Month / May 2019

by Action4Agriculture

Can you guess what our Woollies are up to for Woolmark’s Wool Week

The Woolmark Company’s Wool Week runs from May 20 to 26, championing the best wool and wool-rich apparel and home textiles in time for winter. So with all this woolly attention we wanted to know what our Wool Young Farming Champions were up to for Wool Week.

For Sam Wan wool has taken her around Australia and around the world. This time last year she was in Hong Kong as part of the International Wool Textile Organisation’s (IWTO) Young Professionals Program and this week she flies off to Italy for a study tour in conjunction with her Elders Employee of the Year 2018 award. But before she jumps on a plane this is what Sam is doing for wool:

  • Preparing for this (and next) week’s wool sale
  • Zooming in with the Western Sydney University team who are participating in this weekend’s National Merino Challenge
  • Organising presentations for her three Archibull Schools – Irrawang High School, Northern Beaches Secondary College and Burwood Girls High School
  • Attending an interview with WoolProducers for their Wool Ambassador Program
  • Wool sale day on Thursday
  • Promoting wool everyday through her blog: Wool for Every Day

Phew! This girl really loves her wool.

But Sam in not our only woolly.  Another YFC gearing up for a year of spreading the wool love into schools with The Archibull Prize is Lucy Collingridge. This week Lucy is organising google hang-outs and school visits for Greystanes High School and St Johns Park High School. That’s in her spare time. At work as a biosecurity officer with Local Land Services Lucy will be meeting with a wild dog baiting group to help wool producers to sustainably improve on-farm productivity and profitability.

YFC Peta Bradley lives and works in Armidale and will be wearing wool, especially as the temperatures start to drop. Around her neck will be her favourite Merino Wool Scarf, which is a divine blend of wool and possum fur. On the weekend she will be stewarding in the wool shed at the Dubbo Show and as that means standing around on concrete floors she will have Woolmark woollen socks on her feet. During her working week with Merinolink Peta will be assisting wool producers breed the best sheep.

YFC Bessie Thomas from Burragan Station in western NSW is recovering from last week when she took on the position of shearer’s cook at Burragan, where pulled lamb and gravy rolls were on the menu (along with quiche, fruit and chocolate muffins). According to Bessie the lamb and gravy pan was nearly licked clean! Not that life is going to slow down for Bessie – there are still 5000 merinos who need crutching and plenty of ewes to be pregnancy tested. Then Bessie needs to prepare for her own school visit with The Archibull Prize to Hurlstone Agricultural High School.

Showing our woollies come from all backgrounds we have YFC Chloe Dutschke who hails from the wine regions of South Australia and who is this week mustering sheep around the Hay plains. She is moving ewes to sheltered paddocks in preparation for lambing and classing young rams. YFC Adele Offley was born and raised on a sheep property near Crookwell on the southern highlands and today wool is still in her blood. She will be spending wool week working with wool growers in her job as a wool technical officer. And she is promoting this fabulous fibre across social media.

Dr Danila Marini is enjoying a Pint of Science , a global event that began in the United Kingdom six years ago, featuring University of New England’s scientists talking about their latest research and findings.

YFC Dione Howard is a woolly working as a veterinarian with Local Land Services and on a daily basis conducts disease investigations for wool producers. But adding to Wool Week, in her position as WoolProducers Youth Ambassador, she will be travelling to Melbourne to attend the Animal Health and Welfare Advisory Committee and the WoolProducers board meeting.

Wow. It may be Woolmark’s Wool Week with an emphasis on fashion but our woolly YFCs are all contributing to ensuring this remarkable fibre is grown in the best of conditions on the happiest of sheep, and sharing their stories in schools and across social media.

Our favourite woolimation

Happy Wool Week Woollies.

#LoveWool #WearWool #Thisflockinglyfe

 

by Action4Agriculture

Young Farming Champions Muster June 2019 Edition 2

This week’s top stories from Young Farming Champions (YFC) around the country (and globe!)

