Rising pressures on farmers and alarming statistics that show depression is a real issue in rural communities has prompted rural organisations to get together to find real solutions.

A group of prominent rural networks have met to brainstorm on ways to promote farmer wellness. The group included Rural Women New Zealand, Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ, Dairy Women’s Network, Beef + Lamb NZ, AgResearch, Young Farmers, Rural Support Trusts, Farmsafe, Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Rural General Practice Network, Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand and FMG.

Several groups have committed policies and action plans on mental wellbeing and reducing farmer suicides, however the time has come to pool those resources and ideas into one holistic strategy that puts the farmer first. 

The meeting highlighted the fact that the poorer outcomes in terms of mental health of people living in rural communities compared to urban centres in New Zealand is of major concern to the people living and working in those communities. Ministry of Health data shows the suicide rate for those living in rural areas is 16 per 100,000 people, compared to a rate of 11.2 per 100,000 people in urban areas
The coalition wants to raise awareness of anxiety and depression in rural communities and to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness. Stigma is a serious issue and often prevents people seeking help when they need it.  

It is expected that stronger connections and partnerships between the organisations will ensure better outcomes for those suffering from severe stress, anxiety, depression and suicide. 

The downstream effects of anxiety and depression are numerous.  Poorer decision making on farm, affecting animals and the whole farm system, must not be underrated.  This often leads to poorer farm productivity and profitability. The most significant effect of course is on the family and those closest to the person affected. 

The new coalition will explore the development of a Rural Health Policy, along the lines of the Australian framework.

Image created on tagxedo.com.

Twenty exciting and innovative businesses are in the line up for the Rural Women New Zealand Enterprising Rural Women Awards 2013.

The judges now face the challenging task of choosing finalists in the four entry categories: Love of the Land (sponsored by Agrisea Limited), Help I Need Somebody (sponsored by Telecom) Making it in Rural (sponsored by Fly Buys), and Stay, Play, Rural (sponsored by Access Homehealth Ltd).

These four category winners will go on to compete for the title of Supreme winner, Enterprising Rural Women Award 2013.

"This is the fifth year we've run the Enterprising Rural Women Awards," says RWNZ National President, Liz Evans. "Each year it's rewarding to see the diversity of businesses successfully run by women in rural areas and the significant inputs they make into the wider economy.

"Through these awards Rural Women NZ aims to celebrate their success and raise awareness of women's entrepreneurship, which helps to grow dynamic rural communities."

Entries in this year's Love of the Land category include a fresh produce and gourmet food business, a combined sheep and beef, orchard and farm forestry operation, a native tree nursery, a blueberry grower and product retailer, and a honey business.

In the Help I Need Somebody section there is a butchery and deli, a hair and beauty salon, a skin and sun protection product company, a workplace health and safety service, and an online Kiwiana gift store.

Competing in the Making it in Rural is a merino fashion designer and retailer, a children's book author and illustrator, an exporter of animal products for the medical, pharmaceutical and dietary supplements market, a glass artist, a business that makes soaps and massage oils, and a natural pet care products manufacturer.

Stay, Play, Rural entrants have plenty to offer with farmstay and homestay businesses in the running, as well as an astronomy tourism venture and a luxury lake cruise enterprise.

The Enterprising Rural Women Award winners will be announced at a special ceremony to be held on the opening night of the Rural Women NZ national conference in Christchurch on 23 May.

Check back here over the next month to meet the entrants. Also, visit our Facebook page.

A great article and photo in the Irish Farmers Journal by our very own Kate Buckley and Leonie Cadman - great work! Click on the image below to view a PDF of the article.

Children expecting a visit from Rainbow Place’s nurses and therapists can now look forward to shorter waiting times, thanks to the gift of a bright red Nissan car to be named ‘Chica’, donated by Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) at the weekend.

The therapists and nurses at Rainbow Place - an arm of Hospice Waikato - travel thousands of kilometers each month throughout Waipa, Waikato and Coromandel, supporting children and young people who are coping with serious illness or bereavement.

When members of RWNZ’s Rukuhia branch heard about Rainbow Place’s dire lack of transport, particularly for visiting families in rural areas, they were keen to help.

