A new mentoring program for promising female, rural leaders was not about promoting women without ability, according to National Farmers’ Federation president, Fiona Simson.
Ms Simson said the Diversity in Agriculture Leadership program aimed to create a larger pool of talented females, ready to take on leadership and executive level opportunities.
The program will be launched at a special event in Canberra tomorrow (Thursday).
“It’s about making sure we have a good handle on who is out there and being able to put them forward when opportunities arise,” she said.
“At the moment many of the networks (in agribusiness) tend to be more male dominated than female and we have to change that.”
Eight women were chosen from 120 nominations for the program. They will receive one-on-one mentoring with a mix of both male and female agriculture leaders.
The successful candidates are Amy Cosby, Willow Grove, Victoria, Brigid Price, Injune, Queensland, Deanna Lush, Palmer, South Australia, Lucinda Hawkins, Dubbo, NSW, Mary Retallack, Crafers West, South Australia, Penny Schulz, Field, South Australia, Sally Martin, Young, NSW and Skye Douglass, Neumgna, Queensland.
Ms Simson said the large number and high calibre of the applicants showed the wealth of untapped leadership potential in agriculture.
“I was blown away by the diversity of the qualifications and experiences of applicants and their approach to what agriculture needs in terms of leadership into the future,’ Ms Simson said.
“When we started talking about how we could address these issues, mentoring came up continually.
“What we found was there were a lot of highly qualified women who were trying to be involved but didn’t know where to start.
“They may have had leadership training but haven’t necessarily been able to get a foothold in their regional organisations or agribusinesses.”
Ms Simson said she hoped the program would provide an alumni of well connected and highly skilled rural women.