In the Field

Youth Voices Leadership Team  YFC Mentor and all round amazing woman Dione Howard has been busy learn all the ins and outs of social media at the Social Media Gov Summit. As part of the workshop she learnt  about how to delve into the behind the scenes of the common social media apps to learn how to find your most engaged audiences and what is working well on a social media channel. One lessons she shared with the team is “vertical video is king ” as it takes up more screen “real estate”. A great reminder for us all to get a little more intimate with our social media apps…

Young Farming Champion Lucy Collingridge shows she is ahead of the curve filming in vertical mode

Winter cropping is underway but what a difference a few hundred kilometers can make…In the northern part of NSW with Agronomist Casey Onus’ clients dry sowing in anticipation for a break, while at the south end of the state Agronomist and farmer Emma Ayliffe will complete her’s and her clients winter crop sowing this week. Australia is such a vast and varying country and while some farmers have been extremely lucky with the rain, others are still waiting for mother nature to provide some relief from the drought.

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Dryland crops around Moree going in exactly that, dry!

The opposite happens in the south with early crops out of the ground and what is left to be sown going into moisture with a promising start.

Grain Young Farming Champion Marlee Langfield is looking forward to her germinating canola crop getting some rain. Check out this great time lapse video of Canola seeds germinating

Overseas NFF 2030 leaders course Alumni Matt Chapness is in Laos sharing the technology and knowledge that we have on weed management in staple crops. Matt is working with rice growers in Laos sowing rice and introducing the concept of inter-row cultivation for weed control to help them get better crop yields

“They are small holder farmers and are very vulnerable to climatic shifts. It doesn’t take a lot for them to lose a whole year of production. They don’t have a lot of savings … I want to help them as they aren’t as fortunate as we are.

“Obviously it is different to Australia, but there are similar principles applying.”

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Matt working with growers in Laos to improve how they grow rice which is not only a staple crop in their diets it is critical to many farms incomes.

Out of the field

Dione Howard, busy as always, is off to Melbourne next weekend as she wraps up her stint as the Wool Producers Youth Ambassador Role. As part of her trip she is attending the Wool Producers Animal Health and Welfare Advisory Committee and Executive meeting as an observer which has been a key aspect of her involvement as the Youth Ambassador. While there she will also get to find out the next round of “Raising the Baa” recipients as they are announced.

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 Dione Howard 

Young Farming Champion Meg Rice attended the National Press Club Agricultural Leaders Debate

YFC Jasmine Whitten has been way out west has been running education programs in Cobar at the St John’s Parish Primary School. Run in conjunction with the Buckwaroon Landcare and Peak Gold Mine Environmental officers the program showcases how farmers care for one of our most precious resources, soil.

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Jasmine pictured here with the students of St John’s Parish school and the teams from Buckwoon Landcare and Peak Gold Mine

Young Farming Champion Lucy Collingridge used social media to share how she is volunteering her time to support rural and regional communities through the agricultural show movement. Lucy shared her wisdom and experience in this fabulous blog 

Young Farming Champion Alana Black has started her global journey of a lifetime flying out last week to join the Rural Youth Project, based in Scotland. The aim of the project is to  “develop feasible strategies to develop leadership and enterprise skills amongst young people in agricultural and rural communities based on understanding their current situation, aspirations, opportunities and challenges.”

Alana is currently in the Netherlands on an agriculture learning journey and shared her trip highlights on ✔️ vertical and aquaponic farms 🍅 ✔️ community farming initiatives 🚜 ✔️ floating dairy farm 🐮 through our social media pages

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The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the European Union and with 26% of the landmass under sea the Dutch are looking more and more to urban farming to meet production needs. At STRIJP-S which has become a place for artists, designers, theatre-makers and musicians to showcase their work Alana visited a closed loop aquaponic farm. Located on the 5th floor of an old Phillips manufacturing building. 

Alana Black Striip S At Kipster Farm which is the first farm of the world to produce CO2-neutral eggs and has a viewing facility open 24hrs a day for transparency Alana was very impressed with the farm’s egg cartoons. Made from  potato starch, cellulose fiber and water, the  CO2 footprint of a the Kipster egg box is 90% smaller compared with a standard egg box.

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Alana also visited the world’s first floating dairy. The offshore facility is right in the middle of Rotterdam’s Merwehaven harbour and will house 40 cows milked by robots. Eighty percent of the cows’ diet will come from food waste gathered from Rotterdam’s nearby restaurants.

