Gender Equality with Lindy Nelson

Lindy Nelson is a true champion of rural women. She wears many hats such as being the Founder of the Agri-Women’s Development Trust, farming alongsider her husband, host of Amplifying Us Podcast, and is most recently the Chair of Safer Farms. Moving to rural Eketahuna 34 years ago was Lindy’s first experience of really strugging to find where she could add value, where she fit and what her sense of purpose was, both on and off farm. This struggle led her to realise that there was so much untapped potential in women, and made her ponder the question of how do we create pathways where women feel like they could belong and feel like they could contribute?

Lindy’s take on sustainability and rural communities

Sustainability for Lindy means:

“…simply living within our planetary boundaries and that encompasses how we treat and work with the environment, for us who are food producers, the whenua, but also people. You know, how do we create that ongoing longevity and sustainability of people to address some of the big issues that we actually need to address? And I think this is where regenerative agriculture has come from, because in a way sustainability almost didn’t feel like it was enough.”

Lindy was blown away when first moving to a rural community at the interconnections and interdependencies on one another within rural communities, creating that longevity and sustainability of people that she mentioned in her meaning of sustainability. Rural communities, to Lindy, are incredible ecosystems that showcase the best of interdependence, resilience and adaptability.

“That if something happened, they would all come together, they’d solve a problem, and whether that was a bridge being washed away, tragedy occurring in a rural community, or celebrations occurring, people knew actually how to work together, they instinctively knew the strengths of one another, who was really good at organising, who was really good at making things happen, who kind of would take the lead, who were those people in the background that made sure everyone was actually OK,  and so there’s an amazing story around really the strength of rural communities. And in a way, I look at cities and people within them who are struggling to find how they work, and I think they could learn a lot from observing how rural communities actually live and work and play and survive together.”

At the same time, Lindy acknowledges that rural communities can be a tough place to live if you don’t feel like you can contribute, which has been a key driver in her passion for championing rural women and creating opportunities for them.

“So, if you don’t feel like you belong, you don’t have the ingredients to be successful within it or your skills or attributes or what you bring aren’t valued, then it can be incredibly hard place, particularly for women. And I guess that comes back to the beginning of my story where I saw lot of incredible talented woman, but not really contributing in the way that they could, so they weren’t invited to the decision-making table, and whether that was on their own farms or within their communities.”

Agri-Women’s Development Trust (AWDT)

Lindy started out undertaking research in order to find a solution, not start an organisation. She got very involved in a lot of community initiatives and at the time she didn’t see a lot of women at board level or stepping up into the agri-sector. There were some incredible women, but the numbers were very small and very telling of a bleak story. Lindy intially started a Masters but realised it would take a long time and be too academically focused, so she changed direction and started doing research herself, and then went to Kellogg’s which fast-tracked her ability to meet other people and produce a robust piece of work which clearly stepped out what needed to happen in order for women to be successful. She took her work to various organisations but noone could see the potential that she saw, or they thought they were already doing good enough in that space. Lindy came to the realisation that if she needed to bring this to life herself.

“I knew the answers I had were not being represented in what we currently had as an offering in the agricultural sector, so it started out as a piece of work that I wanted to give someone and I realised, that awful moment when you realize you have to bring something to life yourself, and it’s a pretty scary moment when you think, wow. I was unknown, I didn’t have the resources, I didn’t even really know how to do it , making that step was quite a big one, really, because I knew it was going to take me time and a lot of effort, I knew I had the passion and energy to do it, but I doubted I had the ability, or that being unknown, would it get cut through? But one day I just sat on the hills and thought, what’s the worst I could do? I could fail. And then we’d be no better off. And I’ve always been comfortable with failing. I think it’s a failure if you don’t learn from it, but it’s not a failure if you take a step and it doesn’t work out, and then you can sort of regroup and go again.”

Lindy started AWDT in 2010, which was a very difficult time with the Global Financial Crisis, but they launched out of Parliament and it gave a really good springboard. The first women who came on the Escalator programme went on to create the pathway and role modelling for all the other women who followed. At the time Lindy left the organisation, they had put 5000 women through various programmes.

