For more than two decades, the national award has celebrated and empowered women in Australia’s rural and emerging industries, businesses and communities.
Each of the women has made an outstanding contribution to rural WA and the State’s valuable primary industries, and has a clear vision of how they would like to use the prestigious platform.
Finalist Jay Page is a Northam apiarist who intends to focus her passion for bees into expanding school education to raise awareness of sustainable bee production, as interest in recreational beekeeping increases.
Bolgart business advocate Mandy Walker is keen to take regional investment to the next level by capturing opportunities from defence investments for wheatbelt enterprises.
Wandering Farming Champions not-for-profit chair Nicola Kelliher would like to channel her skills from ‘Farmer on a Plate’ to deliver scalable events to highlight the role of farming families in food providence.
The WA winner will be announced in March 2024 and will receive a $15,000 bursary to realise their plans, as well as professional development training.
The award is supported by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), the Rural, Regional and Remote Women’s Network of WA, CBH Group and Westpac.
DPIRD Director General Heather Brayford congratulated the WA finalists and paid tribute to the role of rural women.
“Women play an integral role across our State’s vast primary industries sector, bringing a unique perspective to business, community and government endeavours,” Ms Brayford said.
“Once again, this year’s high calibre finalists reflect the diversity, tenacity and innovation of our rural women, following in the footsteps of many previous WA finalists.”
2023 WA winner Michelle Moriarty of Eaton took the opportunity this year to profile the importance of grief support and expand the WA Young Widowed Support Group and Grief connect Over 55s.
“Winning the 2023 WA AgriFutures Rural Women's Award has provided me with a platform to develop and expand on bereavement support services at Grief Connect to rural, regional and remote areas across Australia,” Ms Moriarty said.
“The award has connected me to a powerhouse of award alumni who have supported me with their time, referrals and wisdom to help me further develop Grief Connect.”
The WA winner will go on to the national AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award, to be announced in September 2024.
Finalist profiles:
Jay Page - As a bee lover and educator, Jay is passionate about teaching children the importance of bees, their role for our planet, the plight they are facing and what we can do to help. In 2022, Jay saw a need for bee education for primary school children that was relevant, inspiring and age appropriate. She used her 16 years of early childhood teaching experience to deliver a series of bee education-themed incursions throughout the Perth area. Jay, of Messines Bee Farm, has aspirations to expand her business into the wheatbelt by offering school incursions to the 71 public and private schools in the region - schools that often miss out on these opportunities due to their distance from Perth.
Mandy Walker – Mandy is passionate about family businesses in the regions and their importance in maintaining vibrant communities. She works with her husband in their Wongan Hills business Walkers Diesel Services, providing heavy duty diesel repairs to the agriculture, transport and mining sectors. They also have an engineering side of the business which manufactures chaser bins and undertakes machining, fabrication and repair work. Mandy’s project is focused on designing a business model that will enable wheatbelt engineering businesses to collaboratively participate in the defence industry supply chain. She’s confident this project can be a tool to ensure long term local economic diversity and resilience in the regions.
Nicola Kelliher – Nicola is a passionate advocate for farming families and rural, regional and remote communities. She enjoys the challenge of tackling the issues of geographical disadvantage and aims to improve the liveability of our regions and our State. Nicola is keen to improve first-hand contact and communication between farming family businesses and consumers to strengthen relationships between the bush and the city. She wants to bring consumers, especially families, closer to family farmers to understand their food origins, by championing the farming families who put the food on their plate.
