Each year I am impressed by the NSW Rural Women’s Award finalists. This year is no different.

Passionate advocate of food and wine promotion for the Central West, Orange’s Kim Currie, was named winner of this year’s NSW RIRDC Rural Women’s Award at a recent gala event at NSW Parliament House.

Kim was recognised for her commitment to improving agritourism and using farmers markets and other initiatives to boost awareness of food production efforts in NSW, and help strengthen rural communities.

Kim’s energy and enthusiasm for the innovative promotion of food and wine in the Central West is well known, and has the potential to help similar rural communities across the State better promote their products to consumers.

This year’s runner-up, Gillian Hogendyk of Warren, is equally impressive.

Gillian has shown incredible leadership by inspiring cotton industry members in the North West of the State to play their part in improving wetlands such as the Macquarie Marshes, and sharing their new knowledge with the general community, university and school students.

This year saw one of the largest and most diverse range of applicants attracted by the award in recent times, and indicates the depth of talent in our rural sector.

Despite more than half the State remaining in one of the worst droughts on record, these women are developing new initiatives and projects that benefit their communities and industries.

I congratulate both these women on their achievements.

PROfarm success

The State can be proud of what has been developed to educate farmers and those associated with land management in NSW by Tocal College.

Short courses delivered by Tocal under the PROfarm banner have been an outstanding success with over 18,000 people undertaking courses, most of them farmers and hands-on managers.

DPI PROfarm courses are run in locations which suit farmers – in other words our clients do not have to travel for hours to do a course.

PROfarm has around 125 short courses ready to go, depending on needs and seasonal requirements.

These courses are mapped and accredited to comply with National Standards.

As a result, those who undertake a PROfarm short course build a basis for a full qualification – no other State has such an integrated system for short course development and delivery.

Information is available at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/profarm