them! You will still get the flavour of the rosemary coming through. 

Back in the oven, still at 190-200, for another 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them to make sure they’re crisping up nicely, this may depend on your own oven and the size of the potato as to when exactly you will need to get them out. Mine usually take another full 30 minutes (but my oven isn’t a Rolls Royce of ovens and leaks heat like a sieve!) 

And…that’s it. You should have perfectly roasted potatoes. Crispy edges with those yummy crunchy bits. Cloud of softness on the inside.

It really is that easy. Not rocket science. Completely humble and simple…just like our beloved spuds. They are so versatile, yet the simplicity of a well roasted potato can rarely be beaten. Especially on Christmas Day, where there can be a lot of anxiety and fanfare around food, when really…it doesn’t have to be a grand affair or complicated or extravagant. It needs to be made with love and shared around a table of family celebrating just being together.

Happy Christmas, from our potato farming family to yours. May it be humble and simple, merry and bright.

Want to know more?

Visit Emma's blog: www.shesowsseeds.com

Follow Emma on Instagram @shesowsseeds

From the Farm to the Museum - Reflections on Farming, Rural Women's Networking and Volunteering for Museum Victoria's Invisible Farmer Project

By Alison Brinson and Ilse Matthews

Alison Brinson and Ilse Mathews are volunteer researchers at Museums Victoria who have been working with curators Liza Dale-Hallett and Catherine Forge on the Invisible Farmer Project. They have come to know Liza and Catherine over the years through their involvement in Women on Farms Gatherings, and through the connections that Museums Victoria has established with this community of rural women via the Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection, and more recently, the Invisible Farmer Project. In this blog post Alison and Ilse reflect on their journeys as farmers and their experience of rural women's networking. They also share their journey of volunteering with the Invisible Farmer Project and researching Heather Mitchell's hat.

Ilse Matthews (left) and Allison Brinson (right) at Proteaflora Flowers, 2017, image supplied.

Flower Farming, Rural Women's Networking and Raising the Profile of Women on Farms
 

Alison and Ilse have known each other for over 30 years, initially through their respective business involvements in the cut-flower industry. What started out as a purely business relationship grew into a firm friendship as they both became involved in local activities and groups that supported women in agriculture in developing their skills and networks. 
 

About Alison's flower farm

Alison and her husband Gerald set up Peny Bryn Flowers in Silvan in 1984. The farm was a mature protea plantation when they bought the land and over the next 5 years they expanded their protea production, buying new plants from Proteaflora, which is where Alison first met Ilse. Peny Bryn Flowers produced flowers for the florist industry. In the early 1990s they added gerbera cut-flowers to their product range. Gradually, the protea production was phased out, in favour of gerberas. Gerberas are grown in hydroponically, in greenhouses, providing year-round production of high quality, colourful blooms to the florist industry. Today, Gerald and Alison’s son, Owen, manages the farm, giving Alison time away from the farm to volunteer at Museums Victoria and pursue other interests as a woman in horticulture. Alison reflects:

What I love about farming is producing a colourful product (flowers) that gives people joy.  I never tire of the sea of colour and the whoosh of warm air on my face that greets me every morning when I open the doors to the greenhouses full of gerberas in bloom.

Alison and Gerald Brinson of Peny Bryn Flowers, 2017, image courtesy Janette Scott (Yarra Ranges Council).

About Ilse's flower farm

Proteaflora Nursery was established in 1974 by Peter and Rita Mathews and remains a family owned and managed business today, with Ilse and David Mathews at the helm. Proteaflora Nursery is a wholesale production nursery specialising in the Protea family of plants, including South African natives such as Protea, Leucospermum, Serruria and Leucadendron, as well as Australian natives like Banksia and Telopea. The Protea family of plants is an ancient botanical family going back to Gondwanaland, when the continents of Africa and Australia were joined together. Ilse enjoys working on the nursery, networking with other horticultural and women's groups and volunteering with Museums Victoria. Ilse reflects:

What I love about farming is that it connects me with nature and helps keep me grounded. Farming is vital for our daily life – the food and fibre we grow feeds and clothes us, and the plants and flowers we grow feed our soul and help to power our Earth’s “lungs”, with the air we breathe. I am proud to be a part of all of this.

Ilse and David Matthews of Proteaflora Nursery, 2016, image courtesy Tagen Baker.

WinHort Yarra Ranges

Women in Horticulture Yarra Ranges (WinHort YR) is one of the main horticultural groups that Alison and Ilse have been actively involved with locally:

We were both founding members of WinHort YR in 2002. WinHort brings together women involved in horticulture in an informal and supportive way around issues that affect them and their businesses. We organise farm visits, workshops and training on topics of interest as well as social events like our International Women’s Day dinner, featuring inspirational women sharing their story.

WinHort farm walk at Violi Strawberry Farm, 2013, image supplied.

A major highlight of WinHort’s Calendar is a farm walk or visit, where members come together from a diverse range of industries such as nursery, berries, flowers, orchards, vegetables and wine. These visits are a chance to see at first-hand how the business is organised and operated:

While there quite a few differences amongst our farms and enterprises, we find that we all share the challenges of running a family business, finding good staff, coping with too much or not enough rain, having to work with various government agencies and their regulations, etc. It is always inspiring and fun, and a great chance for our husbands to get out and about and network too.

As well as being a way to organise events or training, WinHort has led to the development of strong women's networks. These such networks were invaluable in 2009-10 when WinHort YR organised two "Pamper Days" for women in the Yarra Ranges area who had been directly affected by the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires. The Pamper Days were a chance for these women to get away from the stresses of post-fire life, share their experience with others and to have some fun, laughter and a bit of pampering and TLC. The local council, businesses and community groups were incredibly supportive. 

WinHort Pamper Day organisers, 2009, Image: supplied.

The Pamper Days were also an inspiring way for women to come together and network on a large scale. One example of this was the support and involvement of one of the “Singed Sisters” from Canberra. This group formed in response to their experiences with the devastating fires in Canberra a few years earlier. They sent one of their members to the Yarra Valley to share her story and offered support symbolically with the gift of a quilt created by all of the Singed Sisters. 

Alison Brinson with the Singed Sisters and Solidarity and Friendship Quilt, 2011, image supplied.

For both Alison and Ilse, being members of WinHort has been an immensely valuable experience. Not only has it enhanced their farm skills and opened up wonderful networking opporunities, but it has also been a positive and affirming process. 'Alison and I were delighted and touched when WinHort's activities were recognised by our local council in 2015 on Australia Day', says Ilse. 'It's not often that you get publicly reognised for the things you do'. 

WinHort YR Australia Day award with Alison Brinson (left) and Ilse Matthews (right, holding award), 2015, image courtesy Yarra Ranges Council.

Women on Farms Gatherings

Alison and Ilse are regular attendees of Women on Farms Gatherings. Gatherings have been held every year somewhere in rural Victoria since 1990. They are a chance for rural women to get together in a low-key and low-cost way. They provide a forum where women feel free to discuss ideas, share and learn skills, express concern about issues impacting on rural life and enterprises, offer and seek support, create networks as well as to have fun at a workshop and relax on a weekend away from the farm. Museums Victoria has been actively collecting stories from these Gatherings via the Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection, which you can read about here.