The Floating Farm is 27m2 and has three levels. The lower level, on the floating base, houses the factories and a visitor’s area and shop. The factories process the raw cow milk, rainwater collected from the roof and cow urine and manure. Once processed, the manure will be used as fertiliser to grow feed for the cows.

 

Talking about globetrotters Wool Young Farming Champion Sam Wan is off to Italy. The trip is part of her prize pool of winning Elders Employee of the Year Sam will use the Italian wool study tour to experience the Italian connection of the wool pipeline and learn all she can to benefit her wool growers 🇮🇹”

Superstar YFC and climate action activist Anika Molesworth has had the most thrilling experience receiving the Instyle and Audi Future Shapers Women of Style award for the Farmer of Change award! On top of rubbing shoulders with the rich and fabulous she looked stunning and gave an inspiring speech . We couldn’t be prouder (and more jealous) of her truly unreal experience. See her acceptance speech here

Lifetime Highlights

Well honestly who can go past the superstar Anika…congratulations on being so damn fabulous, if you haven’t already go and grab your copy of June InStyle Magazine and see for yourself.

As the sunsets on yet another wrap-up of a fortnight of achievement of young people forging their way in this world we will leave you with this

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“Why fit in when you were born to stand out!” – Dr. Seuss

We also blogged about our lessons learnt

  1. What we have learnt about the world of volunteering 
  2. What we have learnt about using social media to amplify youth voices
  3. What we have learnt about leadership development 

Its been an exciting fortnight for our Young Farming Champions – looking forward to sharing the future with you

#YouthinAg #YouthVocies19 #StrongerTogether

by Action4Agriculture

Lesson Learnt Five – The world of volunteering

National Volunteer Week runs from 20-26 May. Many of our Young Farming Champions donate their time as volunteers and the plethora of volunteering opportunities can be overwhelming. In this edition of our Lessons Learnt series we talk with Lucy Collingridge to find out how to choose the volunteering role that is best-fit and how to amplify this role for maximum results.

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The qualities of being a great volunteer

Volunteering is time and expertise given willingly, without financial gain, for the common good. It is not enough to have a desire to volunteer, volunteering is about believing a real difference can be made and it is about turning that desire and belief into action.

Young Farming Champion Lucy Collingridge is a Biosecurity Officer with NSW Local Land Services and a lover of all things agriculture. Lucy was not born into the industry. and made her connection to agriculture through the show movement as part of her high school’s show team – presenting beef cattle and competing in Young Judges competitions. Agricultural shows have become Lucy’s best-fit volunteering role.

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Lucy as part of  RAS Youth Group run events at the Sydney Royal Easter Show like Agrichats ( with host Costa in 2018) 

“Each year we are alive we get to enjoy 8760 hours, and we can choose exactly how we spend those hours. There is work – 2080 hours. There is sleeping – 2912 hours. So what do we do with the remaining 3500?” says Lucy 

For Lucy a lot of those hours are spent volunteering. Today you might find her as the social media and website manager for the Cootamundra Show, convening the Young Judges Competition at the Narrabri Show, co-ordinating showgirls at the Wee Waa Show or free-ranging as a steward at the Condobolin Show.  In addition she works tirelessly in her role as a member of the RAS Youth Group at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

For Lucy there are six main contributors to a successful volunteer experience: desire, belief, focus, teamwork, commitment and action.

Desire: “If you find something you love and something that drives you to do better, you will find that is it less work and more fun. As they say, if you love what you do then you will never work a day in your life.”

Belief: “Think about the difference you can make and what aligns with your values and lifestyle; think about what is going to give you the most enjoyment and make the most impact.”

Focus: “It is better to do a fantastic job at one task, meet your deadlines and have fun rather than trying to do too much and ending up not finishing tasks, having people waiting on you or picking up the pieces.”

Teamwork: “At the end of the day volunteers are all part of the same community working to benefit the same thing, so showing respect and working together as a team is important.”

Commitment: “Finding something you have a deep passion for will help you give 110% to everything you do in that area. If you find something challenging, you have that extra spark to push you through. If you are unsure of what to do next, you have the eagerness to find a way to a solution. If you can see there are gaps in that area, you have extra drive to go over and above.”