“The branch had been asked to distribute a bequest from one of its treasured members and former teacher, Chica Gilmer, and we felt giving a car to Rainbow Place was the perfect way to use that bequest,” says Shirley Read, RWNZ’s National Councillor for the Waikato region. 

Rukuhia branch members soon raised the rest of the money needed to buy the car, with help from other RWNZ groups in the region, while Jim Wright Nissan came up with a generous deal on a new Nissan Micra.

Shirley Read says “It’s great to see what a small number of people can do when they all work together, and to have Chica’s name remembered in this way.”

On Saturday the handover day arrived, and 30 RWNZ members, MPs and the deputy mayor gathered at Rainbow Place for a key presentation ceremony.

“As we waited in the car park, the excitement and anticipation was palpable,” says Rainbow Place Manager, Penny Parsons. 

“The Rainbow Place team are so grateful to Rural Women New Zealand members. We just want to say a huge thank you, not only on behalf of the staff, but also on behalf of the children, young people and their families who we now visit, and those we will be visiting in the future. It is the support of our local community that enables us to carry on doing our work with children and families going through ‘tough stuff’.”

RWNZ congratulates Tori Van Straalen of Otorohanga, the winner of an iPad donated by Jim Wright, for correctly guessing the number of rainbow-coloured balloons that filled the car before the official handover to Rainbow Place.

Two cars into three therapists just won’t go!  This was the dilemma facing Rainbow Place, an arm of Hospice Waikato that supports children and young people coping with serious illness. 

With just one aged vehicle and one newer car, Rainbow Place’s three nurse therapists were struggling to meet the growing demand for counselling services in Waikato and Coromandel, leading to long waits for families, particularly in rural areas.

Rural Women New Zealand heard about Rainbow Place’s difficulties, and decided it was the perfect way to use a generous bequest they had recently received from the estate of long-time Rukuhia branch member, Chica Gilmer. Chica died in August 2009 after a short battle with cancer.

Janet Williams of Rukuhia branch says, “The rural community and children were the passions in Chica’s life.

She was an educator and had been the deputy principal at Tauranga Girls College. We decided that a project to continue Chica’s work would be ideal.”

Jim Wright Nissan in Hamilton came up with a generous deal on a new Nissan Micra, and Rukuhia branch raised the balance of the funds needed, with support from other Rural Women New Zealand groups in the Waikato.
 

Rainbow Place Manager and Children’s Nurse, Penny Parsons says, “I can’t tell you what it’s going to mean to us. Our case load has increased substantially as people have got to know about Rainbow Place.”

Rainbow Place therapists travel around 2,500 kilometres a month, mainly to families in remote areas, or those unable to travel to Hamilton.

“When things are bad for families, lives are complicated enough without having to travel big distances to get support,” she says.

Rainbow Place’s nurses and therapists support both children who have a serious illness and those who need support for grief and loss due to the illness or death of a family member.

TUANZ, the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand would like to invite Rural Women NZ members to attend their Rural Broadband Symposium. Attendees will be able to debate the Rural Broadband Initiative's challenges and opportunities. The symposium will provide a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between broadband providers and rural users.

TUANZ is delighted to offer Rural Women NZ members a special rate of $400 + GST for the two days. To book the symposium or for more information click here.

Martin Johnson and English rugby team presented with aftersocks™ during goodwill visit to Christchurch

English rugby team members will have a special souvenir of Christchurch to take home with them after they were presented with Rural Women New Zealand’saftersocks™ during a goodwill visit to the city yesterday.

Christchurch City Council purchased 200 pairs of the aftersocks™, featuring red and black stripes and an earthquake ‘shake’ line, to present to the England and Australian teams.

Both teams had been scheduled to play Rugby World Cup matches in Christchurch before the Canterbury earthquakes derailed those plans.

Over 9,000 pairs of aftersocks™ have been sold by Rural Women New Zealand, raising tens of thousands of dollars for the Christchurch Mayoral Fun.  The merino blend socks are being manufactured in Ashburton.

“Our aftersocks™ have been a huge success, and as keen rugby supporters we’re thrilled to think that now they’ll be warming some very famous feet!” says Rural Women New Zealand President, Liz Evans.

RWNZ National Council had a trial run of some of their hard questions when the Minister of Health, the Hon Tony Ryall, visited the recent National Council meeting. Contrary to expectation, the Minister did not use time to talk exclusively about party politics. In fact, after the introductions, he sat down at the table and asked us what we wanted to talk about.