Alison Brinson on a tractor on a farm visit at the Hopetoun Women on Farms Gathering, 2016, Image: supplied.

As well as going to Gatherings in other parts of the State, Alison and Ilse have also been involved with organising a Gathering in their own area. Gatherings have been held in the Yarra Valley/Dandenong Ranges based at Healesville in 2000 and in 2015. Alison was on the organising committees of both of these Gatherings and Ilse got the ball rolling in galvanising community support and establishing the Organising Committee for the 2015 Healesville/Yarra Valley Gathering:

It took 18 months of hard work to plan and organise the 2015 Gathering. We were all pushed to our limits along the way but learnt a lot and were heartened by the support we got from the community, our local council and businesses of the Yarra Ranges area.

Healesville Women on Farms Gathering organising committee, 2015, image supplied.

Each Gathering Committee chooses a specific theme for their Gathering with a logo and an icon that reflect something about the theme or the local area. The 2015 Gathering’s Theme was “Making every woman count”, and the logo reflected the role of women from several generations involved in vineyards and horticulture generally:

Our icon was a humorous play on the word “count”, with the beads of an abacus used to spell out our theme and location – Yarra Ranges, 2015. We were proud to have the abacus and other significant items from our Gathering become a part of Yarra Ranges Museum’s Heritage collection.

Healesville Gathering logo, 2015.

Healesville Gathering icon, 2015.

The 2015 Healesville Gathering was based at The Memo (Memorial Hall) with the support of Yarra Ranges Council elected members and staff.  This wonderful facility was recently renovated and has an excellent auditorium for the more formal plenary sessions as well as informal reception functions. It also has a dedicated a Gallery space which enabled us to showcase all the items that form a part of Museums Victoria’s Women on Farms Gathering Heritage Collection. Due to limitations of suitable space, it has not always been possible to do this at every Gathering, so the Healesville Gathering was a great chance to showcase it in full.

Liza Dale-Hallett (left) with Ilse Matthews (right) setting up Women on Farms Gathering Heritage exhibition items, 2015, image supplied.

Collecting and Researching Heather Mitchell's Hat

At the Hopetoun Women on Farms Gathering in 2016, Senior Curator Liza Dale-Hallett was presented with an Akubra hat by Deirdre Brocklebank. The hat had belonged to Deirdre’s mother, Heather Mitchell, a former resident of Hopetoun who is best known as the first (and only) woman President of the Victorian Farmers Federation and as the founding co-chair of Landcare Victoria, alongside Joan Kirner. Heather wore the hat as part of her “uniform” in the ten or so years that she was active in the agri-political arena in Victoria, and nationally, in the 1980s-1990s. The hat became the first physical item to be acquired by Museums Victoria as part of the Invisible Farmer Project. 

Heather Mitchell with Joan Kirner at the 10th Anniversary of Landcare, Winjallock, Victoria, 1996, Source: North Central News, St Arnaud.

Liza Dale-Hallett (holding Heather Mitchell's hat, 2017, Source: Museums Victoria.

Documenting and researching Heather’s hat so that it could be formally acquired by the Museum was main first task that Allison and Ilse worked on together:

What we found most interesting about the hat is that it has 40 individual badges attached, representing a diverse range of organisations and issues. These badges were a wonderful way to discover the other areas of interest that Heather was involved with during her life. Discovering the story behind each badge helps us to really appreciate what an amazing person she was.

This photo, below, shows Ilse talking about Heather Mitchell’s hat to a delegation from Australian Women in Agriculture visiting Museums Victoria in 2016. Note the appropriate use of protective gloves – very important when handling items from the Museum’s collections. 

Ilse Matthews with Heather Mitchell's hat, Melbourne Museum, 2016, supplied.

 'What I found most interesting about working at Museums Victoria on Heather Mitchell’s hat was how little was known about Heather Mitchell in the public arena, beyond her role as the first woman President of the VFF and as founding co-chair of LandCare Victoria with Joan Kirner', reflects Ilse. 'Her hat was the vehicle through which we were able find out so much more about her, and the many amazing things she did. She was, and is, an inspiration.' 

The main task for Alison and Ilse was to identify the badges on Heather Mitchell's hat and then to uncover any stories about these badges and how Heather had acquired them. In order to undertake their research, Ilse and Alison enlisted the help of Heather's immediate family, and Heather's daughter Deirdre Brocklebank: 

Deirdre made available to us copies of newspaper articles relating to Heather, including the many obituaries that were published shortly after her death. Deirdre has also written a personal memoir “Tell Tales. Memoirs of Hopetoun Victoria, 1950s-70”. As well personal anecdotes, the book also includes an extensive and impressive list of the contribution that both her parents made to their local community. These family history treasures gave us a lot of very useful information that made our research work so much easier. Without the help of her family, our research task would have been so much more difficult.

Heather Mitchell's family visiting Melbourne Museum, 2017, image supplied.

 

As well as speaking to Deirdre's family, Ilse and Alison investigated public records at various libraries, and used online Google and Trove searches. 'At times we felt a little bit like Sherlock Holmes in our efforts to find out the story behind each of the 40 badges on Heather’s hat', reflect Alison and Ilse, 'in the end we were chuffed to be successful in identifying 37 of the 40 badges!' Alison reflects:

My favourite part of working with this object was discovering the humanity, compassion and humour of the woman behind her public image represented by her hat. I felt very privileged to be able to help bring the story of Heather Mitchell’s enormous contribution to rural Australia to life. 

Once Alison and Ilse finalised their research they were able to write narratives about Heather, the hat and the badges so that they could become a part of Museums Victoria’s Invisible Farmer Project and their online collections. They wrote a narrative badges on Heather's hat, and what stories these badges tell, which you can read on Museums Victoria's online collections, here. They also wrote a narrative about the life and work of Heather Mitchell, which you can on Museums Victoria's online collections, here.

More recently, Heather’s story and hat formed part of a pop-up display in the Museum’s Discovery Centre and three of Heather’s children and a grandson came along to see it (image above). 'It was a wonderful opportunity for us to meet them all face to face and share stories about Heather', reflect Alison and Ilse, 'and to share stories of the vital role that their mother/grandmother had played in rural Victoria.'

Want to know more?

• Come and see Heather Mitchell's hat on display at the Women of the Land pop-up exhibition running from 13 October -26 November at Melbourne Museum.
• Read about Heather Mitchell's hat, here: https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/15081
• Follow the Invisible Farmer Project on Facebook, Instagram and
• Watch this video, below, showing Senior Curator Liza Dale-Hallett working with Heather Mitchell's hat.

The story of Stackelroth Farms - an all-female team producing Australia's Halloween pumpkins!

Catherine Forge (Curator, Invisible Farmer Project) with Belinda Williams and Michelle O'Regan (Co-owners, Stackelroth Farms)

Have you ever wondered where your Halloween pumpkin comes from? Well today, on Halloween, we have a wonderful story to share with you – it’s the story of Stackelroth Farms, an all-female pumpkin growing operation situated in Bowen, QLD, and managed by long-term partners Belinda Williams and Michelle O’Regan. Belinda and Michelle have been together as a couple for over 14 years and in that time the Halloween program has also grown greatly.

