Raising Her Hand

I look at Alex, 25, and her contemporaries who are involved in agribusiness and I'm so proud of how smart and articulate they are. The things that we fought for, that our grandmothers began the fight for, some of those issues aren't there anymore. When Alex went to Lincoln University it was a fifty-fifty split and the boys don't think anything of it, working alongside their female counterparts. The girls don't think anything of it either. Alex never gets up in the morning and thinks she's lesser because she's a woman. So I think it has been worthwhile for me to have said "yes" to all those things, even when I was incredibly uncomfortable about it.

More recently I've learnt to - and I say it very bluntly - ditch the shame. Before that, I would always try to muddle my way through things alone. But now I've been reading a bit of Brené Brown and I know I have to ask for help around things I don't know. Imagine if I had done that when I was thirty-five!

"I don't always get it right. In fact, sometimes I get it so wrong that I'm almost right again," Kate admits. "But I try to learn from that and keep moving forward."

Once you become a lifelong learner, you hope that everyone else might do the same. My big hairy, audacious goal would be that everyone has the opportunity to keep learning, and we keep being able to provide some form of growth and education, so we can just take everyone with us. I really do think that if we can be open-minded and keep our eyes above the headlights, New Zealand can still lead the world in agriculture.

When Rabobank approached me and asked if I'd consider going on its Lower South Island Client Council, it just seemed like something I could say "yes" to. The Council is a collective of the bank's clients, who provide perspective to the leadership team on rural issues and services the bank provides. It's been a wonderful journey. I was a member of the council for two years and I have just been appointed as chair.

A big part of our role is to provide ways for the bank to give back to farming communities. One of the programmes we run is out of Invercargill is called AgPathways, which is targeted at 25-35 year olds. There is quite a gap in terms of support for that age group, and many of them don't have automatic pathways into farm management. It's very heavily subsidised, which makes it accessible to young farmers when financially things can be a bit of a struggle, and it's a great networking opportunity as well. I'm so fortunate to have this opportunity.

I've loved being on the Client Council, and I'm really proud of what we've achieved and excited for what we can do in the future. I see how much these young people thrive if somebody just walks alongside them. Farming is a difficult beast these days. The nature of employment in rural New Zealand has changed a lot, and we have a lot of young people entering the industry without any qualifications so they feel on the back foot, very embarrassed about what they don't know. I'm passionate about finding a way forward for them, helping them to gain confidence without being shown up. The success of our programmes is when our participants leave feeling excited for their future, and to keep learning. We like to drop the seed and what they choose to do with it is up to them.