Kim Currie, Orange, winner

With 25 years experience working with regional producers, Kim has forged new and innovative ways of promoting rural and regional NSW through food and wine. Her goal is to help develop vibrant regional communities by linking local produce, people and experiences by forging closer relationships between producers and consumers. Kim’s interest in agritourism is inspired by the obvious advantages of the producer market concept including accessibility, convenience, strengthening of local and regional food systems, sustainability and its potential to bridge the divide between rural and urban communities.
A strong advocate for primary industries and the interests of rural women, Kim currently works as Executive Officer of Brand Orange, working to achieve greater recognition and more opportunities for local wines and food through an industry development strategy that also integrates regional food and tourism. Kim proposes to use the bursary to undertake an international study tour, gaining greater knowledge of the successful farmers market models and how they contribute to paddock-to-plate marketing and agritourism.

Gillian Hogendyk, Warren, runner-up

Gillian is passionate about conservation of natural resources and involving rural communities in wetland conservation. She lives on an irrigation and cropping property at Warren in the Macquarie Valley and is one of 30 local community members who formed a unit trust to purchase a wetland in the Macquarie Marshes, which they manage for conservation and education. She is author of The Macquarie Marshes: an Ecological History and believes that productive and sustainable farming (including irrigated agriculture) can sit side-by-side with the enhancement of environmental values for the benefit of the whole community. She hopes to use the bursary to tour wetlands managed by non-Government, community organisations or private land owners in the Murray Darling Basin and other parts of Australia to gain a greater appreciation of the diversity and possibilities for private conservation initiatives to be developed on working properties. She will use the knowledge gained for management of wetlands in her own region and communicate her findings to others in the Basin.

Media resources