Belinda (left) and Michelle (right) at Stackelroth Farms, QLD, image courtesy Shannon Kirk of De Lacy Kirk Photography.

For Belinda, farming has been in her blood since birth – she is a third-generation farmer who remembers working the land with her parents from a young age. ‘I recall making tomato boxes each day before and after school for pocket money, planting and driving tractors’, says Belinda. ‘I was saving to buy a motorbike. My grandparents and mother taught me that if I wanted something I had to work for it.’

When she was just 23 years of age, Belinda’s step-father, Ian Stackelroth, tragically passed away in a farming accident. Belinda and her Mother, Pam Stackelroth, did not have time to stop. ‘Three days later we were back in the paddock harvesting capsicums, pumpkins and watermelon to keeping the farm running’, recalls Belinda. Belinda has inherited her strength and resilience from her mother Pam; they are both highly respected within the farming community, not only as they are women farmers, but also as business owners and managers.

Sunset at Stackelroth Farms, QLD, image courtesy Shannon Kirk of De Lacy Kirk Photography.

Belinda supported Pam in her farming ventures until 2007, when she decided to start her own farming entity.  Prior to starting out on her own, the farming company had been trialling Halloween pumpkin varieties as they saw an opportunity to grow the business with the Halloween trend becoming stronger over the past 17 years in Australia. Belinda kept the Halloween program going: ‘it has taken years of research, development and trials to grow the program to the event that is now celebrated nationally’, says Belinda. Stackelroth Farms now produces over 500 tonnes of Halloween pumpkins in a joint venture with two other farmers situated in the Burdekin and in Western Australia. Belinda manages the National Halloween Program, in partnership with fruit and vegetable wholesalers MorCo.

Belinda with her dog, Stackelroth Farms, image courtesy Shannon Kirk of De Lacy Kirk Photography.

Belinda’s partner, Michelle, was not born into farming; however as a child she had to overcome diversity and many great challenges, including growing up as a foster child. Her life expreinces have given her a strong work ethic and a unique insight into overcoming challenges. Michelle is a Sergeant of Police, and has been stationed in Bowen since 2001. She has been working alongside Belinda and Pam with the Halloween program and farming operations, in between her police work, since 2003. Michelle reflects:

Aside from undertaking the planting and prep work on the farm, I take annual leave each year to run the picking crews for our Halloween Harvest. This frees up Belinda to manage the shed and the general business inquiries with the support of Pam. Belinda and I also do direct supply of garden vegetables, locally and within our region, so at the end of a working day and on weekends we are often found in the paddock or back shed harvesting and packing produce for local supply chains. This makes for very long days during the 5-6 month vegetable harvest season but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Belinda (left) and Michelle (right), image supplied, ABC Rural, http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-05-12/invisible-farmer-pumpkin-growers-bowen/8521384

Belinda and Michelle pride themselves in giving young people a start in the farming industry, whether it be through programs or employment during the season. ‘One main rule at Stackelroths is that if you work like an adult, you get paid accordingly’, says Belinda. ‘This has seen great reward and growth and development of some of the 50+ young people that have been employed on the farm over the past 10+ years.’

A few years ago Stackelroth Farms investigated the possibility of employing a school-based trainee from the local high school. A traineeship had not been offered for many years and it was identified that more young people were needed in the industry and there were many barriers to overcome. With this in mind, Michelle’s daughter Stevi-Leigh undertook this traineeship and as a result Stevi has completed her studies and gained full-time employment with Prospect Agriculture, a horticulture consultancy and research business. This has created a pathway for more local farming entities to consider offering traineeships to young people interested in the industry.

Michelle's daughter Stevi-Leigh at work on the farm, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Michelle's daughter Stevi-Leigh at the end of a day's work, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Belinda providing some hands-on training on how to fix a water leak in a trickle tap, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Prospect Agriculture has also partnered with Stackelroth Farms and the local Police Citizens Youth Club (Michelle’s workplace) to deliver programs for unemployed and disadvantaged youth, which has seen great results for participants in recent years. It is these kinds of partnerships that Belinda and Michelle believe strengthen communities. 

Michelle explains: ‘I am very lucky that in my role, I am able to positively help community and young people. With this in mind, I have been able to connect families, children, young people to the importance of where their food comes from. Through Stackelroth Farms, I am thankful for the industry knowledge and support Belinda has given with helping develop and facilitate various programs from basic education of how food is grown to programs for children, families and unemployed youth.’

Michelle tending to pumpkins, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Michelle carving Halloween pumpkins, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

With the highlights, though, there have been some significant challenges. Tropical Cyclone Debbie hit the Whitsunday Region with great force in late March, this saw Stackelroth Farms lose 100% of their butternut crops. Belinda, Michelle, Stevi and a group of wonderful friends, young people and their parents all banded together to pull up over 30 acres of plastic and trickle tape (watering lines) by hand.  ‘This was soul destroying and back breaking work’, recalls Belinda, ‘but all the willing volunteers came armed with enthusiasm, fun and smiles which made the heart breaking work somewhat bearable.’ Over 40,000 seedlings were washed away and Belinda and Michelle decided not to replant, but to instead focus on recovery efforts on the farm and working on the Halloween program.

Aftermath of Cyclone Debbie at Stackelroth Farms, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook)

Recovery works at Stackelroth Farms following Cyclone Debbie, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Michelle's daughter Stevi-Leigh working on the cyclone recoveyr efforts, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook).

Belinda is a farmer through and through; farming runs through her veins and there are no signs of her slowing down. Both Belinda and Michelle see it is very important to bridge the barriers between consumers and farming, which sees them open their farm to families and children some weekends, so that children can learn what goes into growing their food.

Belinda teaching children farm skills, image supplied (Stackelroth Farms, Facebook)

Belinda and Michelle see many challenges not just for young females, but for all young people entering into the agricultural sector and the industry itself. With these challenges, though, comes great opportunities and rewards.  According to Belinda, ‘it is going to be very exciting to see where farming is headed in the next 10-20 years, especially in the areas of research, development and innovation.’

Both Belinda and Michelle do not see being female farmers, or running a female managed farm, as a barrier; 'we just get in do the job at hand to a good standard', they say. This has brought great respect within their community not only for their produce, but also with the support they provide for young people and community groups.

For now though it is business as usual on Stackelroth Farms, where the farming season for 2017 is finishing off. To see what Belinda, Michelle and their team get up to, you can follow their journeys via the Stackelroth Farms Facebook and Instagram pages. Happy Halloween!

Michell (left) and Belinda (right), image courtesy Lara Webster, ABC Rural, http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-10-10/halloween-pumpkins-bring-relief-for-north-queensland-growers/9032998

Shining a Light on the Australian Women's Land Army (1942-1945)

By Heather Gartshore

Heather Gartshore is an academic with the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales. She is currently writing her Masters thesis on the histories and stories of the Australian Women’s Land Army (1942-1945), with a specific focus on ‘giving voice and shining a light on those stories which remain untold.’