Action: “Be the person you want to work with. Call when you say you will, email the documents someone is relying on you to send, meet deadlines and be the best you can be.”

Volunteering is Lucy’s way of ‘paying it forward’ and inspiring others.

“The rewards I get from my involvement with the show movement and Picture You in Agriculture far outweigh any financial benefit I could receive. I get to network with some of the industry’s best, I get the opportunity for personal and professional development, I get to see so much of our amazing country and visit overseas destinations, I get to educate the general population on the amazing things happening in our agricultural industry. I enjoy being involved with the show movement as it still provides me with these, but I love that through my involvement I am able to give other young people the same opportunities that led me to falling in love with agriculture.”

Volunteering can be enormously rewarding. Energy and passion such as Lucy’s is infectious.

“It is a pleasure to serve alongside Lucy on the RAS Youth Group. She is someone you can rely onto to do what they say, respond to communications in a timely manner, and when required, get in, roll her sleeves up and do the hard yards”.  

“Lucy’s dedication to the agricultural industry and country show movement is second to none. She is committed, incredibly passionate, and a great ambassador for our industry. Lucy’s exemplifies what it means to volunteer, and to give your absolute best to the roles that you put your hand up for” says Aimee Snowden Vice Chair of RAS of NSW Youth Group 

Picture You in Agriculture is also run by volunteers and we are very grateful for the ‘doers” the organisation attracts. Our leadership team know that it is important young people do not over commit. If think you maybe unable to deliver  then saying no to a volunteering request can be the best course of action,

With this in mind PYiA has developed a volunteering checklist. You can find it here

It helps our Young Farming Champions, like Lucy, be the best volunteers they can in order to amplify their voices and turn actions into performance and results.

by Action4Agriculture

Young Farming Champion Anika Molesworth walks the red carpet

Red Carpet

Young Farming Champion Anika Molesworth literally walked the red carpet on May 8 when she starred in the 11th annual InStyle & Audi Women of Style Awards.

The Awards recognise 10 remarkable future shapers and celebrated their incredible achievements across a range of industries. Collectively, these women are shaping our country and the world in which we live for generations to come. Anika was honoured as the Farmer of Change.

From the environmental sphere, sustainability champion Palisa Anderson was recognised for her work in farming and nurturing organic vegetables and herbs. Anika received her prestigious accolade for her impressive and innovative work implementing alternative energies and technologies such as soil sensors, drones and automation which help nurture the land.

Palisa Anderson

Sustainability Champion Palisa Anderson

InStyle’s acting editor, Alex Noonan, said, “It is truly a wonderful feeling to celebrate the InStyle and Audi Women of Style Awards. We are so proud to champion these women and to provide a platform for them to share their inspiring stories and successes.”

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All honourees were selected by InStyle and the Women of Style Awards judging panel, which includes: Nicole Kidman, actor and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador; Deborra-lee Furness, actor and human rights advocate; Collette Dinnigan, fashion designer; Layne Beachley, entrepreneur and environmental campaigner; Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia; Pip Marlow, CEO Customer Marketplace, Suncorp Group; Gillian Armstrong, film director; Louise Olsen, designer, artist and Creative Director, Dinosaur Designs; Alex Noonan, acting editor, InStyle; Nikki Warburton, Chief Marketing Officer, Audi Australia; Cassandra Kelly, international advisor, speaker, entrepreneur and Chair, Pottinger and Dame Quentin Bryce, Former Governor-General of Australia.

You can learn more about these incredible women here or pick up a copy of the June issue of InStyle magazine, on sale from Thursday May 16, and see them in all their styled glory.

Congratulations Anika – and we loved the photo shoot!

by Action4Agriculture

Lessons Learnt Number Four – Using Social Media to Amplify Youth Voices

Social media is all around us. Facebook pops up onto our screens with notifications, we spend hours admiring Instagram images and we check in with the twitter-verse. In the ten years since Picture You in Agriculture (PYiA) was born we’ve used social media to share our stories, create conversations and build relationships over countless interactions. In this edition of our Lesson Learnt series we talk to Young Farming Champions Bessie Thomas and Anika Molesworth to find out how social media can be used to amplify youth voices.

