Amy Kirke is the 2020 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award NT Winner and a marine biologist who is keen to take her knowledge and passion about science to the next level. 

Amy wants girls and women in the NT to consider science as a career and she has developed an interactive outreach program called "Let's go fishing" which has a focus on education about sustainable fishing.

Based in Darwin, she is taking her passion for Science, Technology, Math and Engineering, otherwise known as STEM on a science roadshow to capture the hearts and minds of a younger generation, who may not have had the opportunities to explore this new world.

Amy describes her program as the first step in a series of conversations about creating a pathway for girls and women that shows science is within their reach. 

Here is Amy’s inspirational story.

Have you heard of Country to Canberra? It’s an organisation empowering young women living in rural, regional and remote Australia to reach their leadership potential.

One of its key programs is a prestigious annual competition where the national winners receive a Power Trip to Canberra so they can be heard and mentored through leadership and public speaking training. But the program is so much more than this. 

AgriFutures is the proud diamond sponsor of this competition supporting ten rural women to change their own lives as well as the communities in which they live. 

In today’s podcast we meet Country to Canberra’s new Chief Executive Officer, Han Worsley whose own story has many twists and turns. 

Dairy farmer Cressida Cains has been awarded the 2020 NSW/ACT AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award for her work in promoting a profitable and secure future for Australian dairy farmers.

Cressida’s family dairy is a bit different to what you might expect. 

Named after the Italian word for sheep, Pecora Dairy boasts Australia’s only working, pure East Friesian ewes, the most productive breed of dairy sheep in the world.

Sheep milk is one of the most nutrient dense and rich milks, which makes it incredibly suitable for cheese making.

Cressida is an award-winning artisan cheese maker who swapped her corporate life in Sydney’s wine industry for greener pastures. 

Here is her amazing story 

It’s been a big year for Karen Brock who has been named the 2020 Tasmanian winner of the AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award.

Karen grows and supplies commercial fruit trees so it’s no surprise she’s a specialist in plant tissue culture.

And it’s in her work with plant tissue where magic is happening.  Plant tissue culture is often grown in a gel-like substance, but Karen is changing the face of tissue culture techniques by growing plant tissue in water.

Here is her amazing story which starts like all great stories with Karen being in the right place at the right time. 

The Australian ginger industry is hoping robotics will help solve one of its biggest challenges: the removal of weeds that compete with ginger plants for water, space and nutrients.

Manual spraying and removing of weeds is costly and in this podcast we hear from Kylie Templeton, from Templeton Ginger, Australia's largest ginger grower about the impact of weeds on the ginger industry and opportunities for improving safety and efficiencies. Kylie is also an AgriFutures Ginger Advisory Panel member.

We also speak with Guy Coleman, a dedicated precision weed control scientist at the University of Sydney  who is teaching Ginny the ginger robot how to identify weeds and then eradicate them.

It's a lot more complex than you think.

Rich in proteins and essential amino acids, quinoa is well deserving of its reputation as a “superfood”, and even offers a gluten free substitute for other cereals. Its wide availability and the varied uses of the seeds for consumption has led to an increase in demand for quinoa worldwide. 

In this episode, we speak with Dr Harmohinder Dhammu who's a research scientist with DPIRD, the Department of Primary Industries, Research and Development in Western Australia. 

He's the principal investigator of a project looking at a new quinoa variety, called Kruso White in WA, which is set to change the way farmers grow this popular food. 

Just imagine that you've stumbled across a product or service that the world has been crying out for but just didn't know it. Everyone's dream right? Well that describes perfectly Australia's seaweed industry. An industry in its infancy but with help from AgriFutures Australia, and the Australian Seaweed Institute, it's ready to leap onto the world stage. 

It's ironic that a woman from a property called "Worlds End" is dedicated to helping farmers and all rural people better manage those mental health issues that all of us face to varying degrees. 

Steph Schmidt is the 2020 South Australian AgriFutures Rural Women's Award Winner and she shares her story and her plans to develop a resilience program made specifically for farming couples, families and individuals, with the aim of seeing psychological flexibility grow throughout the rural sector.

Years ago, Australian agriculture was like the dinner meal we sat down to most nights; fairly straight forward, meat and three veg. But now, Australian agriculture is like a massive smorgasbord of choice. It's that consumer choice, and how today's consumer makes their choice that we are going to talk about in this episode. 
 
 We have launched a new resource which will help food producers tell their story right along the food chain up to, and including the end consumer. We'll also hear from the people who created this resource to delve deep into what is driving this desire by consumers to know more about the products they buy. And finally, how does telling your story work in practical terms? We ask a venison producer who has put this all into practice. 
 
 Featured in this episode:

• Jennifer Medway, Senior Manager, Business Development, AgriFutures Australia
• Helen Johnston, Creative Services Director and Co-Founder, Honey & Fox Pty Ltd
• Sophie Hansen, Deer Farmer and Founder and Manager, My Open Kitchen