Passion drives agriculture finalist
A born and bred Southlander based in Mossburn, Olivia Weatherburn is a passionate advocate for bringing new and emerging faces into the agricultural sector through diversifying education.
It’s one of the reasons she’s been nominated as one of four Kiwi finalists for the prestigious Zanda McDonald award.
Created in honour of Australian farmer Zanda McDonald, who died following an accident on his Queensland cattle property in 2013, the award recognises future young leaders working in agriculture.
As the national programme extension manager for Beef + Lamb NZ, Weatherburn has worked hard to both encourage new entrants to the industry and provide support for current farmers to upskill.
This includes the Next Generation programme, designed to teach farmers new technical skills around finance and technology, which she founded in 2016.
‘‘It’s a technical program for practical people, that’s really what it is, to enable them to have confidence and reinvigorate their drive to go and take that next step in their career or concur their goals really,’’ she said.
Having been involved in farming her whole life, Weatherburn believes the key to addressing current worker shortages in the sector is a change-up in the way we view agricultural education. ‘‘It starts back at school level, everyone has an influence. It comes back to parents and teachers actually understanding those opportunities as well,’’ she said.
Currently, most schools only engaged with farmers in their agricultural classes, meaning many were missing out on exposure to the industry simply because they did not know what it truly involved, she said.
‘‘I’d like to see teachers actually talking about our careers more in schools, because there is still a perception, in my view, out there that agriculture is for dummies at school level. That’s not the attitude to have.
‘‘So it needs to be further than just the agriculture teachers being involved, all teachers in the space need to be involved. That’s what I’d like to see.’’
Current attitudes towards agriculture had made farmers hesitant about ‘‘opening up their doors’’ to the public to allow that education to occur though, something Weatherburn wanted to see changed through frank and fair communication.
‘‘Instead of going and pointing a finger first, ask the questions. And don’t ask the questions on social media, ask the farmer. They’ll have a driveway. And if they’re not home, leave a note,’’ she said.
‘‘I think everybody would rather it that way, rather than all of this stress that’s coming on the people that produce the food that ends up in our fridge.’’
In terms of the Zanda McDonald award, Weatherburn was honoured to have been selected amongst such a ‘‘high calibre’’ of finalists.
‘‘I’ve put my heart and soul into this sector and will continue to. But it’s great to be able to be recognised for that work over the years,’’ she said