“The success of the Trust has always been about the success of the women who have come to find their why…where they want to lead and get that support from other women.”

At the time, Lindy didn’t see that she was creating a movement. She had passion, energy and knowledge, which drove her to succeed, and she states it was never about her.

“As someone once said to me, you seem to be a very hard woman to say no to and I think that’s probably true, but it is an uncomfortable place, being that one that is very, very visible, and then human nature is such that if you’re visible and you start to get accolades, then sometimes it’s hard, you know, people can be highly critical, but I was really lucky in the fact that what we were doing was about women, it actually wasn’t about me, even though that’s been levelled at me at times, which really grinds my gears. It was actually about other women and the success of other women for the success of food production in NZ. And I think they are two very powerful, powerful links.”

AWDT only continued to grow with the generation of a core team of facilitators, then a wider team. Culture was a key part of AWDT’s formation, and it has stood strong in the success of AWDT and its impact on women in the rural sector.

AWDT and its contributions to SDG #5: Gender Equality

When she first started out, Lindy didn’t see her focus as contributing to gender equality.

“What I saw it as was the untapped potential that women had to bring to some of our really sticky problems and I remember being interviewed on Catherine Ryan. She called me the rural feminist and I got on her programme and said, oh, I am not a feminist and Teresa Gattung, you know, is really good friend of mine was listening to the radio and she rang me up afterwards and really gave me an earful because I didn’t really see myself as a feminist, or really thinking about gender equality,

I guess the work I do is actually about that, but those words, they didn’t resonate with me, but the word empower did. You know if we can empower women to find and use the way that they thought and led and their life experiences to help solve or bring balance to some of the issues that we had in agriculture, we would be so much more successful and if you empower women, by default, you will empower girls and you will empower families and that’s a global phenomenon that is known. If you give women skills and education, by default, you will be giving it to their family and their family will become successful.”

Of the targets that sit under SDG#5, Target 5.5 which seeks to ensure women’s full and effective participation, and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in economic, political and public life, is what resonates the most with Lindy around what they seek to achieve through AWDT. It is evident that this is something that AWDT excels at, as we all know women within our networks that have undertaken some sort of programme through the Trust to help with their career progression, and to contribute positive impact in areas that their passion aligns to.

Lindy’s take on the biggest challenge facing agriculture

18 months ago Lindy became Chair of an organisation called Safer Farms, and her current passion is aligned with reducing harm on farm. To Lindy, the biggest issue regarding sustainability in the rural sector is about people.

“If we don’t have people that are well and healthy and thriving then we can’t achieve the next level, which is around environment and water and carbon and how we produce food but without people, it’s not going to happen. And so, the biggest threat I see is how do we make people who work in our sector, how do we make them thrive? And how do we keep them safe? Because the unspoken thing that we’re not talking about is the deaths, the suicides, the crippling, the maiming, and the poisoning that is happening in agriculture and the production of food, and nobody really wants to talk about that.”

“It’s really interesting because we go back, and we look at some of those sustainable development goals and we think no poverty, quality education and gender equality and we think of clothing that we have and Bangladesh workers. We all care deeply that Bangladesh workers are not harmed and have good working conditions and can go home and are paid well and educate their children for the clothes that we wear, do we feel the same way about our farmers who produce food? I think we don’t. I don’t think consumers care enough, and that consumers have been highly critical of farmers and how they produce food, and so there’s a lot to change.”

Lindy’s take home action that farming businesses can take to contribute to sustainability on farm

We could paraphrase Lindy’s take home action, but it wouldn’t hit home the way it does when she says it. This is an awesome call to action by Lindy, and one that is critical for our pathways towards continued sustainability in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Develop relationships with their local iwi and that’s not a glib statement. When we build relationships with people who have the same aspirations around the land that we do and when we unite as communities, that’s when we’ll get sustainability. At the moment, far too many people who live and work in agriculture do not have the right relationship with Māori. They don’t even know who is in their own communities doing things. So, if there is one thing that I would ask farmers to do is find out who and what your local iwi are and pop in and have a cup of tea. Take them some kai. Sit down and work together.”

Listen to Lindy’s podcast episode here: