Deb Morice is the Chair of Tasmanian Women in Agriculture.
Blog Post
Advocacy from the Apple Isle: women in leadership
Deb Morice
With nearly 45 years’ industry experience, Deb Morice could write a book about the challenges she has faced. As the chair of Tasmanian Women in Agriculture, she helps empower women and celebrate their contributions.
I was born on a farm and grew up into the industry, where my husband and I eventually owned 700 cows. Early in my career, I quickly learned that I needed to trust myself, know where I stand, and make sure my voice was being heard. I became acutely aware that if our farm was to remain competitive and meet agriculture’s economic and social challenges, a personal priority was to strengthen my leadership acumen and farm management skills. It was also important that I remained connected to and supported by other female farmers.
I was not alone. In 1994, a group of like-minded women started not-for-profit organisation Tasmanian Women in Agriculture (TWiA) to celebrate women's contributions, promote networking opportunities, and cultivate connections. I was there for the very first TWiA gathering.
My conversations with female farmers ran along similar themes. Our contributions, we observed, were undervalued and women overall were underrepresented. Women remained financially and socially disadvantaged too despite their contribution to both on-farm and off-farm income. Further, women bore the majority of family care and household responsibilities. Some were also isolated, while others suffered domestic violence and lacked access to essential services.
There are now many women in agriculture advocacy organisations who are lobbying to influence government policy in these and other areas. Core objectives are improved farm safety, better rural services, and relief from rising costs of living. The acknowledgement of women as equal participants in agricultural businesses is also championed heavily.
Ensuring women's contributions are valued makes good economic sense for Australian agriculture. The current dearth of women in leadership contributes to economic loss across the whole industry. The sector needs greater female inclusivity on boards, in senior leadership positions, and in everyday farming decision making.
The lack of inclusivity limits innovation and resilience at a time when our best resources are needed to meet the many challenges our industry faces. Womens’ contributions are critical to support rural communities and manage the challenges of loss of productive land, diversification of farm income, declining soil fertility, biodiversity loss, climate change, and extreme weather events, while coping with increased production costs and a shrinking workforce.
Men and women process information, relate to one another, and experience leadership and empowerment differently. The value of recognising these different learning styles and supporting women's decision-making and leadership capacity in managing agricultural resources cannot be underestimated: boosting farm productivity and economic and social benefits for women themselves, their households, and their communities.
Building connections facilitated by networking is known to help rural women and their communities. e.g., gender-safe learning programs and encouraging women to participate fully in decisions affecting their family farms and business ventures.
In Tasmania, the state government offers industry bodies like TWiA the Strategic Industry Partnership Program that helps these organisations support women with their business ventures and family farms. The program aims to deliver notable outcomes in farm safety, and succession planning.
Women can, as I do, draw on all the skills and resilience they have acquired to meet the challenges of being part of a male-dominated industry. Those trying times will make a woman stronger and give her more resolve. Women are in many ways the backbone of farming communities, and their unique insights and talents are worth recognising and celebrating.
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As a Landcare group, one of our main interests is to increase ecological resilience in our local area. Many of our landscapes have been cleared of vegetation in previous decades, so we have the task of supporting landholders to plant trees and shrubs to replace those that are missing. The benefits of revegetation are manifold. They include providing habitat for a range of native animals; controlling erosion and salinity; increasing farm productivity through nutrient cycling and shade and shelter for stock; and drawing down carbon from the atmosphere. But as weather patterns become more variable and we experience more climatic extremes, we need to think about which plant species – and which plant genetics – are most appropriate in our revegetation efforts. We are forced to ask will our local plantings be able to survive our future climate? Up until recently, it has been common for people to preference locally sourced seed when re-planting. This has been based on the idea that such plants will be best adapted to local conditions. However, there is growing understanding among scientists and land managers that we need to shift our focus to plants that can persist as the climate changes. This involves looking at which plant species are most appropriate by focussing on species that have a wide distribution and grow in our area and also in hotter areas, and increasing the genetic diversity of our tubestock so they have the best potential to adapt over successive generations. Our Landcare group has been tackling this issue for the past several years, working with scientists and AdaptNSW to find the best way forward. There are several key steps involved: understanding our local future climate, analysing whether selected local species can survive in climates like the one projected for our area, and sourcing seed for those likely-to-survive species from a range of areas to increase the genetic diversity of our plantings. Planting the right species with good genetic diversity gives revegetation projects the best chance of survival into the future. It’s not just about making sure the individual tubestock will grow, but that future generations of those plants will be able to survive and thrive. Luckily there are some good resources available for farmers, land managers and groups interested in climate ready revegetation. The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney has launched the Restore and Renew Webtool ( https://www.restore-and-renew.org.au/ ), which is a wonderful way for people to incorporate both climate change and genetic information when sourcing seed or plants. The NSW Niche Finder is invaluable for those who want to dig further into climate variables and species distribution ( http://www.nswnichefinder.net/ ). For future climate information, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have joined forces to provide a user-friendly online tool ( https://myclimateview.com.au/ ). And AdaptNSW also provides projected climate change information for different regions of the state ( https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/projections-map ). The Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups also has detailed information about our work on climate ready revegetation and relevant resources our website: https://yan.org.au/projects/climate-ready-revegetation-project As the climate changes, our revegetation efforts are more important than ever. And we need to make sure that they are ‘climate ready’ so that their benefits persist well into the future.
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