Bessie Thomas uses Facebook as her social media platform of choice to share her life on Burragan Station in western NSW. “I like Facebook for its ability to be short or long form,” she says. “I’m primarily a long-form writer and enjoy Facebook’s ability to allow me to explore my thoughts thoroughly, use language as it pleases me (especially for writing with comedic affect) and then add visuals to suit.”

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Just as Bessie enjoys Facebook for its long-form option Anika prefers the brevity of Twitter. “Twitter demands less wordiness and is relatively easy to use,” she says, “and I can use short sentences and one link or a picture.”

Whatever the choice of platform both girls agree it is connecting to your audience that is most important. “Having a public Facebook page is like creating my own little community,” Bessie says of her audience who come to her to experience real-life on a sheep property. “The one aim of my Facebook page has always been to show the human side of farming, show that I/my husband/our family/farmers in general are real people with the same everyday hopes, dreams, problems, desires, challenges, illnesses, brain-farts, morals, ethics and ideals as everyone else. I want to show that we are individuals who care, not just mass production food factories. We are not perfect; we are just as human as everyone else.”

For Anika using social media is about connecting with people who can spread her environmental and climate change messages. “I think Twitter is well used by farmers, researchers and politicians who are connected to the topics I am talking about,” she says, “and I like you can tag anyone, no matter who they are. For example I sometimes engage in a Twitter conversation with policy makers and where else could I do this?”

Anika Twitter

Using images and video is a trademark of many social media platforms and both Bessie and Anika use these to great effect. Bessie recently created a video after drought-breaking rain fell at Burragan. The video reached over 20,000 people and was picked up by the Sky News Weather Channel. See footnote

Anika has recently compiled short videos to share on Twitter where she talks about such subjects as renewable energy and climate change. “I am really interested in amplifying the voice of rural Australia, so I asked myself, how can I project my story further and raise awareness of topics I believe are important? I decided to make a series of short videos of me on my family’s farm. Walking around my paddocks I try to give observation and insight on my life in Far West NSW around a central theme of climate change – both its impacts and how it can be addressed.”

Anika admits, that although she is familiar and comfortable with Twitter and has built up an engaged audience and has being identified as the most influential agriculturalist on Twitter , there is always more to learn. Bessie too, finds it a continuous learning process but has these tips for creating successful posts:

  • Create authentic content. Don’t use give-aways or ask for likes and don’t post just for the sake of posting. Amplify your voice in a curated way.
  • Respond to comments and private messages and, in doing so, build trusted relationships.
  • Know your purpose, or aim, and stick to it.
  • Create an emotional connection. My best posts are the honest ones where I am celebrating the highs and also admitting vulnerability. Whinging and complaining posts tend not to do so well.
  • Spell-check! See footnote

Picture You in Agriculture provides all Young Farming Champions with training in social media skills during their immersion workshops and encourages them to share their experiences. Young Farming Champion Alana Black has recently contributed to this by creating a social media strategy document, sharing with YFC how to create engaging content. Just like Bessie and Anika, Alana’s believes it is about connecting with an audience to start a conversation and deliver a positive message about agriculture.

Footnote

That moment when Sky News wants to put your video on national TV and your dad rings to remind you of the ” i” before “e” rule except after “c”

A reminder we should all aim for progress not perfection

by Action4Agriculture

Lessons Learnt Number Three – Leadership development is an evolution

 Young People may only be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future.

Too often their voices aren’t heard.

At Picture You in Agriculture we are providing them with the skills and opportunities to earn a seat at the decision making table.

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Welcome to next chapter in our Lessons Learnt series. At Picture You in Agriculture we are big fans of the concept of Communities of Practice where people who share our vision and are getting great stuff done come together and share their lessons learnt, their successes and work together to amplify each others voices, pool their expertise and make more great stuff happen. This blog post in our Lessons Learnt series shares how we are supporting the leadership development of our Young Farming  Champions using Anika Molesworth as a case study. 