Women's Land Army members at Fowlers Farm in the Burdekin district, c. 1942-1945, Image courtesy OzatWar: http://www.ozatwar.com/ausarmy/wla.htm

This is the story of the Australian Women’s Land Army (1942-1945). It is a story about a cohort of women who dedicated their time, resources and energy to supporting Australia through a wartime shortage in food, agriculture and physical labour. Except for some memoirs, biographies and brief mentions, this important story remains largely untold. Many groups have obscured histories, and these are mostly those groups who were not in the dominant positions of power in their period: aboriginal cultures, women, conquered peoples, minority sects or immigrants, and other such groups. Like these groups, the story of the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA) is a story that needs to be further explored and revealed.

Promotional material, Australian Women's Land Army, c. 1942.

In seeking to tell the story of the Australian Women’s Land Army, my interest is not in championing women’s rights, but in shining a light on a significant contribution some hard-working Australians gave to buoy their country through tough times; a contribution which should be acknowledged, celebrated, and given a place in public awareness.

Women of the Australian Women's Land Army at Work (c. 1941-1943), Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria

The Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA) provided a critical service, which was recognised by farmers to politicians (and many in between) throughout the Second World War. Yet such recognition has waned considerably since the war. The AWLA has had to contend for acknowledgement, and it was not until 1981 that they were granted acceptance to march on Anzac Day. Furthermore, historical works about the contribution of women to wartime food production are considerably wanting compared to research about the widely acknowledged men’s services. Yet, the AWLA provided an essential contribution to food production across Australia during the war.

Women of the Australian Women's Land Army at Work (c. 1941-1943), Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria

Australia’s domestic war effort included everyday services from communication to mining and agriculture, as well as more active efforts involving the Australian Defence Forces, to which both men and women contributed. War brought major disruption to agriculture and food supplies in Europe and Britain as well as in Australia. The possibility of a post-war famine in Britain and Europe was a significant concern. In Australia, discussions about increasing supply for Europe and Britain were tempered with concerns about Australia’s concurrent drought. NSW’s Governor Wakehurst contended that Australia must step up and increase her supplies in all areas of agricultural production. NSW’s Premier Mair echoed Wakehurst, urging Australia to resourcefully meet the British Empire’s food crisis.

Women of the Australian Women's Land Army at Work (c. 1941-1943), Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria

The AWLA was a centralised ‘land army’ with ranks and uniformed women dressed similarly to the way members of a defence army would be dressed. The Land Army actively recruited members and, even though the choice to serve was voluntary, all labour was paid. Once volunteering, the women were required to serve in full time roles for a minimum of one full year and be willing to go to any part of Australia where the Land Army required them. In launching their service, the AWLA and its auxiliary services faced several challenges relating to transport, medical needs, clothing and a range of other obstacles; but the most difficult obstacle involved biases against female labour. Yet, despite this bias, women’s organisations worked hard to persuade their opponents that they would deliver a valuable contribution to food production and to relieving the manpower shortage. The result of their efforts motivated numerous farmers to report that their female employees worked extremely competently, far more so than expected.

Women of the Australian Women's Land Army at Work (c. 1941-1943), Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria

Documents provide clear evidence that both farmers and local politicians had enough confidence in the Women’s Land Army that they continued to employ these women and pay them out of their own profits. They publicly petitioned for military honours and medals to be given to AWLA members (and those of the AWLA auxiliaries), together with those soldiers who won combat medals. Regrettably, no such awards were granted until 2012; and, as mentioned above, it was not until 1981 that AWLA members were accepted to participate in Anzac Day events.

Acknowledgement in historical research is still scarce when compared with the acknowledgement bestowed upon male war efforts. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, a commemorative artwork celebrated the contribution of the AWLA, yet this fades in significance against other relevant contributions. Finally, in 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard invited women from the AWLA to attend a dinner at Parliament House in Canberra, where Ms. Gillard gave a speech, certificates and brooches to acknowledge and thank these women for all they gave for their country. In her speech, the Prime Minister said:

You went to take up the work of the men who had left for the front. Some of them were your fathers, brothers, or even sons. In doing so, you brought victory closer, just as if you had picked up a rifle yourself. Now I know a thing or two about working in a traditionally male domain. But the life I've been privileged to lead is only possible because women of courage like you were there first; in the tough years, the desperate years, when the nation faced its ultimate test. You helped Australia pass that test. And today - here in the nation's heart - we thank you. I know it's been a long time coming, these words of thanks …Ladies, each of you will return home with these certificates graciously signed by the Governor-General, and with booklets created by the Australian War Memorial and, above all, with a commemorative brooch to wear. I know you will wear those brooches with a great deal of pride. And I really hope, I genuinely hope they prompt younger Australians to ask you what they mean, because you'll be able to tell them. You'll be able to say ‘I answered the nation's call. I stood up to be counted when Australia needed help the most.' And a new generation will learn of the remarkable things you did and the remarkable women you are. So today, on behalf of all Australians, I thank you for your generosity and your service. The Australian Women's Land Army has achieved a lasting place of honour in the history of our nation. May it be celebrated - truly celebrated - for many years to come.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard presenting AWLA servicewoman Peggy Williams with a commemorative brooch, 2012, Photograph: Andrew Meares, Photography courtesy Fairfax media.

Despite this recent acknowledgement, more needs to be done to raise the place of the AWLA in Australia’s wartime history. It is high time that historians and the Australian public paid them more gratitude and joined with the people of 1943 declaring, “Hats off to the women!” Therefore, I am continuing my research at the University of New England, seeking to demonstrate just how vital these women’s work was to the national war effort. As mentioned earlier, while this is not about championing women’s rights as such, it is about filling a gap in Australia’s wartime history during which a women’s service provided a valuable and essential service that carried our nation in a time of shortage and conflict. They deserve a chapter in the pages of Australian history.

Mini documentary commemorating the 2012 AWLA Anzac Day march, ABC News.

 

Share your Australian Women's Land Army stories!

If you know of any family members or friends who participated in the Australian Women’s Land Army, or any of its auxiliary services, and you believe you may have further information which would contribute to the telling of these women’s efforts, please send Heather an email: hgartsho@myune.edu.au

You can also share your stories with the Invisible Farmer Project via our online story submission page.

To stay in touch with the Invisible Farmer Project, please follow our journeys on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Australia’s first woman organic farmer discovered in Switzerland: The story of Ileen Macpherson

By Dr John Paull, School of Land & Food, University of Tasmania, Hobart

John Paull is an academic with a research focus on organic agriculture. In this guest blog post John Paull charts his research into the genesis of the Australian organics movement, and his discovery of a wonderful story - the story of Ileen Macpherson, an Australian pioneer of organics.

A portrait of Ileen Macpherson by Ernesto Genoni (private collection), Image supplied by John Paull. 

On a hunch, I travelled from Oxford to the Swiss village of Dornach. Could it be that there were Australians who joined the world’s earliest organic agriculture research organisation back in the 1920s or 1930s? Then, I had never heard of Ileen Macpherson.

