2019 Victorian AgriFutures™ Rural Women's Award winner and finalists
2019 Victorian winner and national runner-up
Claire Moore
Claire Moore has been recognised as the 2019 Victorian Rural Women's Award winner and the National Rural Women's Award runner-up. Claire attended the 2019 AgriFutures™ National Gala at Parliament House in Canberra on 11 September 2019 to receive her award.
Claire's project is to breed a genetically diverse range of queen bees that are healthy and adaptable in a variety of climates to address declining bee colony numbers.
Claire will receive a $10,000 Westpac bursary for her Victorian win, and a $5000 Westpac bursary for her National runner-up.
These funds will help Claire to implement her project and to attend the Australian Institute of Directors' Course in Canberra.
My name is Claire Moore. I'm from Kyneton in Central Victoria and I'm an apiarist. And my project with the Rural Women's Award is to genetically engineer and artificially inseminate queen bees to create a more resilient and disease-resistant bee.
Australia has the cleanest and healthiest bees in the world, and we need to actually be exporting those bees back to the rest of the world to increase the global bee numbers.
The bursary, to be honest, was the first reason that I applied, because I want to go to Tocal College in New South Wales to study queen breeding and the bursary, I believe, will be able to cover the cost of that. And, so, for me it was a convenient or a fantastic opportunity to be able to get to Tocal that I may not have been able to achieve without the Rural Women’s Award.
2019 finalists
Carly Jordan
Carly Jordan, from south west Victoria, is working hard to develop a migrant resettlement model that assists regional towns to boost their populations and economies.
My name is Carly Jordan and I'm the project manager and initiator of the Great South Coast Economic Migration Project. The project aims to assist migrants that are living in the cities, so from Melbourne and Sydney, that are originally from the Great Lakes Region in Africa, to relocate to the south-west region of Victoria.
It's a fantastic award that highlights the important role that rural women play in regional Victoria, and I'm extremely proud of the project that I have created and am very fortunate to be surrounded by so many fantastic rural women that have also helped me to achieve my goals.
I would say to any woman who is interested in applying for the award, just go for it no matter what it is. It's an opportunity to get your project or idea out there, and I'd say just go for it. Give it a chance.
Odette Suitor
Odette Suitor, from Sunbury, is continuing to innovate a grains storage concept to improve the efficiency of grain harvest. She is preparing to take the concept to industry.
My name is Odette. Over the journey of my life in agriculture I worked in corporate agriculture exporting grain in shipping containers and farming about 3000 acres.
I came up with an idea to store grain on-farm using shipping containers, as I saw there was a problem in the grain harvest supply chain. It enables farmers to go from the paddocks straight into the system, creating some efficiency at harvest.
The experience to this point has been extremely rewarding. I've been driving a tractor for the last 10 years so it's got me back into doing PowerPoint presentations and writing applications. It's also good for self-confidence as well. And, let's face it, there's a lot of hard-working women out there in this industry that have probably got some great ideas, so why not give it a go.