We believe leadership development is an evolution. In the initial workshops of the two-year Young Farming Champion program participants are taught the basic skills – how to tell their story, how to reach audiences, how to interact with media, both print and social. They then use The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas as a safe environment to hone these skills and are encouraged to take them into the wider community.

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Young Farming Champion Anika Molesworth is using her voice, the skills she has learnt, the accolades she has garnered and the networks she has created to amplify youth voices and mobilise a movement for #ClimateActionNow .

Pivotal to the success of this leadership journey is a continuum of support, networks and opportunities. In this edition of our Lessons Learnt series we look how Anika Molesworth is using her voice, the skills she has learnt, the accolades she has garnered and the networks she has created to amplify youth voices and mobilise a movement for #ClimateActionNow .

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In the last eight weeks Anika has been the keynote speaker at the NSW Geography Teachers Association Conference, Prime Super International Women’s Day lunches and the Rotary District 9520 Conference, talking about her love for her semi-arid property near Broken Hill and the way in which it is being affected by climate change.

Anika Prime Super

How these conferences came about is a lesson in networking and communication. For Rotary it was availing themselves of local talent at their conference held in Broken Hill. Prime Super invited her to speak after sponsoring the NSW/ACT Regional Achievement and Community Award for Agricultural Innovation, which Anika won in 2018.

“While all the award winners are special, sometimes one comes along that stands out,” General Manager Distribution, Prime Super Mark Ashburn says. “We think her work on sustainable agriculture is inspiring and directly contributes to the success of tens of thousands of our members directly involved in agriculture.”

The Geography Teachers conference was an amalgam of many avenues.

“I saw Anika present at the Brave New World Agriculture to 2030 Conference in Sydney in November 2018,” president of the Geography Teachers Association of NSW Lorraine Chaffer says. “Much of what she said had links to topics in the NSW Geography Syllabus. I was impressed by Anika’s positivity about the future and her message about taking action and later found a TED TALK she had made the previous year. The link to geography was very strong so I approached Anika, via Twitter, with a request to present at the GTANSW & ACT Annual Conference in Sydney – using a mix of her Brave New World and TED talks. We were not disappointed.”

Although all of Anika’s recent presentations have followed a similar theme, she finds it important to tailor each talk for the organisation. “To be impactful and give a memorable presentation, it is important to tailor every presentation to the specific audience and have a clear vision on what you want to achieve by giving your talk,” she says.

“The whole process of presenting is adaptive and ever-evolving. I always ask myself, who are my audience? What do they want to hear? What is the message I want to convey? How do I want them to feel and what do I want them to do when they leave my presentation?”

Education needs to go beyond changing what is inside people’s heads. It also needs to facilitate action by providing supportive infrastructure and practical know-how. Anika’s presentations inspire and give people tangible actions they can make as individuals, and this becomes evident at question time. “I often get questions from the audience on big global challenges, which cannot be given quick, easy answers,” Anika says.

“My response is often that I don’t know all the answers and that’s why we need all-hands-on-deck working collectively to find the solutions. Having audience buy-in is very important to me. We are all responsible in trying to find the answers to these big questions, to work together in doing that, and I am pleased if I can help start that conversation.”

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Feedback from Anika’s presentations has been positive and encouraging. Geography teachers described her as engaging, highly inspirational, informative and relevant to the curriculum they are teaching. Prime Super believes her positive outlook for the future will translate to their members having a positive outlook for their financial future.

“We have been thrilled with the event feedback, much of which has included a request to bring Anika back after her trip later this year,” Mark says. “When you get an ‘encore’ and you’re a super fund something has gone right. Anika is a delight to work with and we hope to continue to work with her in the future.”

The trip that Mark alludes to is Anika’s acceptance into the esteemed leadership program Homeward Bound and her travel to Antarctica later in the year. Remuneration from these speaking engagements will go towards Anika’s fundraising for the program, but Anika feels the speaking opportunities go beyond financial contribution.

“They provide me with a platform to share my story and topics I believe are important and they further hone my communication skills, helping me practice and learn so I can do it even better next time.”

This is proof that leadership development is indeed an evolution. Picture You in Agriculture provides transformational leadership training for young people in agriculture between the ages of 20 and 35 and young people in schools between the ages of 10 and 18. Our programs use agriculture as a foundation to inspire students and young agriculturalists to think critically and creatively about real-world issues and work collectively to take action and create real-world impact.