I discovered in the archives of the Goetheanum that twelve Australians had joined Rudolf Steiner’s Experimental Circle. This is the story of one of those pioneers of organic farming, Ileen Macpherson (1898-1984).

Ileen Macpherson was the daughter of a farming family. They farmed large pastoral properties in the south of New South Wales (NSW); Paika Station (250,000 acres) and later Goonambil Station, in the Murrumbidgee Valley.

These Macpherson holdings were about equidistant from the three major capital cities of Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ileen was sent to Clyde School in Melbourne. It was a newish boarding school for girls, located in St Kilda, a beach-side suburb of Melbourne. It has been described by a past principal as “stylish”, “expensive” and with “an incredibly high standard”. A good part of its clientele were the girls of well-off pastoralist families.

Ileen Macpherson, hockey team, Clyde School Archives, Image supplied by John Paull. 

Ileen Macpherson, school photo, 1913 (private collection),  Image supplied by John Paull. 

Ileen flourished at Clyde. Her nickname was ‘Ikey'. She excelled in all the sports the school offered, including athletics, basketball, tennis and hockey as well as dancing. She represented Clyde in inter-school competitions. One account of her competitive spirit, exhibited at an inter-school sports competition, appeared in the school magazine: “Could anything surpass the grim determination writ upon every feature of Ikey Macpherson”. In her final years she was a prefect, and she won the prize for ‘best all-round sport’. The school record gives no inkling of how her life would unfold.

In Melbourne, in the early 1930s, the fate of Ileen and Ernesto Genoni collided. Ileen had followed her curiosity and found herself attending a university lecture on Anthroposophy by Ernesto. Ernesto was an Italian artist. A contemporary account states: “He was dark, with flashing eyes, hair swept back off his forehead and an exotic look.”

Ileen became infatuated with Ernesto and smitten with this new spiritual philosophy of Anthroposophy that he was teaching. Ernesto had spent a year studying with Rudolf Steiner, the founder of biodynamics, at the Goetheanum, the headquarters of Anthroposophy at Dornach in Switzerland. Ileen and Ernesto soon became intertwined, and Ileen proposed that they work collaboratively to put to the test Rudolf Steiner’s agricultural ideas that he had espoused in 1924 at Koberwitz. Together they founded ‘Demeter Biological Farm’ in 1934 in Dandenong on the Princes Highway to do just that.

Ernesto had already joined Steiner’s Experimental Circle of Anthroposophic Farmers and Gardeners based in Switzerland. So he had a copy of Steiner’s “hints” for a new world agriculture eschewing synthetic fertilisers and chemicals. Ernesto’s copy of Steiner’s ‘The Agriculture Course’ was in German. And now Ileen joined the Experimental Circle and received from Switzerland her own copy of ‘The Agriculture Course’ in English. The applications of both Ileen and Ernesto to join the Experimental Circle are still held in the archives in Switzerland.

The Goetheanum in Switzerland where Ileen joined the Experimental Circle. Sadly illness prevented Ileen from travelling to the Goetheanum. Image supplied by John Paull.

Demeter Farm in Dandenong was Australia’s first biodynamic farm and thereby also first organic farm (although the terms ‘biodynamic’ and ‘organic’ emerged later, in 1938 and 1940 respectively).

Together Ileen and Ernesto farmed their 40 acres. It was worked as a small dairy farm, and the manure built into the compost in the Bio-Dynamic way. They made their own preparations and sprays and produced very good vegetables which were sold in the wholesale market in the city and also from a truck on the side of the road. Ileen played an important role in all of the farm activities, from research to application of biodynamic techniques to gardening to milking cows.

Ileen and Ernesto lived together at Demeter Farm. They hosted visiting Anthroposophists including Dr Alfred Meebold who travelled from Europe. Ernesto continued to teach Anthroposophy in the Collins Street rooms of the Michael Group, which he had co-founded.

The couple planned trips to Europe. But Ileen never met Ernesto’s sister Rosa in Milan, and she never got to visit the Goetheanum in Switzerland. In 1939 she was not well enough to travel. She got only as far as New Zealand.

When Ernesto returned from Europe, just before the outbreak of WW2, he wrote: “At the farm I found things with Ileen not too good. The last month Ileen carried on the milking by herself, but her legs began to give way.” Ileen was always a determined woman and she was managing the milking but she was struggling to walk. She was carrying a burden of illness which was not yet recogonised or understood.

Ileen was eventually diagnosed with pernicious anaemia - “pernicious’ meaning deadly. Historically the prognosis for Ileen’s affliction was death, often in a matter of months. Doctors Whipple, Minot and Murphy had recently been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering a cure -injections of raw liver juice. It seems that Ileen spent several years in the Epworth Hospital undergoing this new treatment. She survived, but she had lost the use of her legs and she would never walk again.

Ileen Macpherson in later life (private collection), Image supplied by John Paull.

Ileen spent the next forty years wheelchair bound. The farm fell to Ernesto as well as caring for Ileen. This eventually became too much and they sold Demeter Farm in 1954. Their adventures in biodynamic and organic farming with Demeter Farm had spanned twenty years.

Ileen never did make the pilgrimage to Anthroposophy headquarters in Dornach, but she retained her dedication to the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner throughout her life. And she treasured her collection of books by Steiner. Despite the medical catastrophe of the pernicious anaemia diagnosis, Ileen lived a long life. She passed away aged 85 years and had lived a longer life than any of her parents and her five siblings. Perhaps Ileen was sustained by that ‘grim determination’ she had practiced as a young athlete, by her long-standing faith in the spiritual teachings of Rudolf Steiner, by the good care of the Epworth medical team, by the loving care of Ernesto, and perhaps by half a century of consuming a biodynamic/organic diet.

“Constant hard work and many grievous trials were endured by the pioneers who undertook the first Bio-Dynamic venture in Victoria”. Ileen left her house and land to the Dandenong Council for a park. The Ileen Macpherson Park can be visited at 17-19 Namur St, Noble Park, Victoria..

The Ileen Macpherson Park in Noble Park, Image supplied by John Paull.

The Invisible Farmer Project aims to make the invisible visible. Here we scratch off some of the invisibility that has settled on an Australian pioneer of organic agriculture. Beginning more than eight decades ago, Ileen Macpherson, with her Demeter Farm and her partner Ernesto Genoni, blazed a trail for the development of biodynamics and organics. 

Australia is now a world leader in organic farming. Australian organics has been growing at 16% annually for the past two decades. And Australia now accounts for a massive 45% of the world’s certified organic agriculture hectares. But, in the beginning were just a few pioneers - so nearly invisible now - who took the vision of an Austrian philosopher to heart and set out to make it real.

Acknowledgments:

Thank you to: the Archives of the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland; the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford; the Michael Group, Melbourne; Annita Sharpe; Margaret Garner; and Pam Martin.

 

Want to know more?

