Rural Women New Zealand welcomes $250K government funding to support rural communities
Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) says it is delighted by the Government’s announcement that it would invest $250,000 in the organisation.
With more women working in farming, more are contracting the disease leptospirosis, says the president of Rural Women NZ, Fiona Gower.
She told Dairy News, at a recent international conference on leptospirosis in Palmerston North, that the changing nature of the workforce on farms and in the rural sector generally means this disease is no longer a probably only for men.
Women are getting to work on farms in their own right or in a partnership, “feeding calves, milking cows, doing work with the stock -- much more hands on these days”.
“That’s why there is more prevalence of women getting the disease. The causes include rats running over the bags of feed where they are feeding calves, or in the milking shed; and there may be something in the woolshed for those doing the dagging and shearing as well.”
Gower says it’s also believed the spread of the disease may be connected to wet weather because it is spread through water. Women cleaning mud or water from homes or from silt around a farm are possible causes of their increased infection rates.
Rural Women NZ and its predecessor, the women’s division of Federated Farmers, have supported research at Massey University into leptospirosis for 40 years and they will continue to do this, Gower says.
“In the 1970s and 80s the women’s division of Federated Farmers gave $150,000 to research on lepto in the dairy and pork industries which led to vaccination. Again in 2007-08 we gave more funding for two PhD students to look at issues in the meat industry, in particular deer. The main reason is because of the harm the disease does in rural communities.”
Heart wrenching stories are told about the disease’s impact on individuals, families, businesses and the whole rural society including schools. Some people have had to quit their jobs.
Rural Women NZ will keep working to raise awareness of lepto in rural areas, Gower says. It is targeting people on farms and rural professionals including health workers.
Phoebe Scherer, a technical manager from the Bay of Plenty, has won the 2025 Young Grower of the Year national title.
The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand (FCANZ) celebrated the best of the best at the 2025 Fencing Industry Awards, providing the opportunity to honour both rising talent and industry stalwarts.
Award-winning boutique cheese company, Cranky Goat Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation.
As an independent review of the National Pest Management Plan for TB finds the goal of complete eradication by 2055 is still valide, feedback is being sought on how to finish the job.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand has launched an AI-powered digital assistant to help farmers using the B+LNZ Knowledge Hub to create tailored answers and resources for their farming businesses.
A tiny organism from the arid mountains of mainland Greece is facilitating a new way of growing healthier animals on farms across New Zealand.
OPINION: Westland Milk may have won the contract to supply butter to Costco NZ but Open Country Dairy is having…
OPINION: The Gene Technology Bill has divided the farming community with strong arguments on both the pros and cons of…