#ClimateActionNow #StrongerTogether #YouthVoices #YouthinAg

 

 

by Action4Agriculture

Young Farming Champions Muster May 2019 1st Edition

This week’s top stories from Young Farming Champions (YFC) around the country (and globe!)

It’s rained and we’re celebrating! Come and join the Muster as we sow crops and play in puddles, as we talk climate change and create Landcare groups, as we acknowledge that without a healthy environment we don’t have healthy farming systems. Oh, and we’re also contributing to Brexit!

In the field

With plenty of rain around it is creating a lot of excitement and activity around. Some of the driest parts of NSW have finally received some life changing amounts of rain allowing for stock feed to grow, dams to fill and crops to be sown.

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Marlee (1)

YFC Marlee Langfield captured some great images on her farm as they completed dry sowing of canola before rain.

In outback NSW, Wool Young Farming Champion Bessie Thomas is celebrating after 85mm of rain over Easter weekend and 33mm of follow up rain this week.

Bessie Burragan

The rainfall brings sweet relief to her family whose property “Burragan” has been in drought for more than two years. They’re calling it: #droughtbroken at Burragan. Bessie created a short video showcasing the change in landscape and was lucky enough to have it featured on Sky News! Checkout Bessie at Burragan on Facebook to see it!

Wool YFC and volunteer extraordinaire  Lucy Collingridge has had a big  fortnight firstly as part of the team making Narrabri Show a huge success

And working in partnership with Narrabri Shire Council to obtain substantial funding to tackle Biosecurity issues in the area. Read more about it here  

YFC Erika Heffer has also been involved with local events helping to run a new Landcare Group “Deniliquin Kolety Lagoos Landcare Group” as they are assisting in the revegetation of the Edward River and teaching high school students from the region about local fish species with Dr John Conalin. They have done days one at Deniliquin and one at Barham.

Erika

 And from overseas YFC Kirsty McCormack is battling challenges of a much different kind to what we are seeing here in Australia….Spring Snowfall events! This is causing challenges to calving (and issues with roads) but will provide some good summer cropping/feed moisture we guess…?

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Out of the field

YFC and Climate Ambassador Anika Molesworth as been standing strong on Twitter the last couple of weeks presenting a series of videos on climate change, its impacts and what we can do!

Anika Molesworth Twitter

Anika was inspired by the urban based audiences she met as keynote speaker at NSW Geography Teachers Association Conference, Prime Super International Women’s Day lunches and NSW Rotary Conference all in the last 8 weeks.  Speaking about her family’s farm near Broken Hill, in Far West NSW, describing her sense of belonging, the joys of heavy rainfall,  working with inspiring rural people, concern during drought and dust-storms that at the end of her presentations she found one particular comment was made to her over-and-over – “I had no idea it was like that.” So she decided to make a series of short videos sharing her observations and insights on her life in Far West NSW around a central theme of climate change – both its impacts and how it can be addressed.

You can find Anika’s videos on Youtube here 

Follow Anika on twitter to see more @AnikaMolesworth

YFC Facilitator Greg Mills caught up with YFC Laura Phelps in London this week. Laura is currently working for the UK government on the Brexit Food Safety Strategey 

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Prime Cuts

Congratulations to YFC Emma Turner, Jasmine Whitton and YFC Intern Jess Fearnley who all graduated last Friday! A lot of hard work was put in so well done to all and best of luck as you being your work life journey.

Jasmine and Emma

Young Farming Champions Jasmine Whitten and Emma Turner donned the hat and gown to graduate from University of New England 

Jasmine had this to say of her 4 year journey to a Bachelor or Rural Science with honors

YFC Lucy Collingridge also starred in the gradwalk video

 Congratulations are also in order for  YFC and Young Aggies Co-chair Casey Onus who has just started a new role with B&W Rural in Moree, we wish you all the best for your new adventures.

Casey Onus B&W Rural

Congratulations to Laura Bignell who was runner up in overall placings at the Intercollegiate Meat Judging North competition in Rockhampton last weekend!