•  Check out: ”Ileen Macpherson: Life and tragedy of a pioneer of biodynamic farming at Demeter Farm and a benefactor of Anthroposophy in Australia”: http://orgprints.org/31230/1/JO415.pdf

•  Check out Ileen’s partner: “Ernesto Genoni: Australia's pioneer of biodynamic agriculture”: http://www.academia.edu/9144789/

•  A list of the twelve Australians who joined the Experimental Circle appears in: “A history of the organic agriculture movement in Australia”: http://www.academia.edu/9144875/

•  For Australia’s place in the world of organic agriculture, check out: “Atlas of Organics: Four maps of the world of organic agriculture”: http://www.academia.edu/25648267

•  About Dr John Paull’s research: http://utas.academia.edu/JohnPaull

PhD position with the Invisible Farmer Project

We are excited to advertise a PhD position with the Invisible Farmer Project, offering the candidate the opportunity to research and document the history of the Australian Rural Women's Movement. 

About

The Invisible Farmer Project, funded by the Australian Research Council through its Linkage Scheme, is the largest ever study of Australian women on the land. It will combine personal narratives and academic research to map the diverse, innovative and vital role of women in agriculture, the seafood industry and horticultural production. The project is based on a creative partnership between rural communities, academics, government and cultural organisations, and aims to:

– Create new histories of rural Australia,
– Discover and reveal contemporary and historical stories about the diverse, innovative and vital role of women in food and fibre production,
– Stimulate public discussions about contemporary issues facing rural and regional Australia and its future,
– Develop significant public collections that will enable far reaching outcomes in research, industry and public policy.

A Strategic Australian Postgraduate Award (STRAPA), funded through the McCoy Project scheme (a collaboration between Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne) is available to support a PhD in history, to document A history of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement in the late 20th century.

The successful candidate will conduct research that draws upon archival material created during previous studies to document the history of the Australian Rural Women’s Movement. They will also collect life history interviews to expand and develop existing collections. Using an innovative mix of oral history, digital technologies and material culture the candidate will contribute to the larger ARC funded project as it reframes the narrative of Australian history to highlight the role of women in food and fibre production.

Requirements and application process

Candidates are required to meet the University of Melbourne entry requirements for a PhD in History – that is, an honours degree (H2A and above) in the discipline of History. Undergraduates currently completing their honours year are encouraged to apply.

Candidates interested in applying for this scholarship should forward their CVs, along with a 1-2 page document outlining formal qualifications, work experience and any other features that support the applicant’s suitability for candidature, to Dr Nikki Henningham via email at n.henningham@unimelb.edu.au. Applications close Friday 18 August, 2017.

"Life on a Station": my experiences of being an 18-year-old Jillaroo in the Pilbara (Western Australia)

By Emma Moss

My name is Emma Moss, I am 18 years old and I live and work at Pardoo Station in the Pilbara, Western Australia. I was born in Toowoomba, Queensland and have always lived on a small farm where we run sheep and horses.  My main passions in life are agriculture and photography.  Living on a station for me is a perfect combination where I can combine my love for the land and animals, and my love for my photography. Next year I am going to University of Queensland in Gatton to study a dual degree in Sustainable Farming and Agribusiness with the long term goal to stay in agriculture.

Emma Moss pictured during a golden sunset in the Kimberley, Photograph: supplied.

My Mum has been a big influence on my own journey into becoming a jillaroo. Mum was lucky enough to spend her teen years living and working on big properties in NSW. After starting University in the early 1980’s and not loving what she was doing, she opted to take some time off and work on the station they were living on at the time, Haddon Rig Merino stud, Western NSW.  She then went to Orange Ag College and continued to work at Haddon Rig during the holidays. Following college, she landed a job as Farm Secretary on Pooginook Merino Stud in the Riverina. This job allowed Mum to work both in the office and out in the paddock. The merino industry at the time was still very male dominated, and there were very few girls working in the industry.

Hearing my Mum’s stories and visiting Haddon Rig when I was about 13 certainly first sparked my interest to work on a station. It is due to this, along with my mates wanting to do the same thing, that I put ‘going up north’ on the to-do list. After school, I got a job at Nerrima Station in the Kimberley, Western Australia for the 2016 season. With my urge to work super hard in horrible heat and dust not fulfilled, I got a job at Pardoo station in the Pilbara for the 2017 season.

"Horses" by Emma Moss, Photograph: supplied.

"3 curious calves" by Emma Moss, Photograph: supplied.

Even the drive up (a short 55 or so hours from home) started my addiction to the landscape, open-ness and isolation of station life. There were so many “I wish I had a camera, this would be a great photo” moments. Finally, in April 2016 I bought a second-hand camera from our station cook, Dan Macintosh. It was the first ‘proper’ camera that I had owned. Since then I have carried my camera everywhere.

Emma's colleague Lauren Balfour from Yarrie Station in the Pilbara, Photograph: Emma Moss, supplied.

Having my camera is a brilliant way for me to capture all the things I love about being a jillaroo and working in a wonderful part of our country. At first I didn’t even consider what other people would think of the photos. I thought I would just take photos and have them on my computer to look back on as a memory. The more photos I take and the more I learn, the more my photos start to resemble the beauty I see through my eyes. Taking photos now is a way for me to share the beauty of the place where I live and work and the incredible people I am surrounded by.

Emma's cattle manager Abbie Dunn who Emma describes as "one of the toughest and most caring women around", Photograph, Emma Moss, supplied.

By carrying my camera with me I am able to create some realisation of the work that goes on behind the scenes of that steak you buy at the butchers. Some people might not know where their meat comes from, and I’m passionate about raising awareness of the work that jackaroos and jillaroos do behind the scenes. My Instagram page ‘Life On A Station’ and my personal Facebook page are my main outlets. Life On A Station has over 4500 followers (and growing each day) which is an exciting thing for me that so many people are able to see my photos.

Zarrah Blackwell, Rachel O'Conner and Grace Harrison, all of whom have worked at Liveringa Station, Photograph: Emma Moss, supplied.

Isla Bell, who worked with Emma on Nerrima Station, Photograph: Emma Moss, supplied.

From what I have heard about what things were like 20 years ago, women’s roles in agriculture – and particularly station life – have changed a lot. Long gone are the days where women were encouraged to stay in the office and kitchen. Men and women now work side by side throughout the day and enjoy a well-earned beer at the end of the day together. Whilst men are generally stronger than women and often find lifting jobs easier, us girls find other ways to get the job done. Our head Stockwoman at Nerrima used to like to send a boy and a girl out together to get the work done. She liked to say that the girls used their brains and their natural nurturing ability and the boys used their skills and muscle. She thought it was the perfect combination. I tend to agree that men and women working together balance everything out more. The social structure changes with a mix as opposed to just having one sex in the camp.

Jacob Dunn, Kit Le Lievre and Emma Moss, working together at Pardoo Station, "these guys taught me so much", Photograph: Emma Moss, supplied.

Emma Moss with Kit Le Lievre at Nerrima Station, "we were both on the lead of some bush cows", Photograph: Emma Moss, supplied.

