Two of our industry champions recently accompanied Lantra Scotland’s project manager Sheena Howden to an international conference in the Netherlands, as Sheena had been invited to speak at the event. Here’s what they learnt from their trip.
Mary Bowman, Galbraith Group
In December of 2019, I was incredibly lucky to have been invited by Lantra through my involvement with their Industry Champion initiative, along with Claire Simonetta, to attend the inaugural international summit of Women in Food and Agriculture. The conference was held in Dam Square, Amsterdam, and featured speakers and delegates from all over the world, working in agriculture and other food-related industries including Lantra’s Project Manager, Sheena, who was speaking at the Conference on the topic of ‘Recruiting for the Future; Overcoming skills challenges in Rural Scotland’. Sponsored primarily by international food production and technology companies, other speakers hailed from a range of industries and worldwide locations, including the Former Chairwoman of Nestle UK, Business Development Manager of the Norwegian Salmon Group and the Climate Change Director of the Forestry Commission of Ghana, to name but a few!
The content of the conference was extremely diverse, but could be broadly divided between two key subject matters: sustainability in the future of global food production and diversity within agriculture and food related industries.
The conference opened with the presentation of results from a survey of over 2,500 participants (both male and female) working in agribusiness ranging from on-farm to laboratory roles. There was significant evidence of gender imbalance and how women felt they are represented within their organisations and the industry, with key barriers to progression identified as equal pay and a lack of available mentors. However, there is a strong feeling that the industry is experiencing rapid change and over 80% of participants agree the industry is becoming more inclusive. Most encouragingly, a huge 97% of females indicated confidence in their ability to positively impact the future of the agribusiness industry. When networking with other delegates in between sessions, I was proud to discuss the increasing predominance of female graduates recruited by Galbraith, the company I work for, in recent years and the gender balance of professional roles within our Inverness office.
Discussions on diversity included practical examples of inclusive strategies, focuses on female funding gaps and how female empowerment can deliver benefits in small-scale farming and in turn help fight poverty in third world countries. Additionally, on day two there were practical workshops on leadership, communication and lifelong career
opportunities. Technical topics covered relating to the future sustainability of agriculture globally were very current, relevant and highly informative. I was particularly interested in discussions relating to circular agriculture and how agricultural block chain data could be better utilised to benefit the farmers.
The content and workshops made for a highly motivational experience which made me think forward in my career and gave me a positive boost in confidence regarding the future, both personally and within agriculture in general. I have a wealth of new topics to discuss and debate with my colleagues and hope to bring some disruptive thinking to the industry in the north of Scotland. What I found to be the most beneficial aspect of the conference was networking with a huge range of delegates and speakers. Not only was it informative regarding different agricultural practices globally, but it was also hugely inspirational. The plethora of different land-based roles women are undertaking all over the world is extraordinary, giving me some great new ideas about where my career might take me in the future.
Claire Simonetta, Torloisk Farm, Isle of Mull
Lantra Scotland invited me to attend the ‘Women in Food and Agriculture’ conference in Amsterdam in early December together with Mary Bowman from Galbraith who is a fellow Lantra Industry Champion and Sheena Howden, Lantra Scotland’s Project Manager.
The 2-day event was a very inspiring, motivating and generally worthwhile experience, focusing on issues such as encouraging and retaining young talent within the agricultural and food sector, as well as finding and recruiting talent from out with the industry.
Although the overarching theme was gender equality by empowering women, the conference managed to deliver a realistic yet optimistic and in my opinion incredibly valuable message that gender equality is achieved not by constantly focusing on gender, but by doing the exact opposite; forget about somebody’s gender, let’s find talented and motivated people and marry them together with a job where their talent is valued, needed, and encouraged, regardless of whether they are female or male. This ethos was represented by general presentations and panel discussions which did not solely focus on female speakers but rather those individuals who were best suited to participate in a discussion or workshop about a certain topic. At the same time, the conference as a whole elegantly managed to inspire the mostly female audience through highlighting what women can achieve, by inviting some very accomplished women onto the stage who hold positions of great importance and/or influence within the agricultural and food industry. However, the organisers did not try to delude themselves and others about there currently being gender issues and some constructive, positive key messages were put forward to the audience by various panel members about how we as society – not as men and women – can detect, correctly interpret, deal with and overcome these problems.
More importantly though, we were encouraged to network, and this was probably the most valuable part of the whole conference. Exchanging ourselves with others from sometimes completely different backgrounds but connected through similar challenges, visions and a drive to move forward good, solid and sustainable global food production, that was a fantastic experience.