The Council asked him specifically to review the effectiveness of the  2007 Fair Travel Policy for home support workers who have to use their  vehicles to travel to  clients in rural areas with very limited recompense (about 20c per km).  Few, if any, other workers in New Zealand are required to self fund travelling between various  places of work several times per day.

Mr Ryall said he would re-evaluate the policy and asked for some specific examples of support workers who have been disadvantaged.

He was asked to make home based support services, often the Cinderella area of health funding and status, higher up on the priority list, especially when considering inflation price adjustments.  He said he would look at it if re-elected.

Other topics covered  during the  hour-plus meeting included the need for more support for rural-based midwives, the advances in technology related dementia care, and  rural dental health which Mr Ryall said is increasingly becoming a major problem for the over 65’s age group, as well as for rural children.

The Minister’s future specific targets included shorter waiting times for elective surgery, cancer treatment and emergency department consults; a 90% immunisation rate for 2 year-olds, affordable stop smoking programmes and more focus on cardio vascular disease and diabetes.

As he left the Rural Women New Zealand office complete with a  pair of Corporate Aftersocks, Mr Ryall thanked Rural Women New Zealand  “for all that you do”.

Making cheese is something the Harper women have done for generations, originally bringing their skills to New Zealand from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, the home of English stilton cheese. 

It’s been a recipe for success, which culminated in Lisa Harper taking away the Supreme Winner trophy at the RWNZ Enterprising Rural Women Award 2011 during our national conference in Auckland in May.

Lisa learned cheese making from her grandmother and mother.  Growing up it was just another regular household task, "It's like vacuuming.  Cheese and I have grown up together!”

Lisa spent her childhood on the family farm at the head of the Mahau Sounds in Marlborough, and received her education through The Correspondence School, before setting off to Wellington to do a science degree. 

She began her working life travelling the country as a research scientist, but returned to the farm eight years ago to help out ‘for a few months’.  It became a labour of love, and Lisa has transformed the flagging fortunes of the sheep farm by developing cheese making into a business to compliment the farm stay accommodation she and her mother run.

Lisa says she loves feeding people, and her farm guests were often fascinated by the cheeses she served at dinner and wanted to see how it was made.  Quick to see a new business opportunity, Lisa now runs cheese making classes that even-out the seasonal cash flow, attracting guests to Sherrington Grange all year round.

Lisa’s also a regular at the Marlborough Farmers’ Market, where people are treated to tastings of her cheese.  “I get to feed people for three hours. It's like a weekly date."

Lisa describes her range of cheeses as mild, medium, and "deadly", depending on how long they age for.

“I consider myself a cheese ager, not a cheese maker, because my job is to make sure the cheese ages properly and develops to what it's supposed to."

Back on the farm the cheese making process continues through the week. “We lovingly coax fresh milk into cheese in our tiny farm dairy from recipes more than two centuries old,” says Lisa.  “Each cheese is hand-crafted using traditional methods which have been discarded by modern dairy factories in the quest for efficiency.

“We choose to make only limited quantities of cheese, using the old ways, because we believe it creates a better product - this is the way cheese was before mechanisation and standardisation became the norm. Sherrington cheeses look, smell and taste the way they were meant to.”

Like many of our entrants this year, Lisa was encouraged to enter the RWNZ Enterprising Rural Women Award by one of our members, and giving recognition to rural women entrepreneurs achieving extraordinary things is a key reason for our running the Award.

Lisa’s win has received extensive publicity on TV, in provincial and farming newspapers and trade journals, as well as from overseas publications such as the USA goat industry magazine, and is an excellent way of promoting our organisation.

Runners up in the Award were North Island winners Nestling Limited, run by sisters Bernadine Guilleux and Maria-Fe Rohrlach.  Their Rotorua-based business makes baby slings and pouches from merino wool and organic cotton.  The judges were particularly impressed with the business’ use of New Zealand raw materials, as well as their online marketing strategies which connect them in a very personal way with their customers.

We thank our Award co-sponsors, Access Homehealth Ltd and Telecom for their support.

For more information on our winners go to www.sherringtongrange.co.nz and www.nestling.co.nz