My main roles in the stock camp are fencing, mustering, yard work, fencing, shoeing horses, bore runs, fencing and checking fences – yes fencing happens a lot! There are probably two things that I love the most about this lifestyle, the first being mustering and walking cattle out. Once the cattle are walking out and all is not too hectic, I find it hard to believe I get paid to ride a horse in amazing landscapes, following a mob of cattle with great people surrounding me – (maybe I shouldn’t tell my boss that though)! The second thing I love is there isn’t a day where I don’t get to challenge myself. I know it sounds corny but at the end of the day the only person who is ever going to back you up is yourself. So, learning to back myself all the time, accepting I will make mistakes and viewing everything as a learning experience is a pretty cool perk of the job.

"Boots and spurs" by Emma Moss, Photograph: supplied.

To say what an average day entails is quite difficult as plans change constantly and it depends what time of the year it is. Here, everything depends on the rain. We muster after the rain is finished in about April. We plan when we put the bulls in the paddocks so the cows calf when there is enough green feed for all to stay healthy.  Most station hands go home before the ‘wet’ starts again. Our days generally start when the sun comes up or maybe earlier and finish when the sun goes down.

"Pilbara Storm Clouds" by Emma Moss, photograph: supplied.

On a station, you learn to be a handyman/handywoman – fencing, welding, mustering, painting, repairing broken things, DIY mechanic jobs, building, bore running and small plumbing jobs are all skills I have learnt over the past 2 years. No day is ever super easy, some days are plain hard, but there are plenty of the ‘this is why I’m here’ days to make it all worth the terrible tan lines, cracked lips, horrible nails and near constant dust moustache!

"Beers and dirty nails" by Emma Moss, Photograph: supplied.

I’m happy to be able to contribute my story to the Invisible Farmer Project. A lot of women in agriculture were probably not as visible as men in the past and more specifically not in the public sphere. But I have grown up in an environment where women work just as hard as men, our job positions are based on our skills rather than our sex and I think that we make a brilliant team. I hope that my photos help shine a light on not only the beauty of Australia, but the work that women and men do up here on stations. Jillaroos like me work hard, are passionate about our job and industry and care deeply about our impact on the environment, animals and what happens ‘behind the scenes’.

Emma's cattle manager Abbie Dunn who Emma describes as "one of the toughest and most caring women around", Photograph, Emma Moss, supplied.

My future plans are to go to university and get a degree in agriculture and continue taking photos of the industry I love. I hope that more people can become educated about where their food comes from and the work that is put in behind it. I would love to know more people make an educated and discerning decision about the food they buy and consequently the people they are supporting in doing so.  I believe agriculture is going to continue to be a hugely significant contributor to Australia’s economy and in securing food in an ever growing world population.  It is knowing I am part of something so dynamic and progressive that makes me so excited to bounce off bed every morning and make my small contribution to help make the world a better and more sustainable place.  

Emma Moss photographed with her sister Amelia Moss and cousin Olivia D'Arcy, Photograph: supplied.

Want to know more?

• Follow Emma's journeys via Instagram, @life_on_a_station

Celebrating the Stories of Australian Farm Women

“We aren’t just “Farmer’s Wives”, we are “Farmers”!”

— Toni Bennington

Network gives rural women a sea of opportunities

Guest post by the Victorian Rural Women's Network

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

— Ryunosuke Satoro

Launching tomorrow on 1 July 2017 the Victorian Rural Women’s Network will connect Victorian rural and regional women through information, shared experiences, opportunities and a platform to be heard.

Victorian Government and our first female Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford re-instated the network in response to many women discussing its need, especially during the recent drought and dairy industry challenges.
 

About the Victorian Rural Women’s Network
 

Back in the mid-1980s the original Rural Women’s Network was born out of a desire by Victorian politicians Joan Kirner and Caroline Hogg to encourage more rural women into public life. The inaugural Rural Women's Network was established in Victoria in 1986 under the auspices of the Office of Rural Affairs in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and it soon became a wide-reaching network that held an important place in the lives of many rural, regional and remote women (and indeed city women). The aim was to link rural women's groups and individuals into a loose network supported by government infrastructure, to enable the sharing of ideas, issues, information and support, and to encourage women to develop a more active voice in government decision-making.

Inaugural Rural Women's Network Network Newsletter, 1987

In 1987 the first Network Newsletter rolled off the press with the aim of:

• linking women’s groups and individuals into a network which shared resources and skills
• enabling a more active and influential role for rural women in government decisions affecting the lives of them, their families and communities.

The editors and their many contributors achieved these goals and over the years discussions turned to leadership, health, voices, isolation, work, learning, networking, taking a local and global focus, safety, community, business, drought, celebration, the mix of young and old in rural communities and water.

Past copies of the Rural Women's Network Newsletter

Today these topics still resonate. Like the seasons, issues for women seem to run in cycles and change just as much as they stay the same. Indeed, at events and forums this year rural women have articulated their biggest challenges as isolation, confidence, opportunities, connectivity, having a voice, access and resilience.

Victoria’s Gender Equity Strategy highlights the amazing leadership shown by rural women, especially in the community, but it also notes that rural and regional women have to deal with poor telecommunications and are at risk of poorer health outcomes compared to their urban counterparts.

And while we had both a female Victorian Premier in Joan Kirner and Victorian Farmers Federation President in Heather Mitchell back in the 1980s, there have been no other women in these specific roles since. We do, thankfully, have our first female Minister for Agriculture in Jaala Pulford.

The Hon. Joan Kirner featured in RWN Network Newsletter

The Hon. Jaala Pulford at the 2017 Women in Agriculture Forum

Women, who make up about half the population, do not generally take up half the seats in government, on most councils or in the board rooms. In a recent listing of the most influential Australians of the past decade, only 20 per cent were women. These are good reasons to get the Network back up and running in a race towards real and true gender equality.
 

Get Involved Now!
 

Anyone can be a Rural Women’s Network member and we encourage all Victorian women (and men), especially those in rural and regional areas, to sign up now at :

http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/food-and-fibre-industries/rural-womens-network

Through joining the Rural Women’s Network participants will have the chance to connect, to learn, to meet like-minded and inspirational women and to share their own thoughts and ideas.

Women gathered at the Women in Agricutlure forum held at Parliament House, Melbourne, 2017

The popular Network Newsletter, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is also back, although in a 21st century online format. There will be the usual personal stories and themes three times a year and then, in between, participants can visit the Rural Women’s Network digital platform and social media sites, receive regular e-updates on events and opportunities and share their own experiences. So we encourage all women living and working, or originally hailing from, rural and regional Victoria to sign up the Victorian Rural Women’s Network.

Harrow Women on Farms Gathering Committee Members Fiona Cameron and Annette Jones, Harrow, 2017

In the words of women at the recent Women in Agriculture Forum at Parliament House, this Network offers so much for its participants including:
 

“To be able to connect with each other and use each other’s experiences and knowledge to work together to provide our points of view and inform debate.”

“Connectivity, peer learning, networking, leadership development for the skill confidence to take on board opportunities.”

“Diverse views, enrichment of communities. More productive businesses and partnerships.”

“(These opportunities are) endless if we are brave.”
 

This is only the start of the list and there will be a sea of opportunity in coming months and years as rural and regional women join together to turn these individual drops into an ocean of ideas, actions, influences and achievements across the Victorian landscape.
 