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Laura ( 2nd from left top row) with the highly successful UNE team 

Lifetime Highlights

Seven rural women from the Riverina region had the pleasure of meeting the incoming Governor of New South Wales this Monday 6th May. Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AO QC was sworn in as Governor just last Thursday 2nd May and took the time to meet and promote women in agriculture at Monday’s morning tea. The group included Airlie Landale of Farm Table, Stephanie Clancy 2019 The Land SRES Showgirl, and one of our own Young Farming Champions Dione Howard. We look forward to the Honourable Margaret Beazley’s term as Governor of NSW and thank her for supporting women in agriculture! #StrongerTogether.

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YFC Anika Molesworth is flying the flag for #YouthinAg and walking the red carpet at Women of Style Instyle Awards this week. We hear the dress they have selected for her is to die for

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Anika Molesworth a woman of style 

Watch this space

You can catch up on our feature blogs over the past fortnight here

1. How a career in plant breeding has led Rebecca Thistlethwaite to find love and compassion for people across the globe

2. Feelings arent facts but they do determine what facts you identify with

3. Aimee Snowden and the power of the Sydney Royal Easter Show to foster careers

#YouthinAgVoices #Amplifiers #YouthVoices19 #StrongerTogether

 

by Action4Agriculture

How a career in plant breeding has led Rebecca Thistlethwaite to find love and compassion for people across the globe

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The roles of plant researcher and humanitarian may seem worlds apart but Dr Rebecca Thistlethwaite is discovering her agricultural career is leading her to a greater understanding, and compassion, for people from all walks of life.

Rebecca is as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate for The University of Sydney’s Plant Breeding Institute based in Narrabri in northern NSW. Her work involves studying the relationships between heat, nutrition and yield in wheat and other crops.

Dr Rebecca Thistlethwaite in Pakistan (4)

In 2018 Rebecca travelled to a farming community in Uganda on a Rotary Group Study Scholarship. She lived with villagers for a month to experience first-hand the challenges they had producing food, and designed ways in which that could be improved in the future.

“It was an incredibly humbling experience to live with people who had so little yet who were exceptionally generous and who opened up their homes and their hearts for me,” Rebecca says.  “The food was so fresh and delicious! Goat meat was particularly common and my hosts were really surprised that Australia is the largest exporter of goat meat yet we rarely (if ever) consume it ourselves. I made some lifelong friendships and I will most certainly be going back.”

Rebecca again found herself overseas this year when she was invited to speak about her plant breeding work at the Aus-Pak Conference for Food Security in Pakistan. She spent time with research teams, in particular students, and early career researchers from the Muhammad Nawaz Shareef University of Agriculture, one of Pakistan’s newest universities in the city of Multan, just over 500km south of the country’s capital, Islamabad. As she was the only female on the delegation and not of Muslim faith she faced the trip with some trepidation.

Dr Rebecca Thistlethwaite in Pakistan (2)

“I shouldn’t have worried at all though,” she says. “The Pakistani people I met were incredibly kind and accepting. I was treated like royalty the entire time, presented with gifts and flowers on many occasions, had traditional Punjabi dress and shoes made for me and the Vice-Chancellor even had a tree planted in my honour.”

Dr Rebecca Thistlethwaite in Pakistan (1)

Apart from conference responsibilities the aim of Rebecca’s delegation to Pakistan was to build collaborations to help with the country’s food security efforts and to implement the use of Australian technologies and systems to improve and future proof their research capabilities.

“One of the absolute highlights for me was getting to talk all things culture and religion with many very open-minded men and women of varying ages. In particular, I had fantastic discussions about the challenges surrounding women’s education and career development which is such a passion of mine both in developing countries and in the western society.”

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“Pakistan has suffered from political unrest and religious extremism for many years but they are still an incredibly proud people who only want the best for their country. The trip taught me that kindness comes in many and varied forms and that being different from someone else is not necessarily a bad thing. The world would be a much happier place if we were more respectful of other people’s differences, owned our own individuality and realised that the world would be a very boring place if everyone was exactly the same.”

Find out more about the world of work in agriculture. Visit our website here

#YouthinAgVoices #StrongerTogether