An AgriFutures grant is helping rural women pursue their dreams.
A city girl who fell in love with rural communities, Olga Davis grew up in Kazakhstan before moving to Australia eight years ago.
Her husband is from regional Victoria and the pair decided to move back after spending lockdowns in Melbourne during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was just ready to get away from the hustle and bustle,” Olga said, adding that her “only regret” was that they didn’t make the move earlier.
Living in Glenrowan, Victoria for just over 18 months now, Olga feels lucky to have landed a job as an economic development officer, where she fosters the prosperity and economic advancement of local communities.
Beyond that, Olga is a strong advocate for access to healthy food, free from preservatives and chemicals, which she first began paying attention to when trying to treat her eczema. Many of her friends would also reach out asking for Olga’s advice on growing their own food and wanting to know recipes that she had learnt from her Russian grandmother.
“I realised that this traditional knowledge is lost in our generation, and people really want it,” she said.
With a drive to fill that gap in lost knowledge, Olga came up with the idea for Down Under Homestead, which provides valuable resources to learn how to grow, forage and preserve food, as well as making people’s homes more self-sufficient.
Olga has always been passionate about Down Under Homestead, but she says what really helped her define her vision into a viable business was being part of the AgriFutures Rural Women’s Acceleration Grant Program.
After she applied and was selected to join the 2024 cohort of women, Olga was overjoyed to receive the support and know that others believed in her business idea.
Olga encouraged women with an innovative idea to take the leap and apply for the grant.
She said you might not know “where it’s going to take you, but it’s going to take you closer to your dream”.
“Even when you’re applying, even if you’re not going to be successful, it doesn’t matter. It helps with defining what you want, and as soon as you know what you want, you know where you’re going,” she said.
A space for women to explore
AgriFutures Australia capacity building, workforce and communications acting senior manager Sheridan Ingold said the grant was particularly important because it provided women with the space to further explore an idea.
“There are many women who have an idea on how to create impact for their regions but don’t prioritise the time and space required to explore what that idea could look like in a real-world context. This grant does exactly that,” she said.
The acceleration grant provides a $7000 professional development bursary to successful applicants, which Sheridan says allows women to not only develop their idea, but also to “develop themselves along the way”.
“It is important to pave the way for emerging female leaders in agriculture who are wanting to create impact in their regions,” she said.
“This is a great avenue to test an idea that you have had. Absolutely nothing to lose and loads to gain.
“If you have an idea that you believe will make an impact on your rural or regional community or industry this is the program for you. The program is so much more than just the grant money, you will make connections that will last a lifetime.”
Networking and connection
Sarah Golding had initially been hesitant to apply for the acceleration grant, which she received this year.
That is until a good friend encouraged her to back her business idea by taking the leap.
“She was pushing her little one in the pram and it came up on her Facebook newsfeed — the AgriFutures grant — and she just sent it to me, and she said ‘I think your project would really fit the criteria’,” Sarah said.
Sarah looked into the grant, but didn’t go ahead and apply until that same friend messaged her again, probing to see if she had taken action. After that, Sarah finally applied and was surprised and excited when she was selected.
“It’s been very good timing for me and a great sort of stepping stone,” Sarah said.
“The financial support has been amazing, but I think (the biggest help has been) the networking and the connection and just having someone to be accountable to as well.”
A veterinarian with extensive experience in the field, Sarah plans to use the support from the grant to continue growing herself as ‘The Vet Mind Mentor’, an initiative providing tailored support and mindset mentoring, with a particular focus on the unique challenges faced by female veterinarians.
Since the age of seven, Sarah has been sure of her drive to make an impact as a vet, but having gone through veterinarian school and spending years on the job in mixed practice, she became aware of the many challenges and demands of the work, as well as the mental toll it can take on those in the profession.
“I’ve seen more and more people just not make it through the first couple of years, like new graduates just say ‘this is too hard’ or not get the support and get really burnt out,” Sarah said.
“And I just really saw a gap — there’s just not a lot of structured training in that first 12 months around the emotional and resilience side of it.”
Stepping up to fill that gap, Sarah has developed an online course as well as live mentoring through her ‘Vet Mind Mentor’ project to better support young veterinarians.
“Getting the AgriFutures grant gave me the encouragement that someone else at a higher level thought that it was a good idea, and that it had merit as well, just that little bit of belief that, you know, this could be really valuable.”
This article was written by Brianna Boecker and originally published by Women’s Agenda.