Find out more!

• Read about Caroline Hogg's experience with the Rural Women's Network in the 1980s and 1990s
   
• Read about Anna Lottokowitz and Jenni Mitchell's experience of the Rural Women's Network in the 1980s and 1990s
   
• Explore Museum Victoria's Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection

Women on the Land: Entrepreneurs and Business Innovators

 By Kerry Anderson, author of "Entrepreneurship: It’s Everybody’s Business"
 

Some of our rural towns are dying while others are thriving. The question is: What can we do about it?

Having grown up in rural Victoria as part of a small business family, the importance of supporting local businesses and encouraging new enterprises has always been clear to me.  Sadly it is not always so clear to others, hence my passion to promote entrepreneurship and small business. We shouldn’t wait for governments to act, it is up to all of us.

In the process of writing my book, Entrepreneurship: It’s Everybody’s Business, I had the privilege of interviewing a variety of business people across rural Australia, many of which were enterprising women on the land. I am pleased to report that more and more rural and farm women are becoming successful in their own right and helping to strengthen our rural towns. Their stories are truly inspiring.

Sarah Sammon of Simply Rose Petals, Swan Hill, image: supplied.

Sarah Sammon (pictured above) returned to her home town of Swan Hill with a science degree but no clear career path. Spurred on by her inability to get a job in her hometown, Sarah put her science degree and entrepreneurial spirit to good use researching alternatives to a struggling cut flower industry. Combining forces with her mother they reinvented a declining property with 1,000 rose bushes for the cut flower industry into a new and incredibly successful business, Simply Rose Petals.

‘At this time traditional confetti started being frowned upon at wedding venues because it caused staining and was not biodegradable,’ explains Sarah. ‘We saw an opportunity and went for it.’

Simply Rose Petals has grown rapidly from a small idea into a booming business. Specialised technology allows their rose petals to be freeze-dried, packaged and shipped to 15 countries around the world. Such has been the demand, that they have expanded their number of rose plants from 1,000 to 6,000. The product has also been featured on popular Australian television shows such as The Bachelor, X Factor, Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelorette and Big Brother!

With an insatiable curiosity and boundless enthusiasm driving her to continuously improve the business, it is no surprise that Sarah has been recognised as a finalist through the Telstra Businesswomen’s Awards and, in 2015, received the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award for female Australian entrepreneur under 40. To read more about Sarah's journey, please click here.

Naomi Ingleton of King Valley Dairy, Moyhu, image: supplied.

Similarly, Naomi Ingleton (pictured above) saw an opportunity and brought an old butter factory in Myrtleford back to life as a new business capitalising on the surrounding dairy farms.

'I kept driving past this beautiful old empty building in Myrtleford,' recalls Naomi, 'and thinking this is crazy, someone should do something with that!'

Prior to purchasing the old butter factory Naomi had worked as a chef overseas, and then back in Australia she had helped to set up a Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden in Wangaratta. 'Gardening and horticulture are a passion of mine', she says, 'so I went and studied horticulture and then did a Diploma of Agriculture at Dookie so I could learn a bit about farm management.' 

Naomi's mutual passions for gardening, farming and cooking have all informed her role at King Valley Dairy. The business began as a cafe serving food to customers, and then evolved into a commercial butter factory, The Old Butter Factory Myrtleford, in 2010. Like many Australian chefs  dissatisfied with the quality of commercial butter produced in Australia, Naomi had previously been purchasing butter from France, or making it herself. 'Here I was in an old butter factory, surrounded by dairy farms, and making a batch of butter for my customers', she recalls, 'it was a light bulb moment' to turn the butter-making into a business opportunity. 

'I'd never seen naturally cultured butter made on a commercial scale before and no-one was doing it here in Australia', says Naomi, 'so I had to do a lot of research on Google.' With the help of a Churchill Fellowship Naomi also travelled to France to learn butter-making techniques, and upon returning home her butter, cheese and dairy products began to bring in awards from the likes of the Royal Melbourne Show, International Cheese Awards and Delicious Magazine. 

With success came challenges, including the difficulties in meeting market demand and managing the business through a period massive growth. 'We believed the business could be big and amazing', reflects Naomi, 'but we needed to move the factory to a much bigger space.' In 2016 the company moved to Moyhu in the King Valley and was re-branded to King Valley Dairy. Production has increased from 2,000 to 16,000 litres per week and Naomi is now Managing Director and CEO of the company. When asked what advice she has for other rural women in business, Naomi responded, 'be confident you can do it' adding that 'often women have way too much self-doubt.'

“I have spent my life wondering if I will find something that I’m really good at', she reflects, 'and I’ve finally found my thing.' To read more about Naomi's journey, please click here. 

Rebecca Comiskey, Alpha, Queensland, image: supplied.

Rebecca Comiskey (pictured above) is a teacher by training but alongside her husband David she has thrown herself full time into a 20 year plan to rejuvenate their 8, 500 hectare cattle station in Melton, near Alpha, in central Queensland.

Entering the organic market, adopting a rotational grazing system, and maximising their herd management forms a three pronged approach to the couple's 20 year plan. Closely monitoring and benchmarking their progress against previous years’ performances, all three goals have been fast tracked beyond their initial expectations.

The first big decision was to go organic and the reason was quite simple according to Rebecca.  “We decided to go with grass fed organic cattle because that is what we like to eat ourselves.” Rebecca is learning her craft in infinite detail by monitoring everything from organic soil carbon to genetics and genomics. In doing so she is taking the business to a new level that David could not achieve on his own.

Part of Rebecca's work involves future-planning, reporting and safe-guarding against inevitable drought. 'The rotational grazing system is far more climate effective,” says Rebecca. “For every one percent increase in Organic Soil Carbon, achieved through good grazing land management, another 72,000 litres of water can be absorbed into the soils per hectare, making our property more resilient for the droughts that will always be a part of our business.'

'We like to think that we are custodians of the land', says Rebecca', 'it is our aim to leave our soils in better shape than how we found them.' To read more about Rebecca's story, please click here.

Kerry Anderson holding her book, 'Entrepreneurship: It's Everybody's Business', image: supplied.

Every one of these stories is helping to break the glass ceiling for women in rural Australia. These women are far from invisible as they create new businesses and new ways of doing business, but there is always room for more.

As the next generation of young women mature and enter the workforce, I am heartened that they will have the benefit of many great role models that are contributing to the future of rural Australia. My concern is for those who don’t have access to role models as research shows that we are over thirty percent more likely to go into business if we know someone in business.

Yes, we can do something positive by personally encouraging innovation and being a customer of a rural businesses. And, we can share the stories of those who are already successful.

Want to know more?

• Visit Kerry Anderson's website and read her book: http://www.kerryanderson.com.au/book/
• Visit King Valley Dairy's website: https://kingvalleydairy.com.au/about/
• Visit Simply Rose Petals' website: http://www.simplyrosepetals.com.au/
• Read a case study on Rebecca and Dave's cattle station: http://www.rcsaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/File-Upload-The-RCS-Story_Stories-from-Clients_Case-Studies_Comiskey-Case-Study.pdf