AgriFutures™ Rural Women's Award
Do you have the desire, commitment and leadership potential to make a greater contribution to Australia’s rural and emerging industries, businesses and communities?
The Rural Women's Network and Agriculture Victoria work in partnership with AgriFutures Australia to provide two opportunities to women involved in Australia’s rural and emerging industries, businesses, and communities, now and into the future.
Applications for the 2024 Rural Women’s Award and Acceleration Grant are now closed. Applications for 2025 will open in September 2024.
2024 Victorian Rural Women’s Award Winner and finalists
Congratulations to Grace Larson who is the winner of the Victorian AgrifuturesTM Rural Women’s Award. Grace took out the award at an awards ceremony held on 4 March 2024 to coincide with International Women’s Day celebrations. Grace will now represent Victoria at the national awards on August 20 2024.
Grace Larson, Kyneton
Grace knows firsthand how important timely access to services is on mortality rates of children experiencing traumatic injuries.
Through her 15 years’ experience working as a paediatric intensive care nurse, Grace recognized that patients who received CPR or First Aid had better outcomes than those who did not and identified first aid training as particularly critical to children in rural areas.
Grace formed The Sisterhood Project to mitigate the barriers of distance and affordability for parents and carers in rural areas, providing free access to essential paediatric first aid training for vulnerable groups, particularly in rural Australia.
The Project aims to empower rural communities with knowledge and skills while they wait for emergency services to arrive, with the end goal of reducing child mortality rates in rural Australia.
Grace was also a Victorian finalist of the 2023 AgriFutures™ Rural Women's Award.
2024 Victorian AgriFutures™ Rural Women's Award finalists
Congratulations to the 2024 Victorian AgriFutures™ Rural Women's Award finalists. Find out more about these remarkable women and their projects below and view the finalist announcement here.
More information on previous AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award recipients including past Victorian Finalists, can be found here.
Georgina Morrison, Hamilton
Georgina formed the Creative’s Toolkit to help position rural Australia as a hub for competitive creatives and educational leaders. As a rurally based professional, Georgina is busting the stereotype that successful creative careers must be urban by achieving publication in national outlets with substantial readerships. Through the Creative’s Toolkit, Georgina wants to support other creatives to obtain similar achievements.
The Toolkit seeks to propel rural Australia into a leadership role in creative education, delivering economic empowerment through courses, workshops, the podcast, and free resources.
It supports creatives, small business owners, and entrepreneurs to build successful, modern careers, regardless of where they are situated.
The Toolkit is therefore dedicated to empowering creatives in rural and regional Australia to nurture profitable skillsets and unlocking successful and sustainable careers outside urban centres.
Reeanjou Ram, Melbourne
Reeanjou is based in Melbourne but was raised in Fiji where she worked on her family property, growing, cultivating and selling vegetables and sugar cane. She founded iTrazo Tracetech in 2017, a supply chain traceability technology with a clear vision that all Australian produce can have a fully trackable and therefore secure, transparent and accountable digital identity.
Reeanjou’s technology helps bridge the gap between Australia’s rural producers and their metropolitan consumers. iTrazo offers digital traceability services to mitigate transport risks for producers and to better inform customers on product provenance, sustainability, ethical sourcing, biosecurity and product safety.
Reeanjou’s journey has been more than just business — it's about authenticity, innovation and genuine relationships. Through the development of the iTrazo Tracetech technology, Reeanjou is dedicated to understanding the supply chain challenges of regional producers so she can create individualised, actionable solutions that reinforce the bond of trust between farmers and consumers.
Sarah Holmes, Mildura
Sarah is a zoologist with over 20 years of professional experience, working in both government and private sectors in regional Victoria and New South Wales. Since childhood, her passion is to conserve and protect Australia’s unique native fauna.
Sarah founded EnviroEDU in 2013 to promote environment, conservation and sustainability awareness in rural and regional communities.
Ten years in, the once small family run business is now a team of five passionate educators, dedicated to promoting environmental, conservation and sustainability awareness in rural and regional communities to showcase Australia’s amazing biodiversity.
Sarah believes the foundation to conserving the planet’s natural ecosystems is through education at the ‘grass roots’ level, beginning with children.
Through her work, Sarah is raising awareness on the state of the environment in Australia, inspiring rural and regional communities to live more sustainably and empowering them to take action.
About the Rural Women's Award
Empowering and celebrating the inclusive and courageous leadership of women, the Rural Women's Award supports women-led projects, businesses or programs that will benefit rural industries, businesses and / or communities.
Winners in each state / territory receive a $15,000 Westpac Grant to grow the impact of their initiative, as well as training, development, and a national profile to showcase it. They will also compete for the National Award and a further $20,000 from Westpac. Find out more on the AgriFutures website.
About the Acceleration Grant
Fostering the professional growth of rural women who are not quite ready to apply for the Award, the Acceleration Grant provides seven Australian women with a learning and development bursary to develop an initiative in its early stages.
Each year, 7 Australian women will be provided with a learning and development bursary of up to $7,000 for professional development to enable them to bring their idea, cause or vision to life. Find out more on the AgriFutures website.
Subscribe to the Rural Women’s Network newsletter for program updates or visit AgriFutures Australia for more information about the Award.