Lobby to remove barriers for women and youth

TASMANIA’S peak farming body is making changes in the hopes it will encourage more young people and women to get involved. 

While in the past agriculture has traditionally been a male dominated industry, TasFarmers has announced new reforms to encourage greater inclusivity and representation on its boards and committees. 

TasFarmers president Ian Sauer said that at the heart of the organisation’s advocacy is a model to allow members who produce food, fibre, pharmaceuticals and beverages to engage in policy setting and strategic direction without barriers. 

“The focus of the board of the last three or four years has been to get more members involved and more members with memberships, so that’s the first thing,” he said. 

“The second thing is we’ve been trying to decrease the age of the people involved. It’s a hard row to hoe, but we are gaining new members and we are engaging with younger members.” 

He said the opportunity for a greater diversity of representation from the farming community to be involved with TasFarmers will be enhanced with the revamping of the organisation’s committee structure and greater inclusivity. 

“We (the board) are strongly committed to removing barriers to involvement with TasFarmers, an example is, ensuring that members who are primary caregivers can participate in in council or board meetings with the announcement of our inclusion statement,” Mr Sauer said. 

“This statement is part of a broader strategic effort to promote more representation across commodity committees, councils and the board, by creating a more supportive and accessible environment for all members.” 

“If members want to be involved with TasFarmers on council or boards or whatever it is, then there should be no barrier for them to be involved,” he said. “At one end of the spectrum if that means we look at helping with some childcare costs, then we’ll do that. 

It may well be that we’re open to have meetings to suit people who have children whether that’s first thing in the morning, the evening or remotely. It’s about being relevant and contemporary.” 

Mr Sauer said the organisation’s committees are made up of farmer members who feed policy to TasFarmers and to the board. 

He said the reality is many of their younger farmer members do have families, which can create extra challenges when it comes to getting involved. 

“What we’re saying is if that’s the case how to we work around your work life balance to enable you to do that,” he said.