Scotland's Farm Advisory Service Podcast
Oct 15, 2026 · 38 min · 10 segments
You are listening to Agri Culture, a podcast that aims to explore the stories of the people that make up our agricultural industry and culture of farming, in Scotland and beyond. In this episode…
Mary-Jane LawrieHostUh, so I self-funded the first Harvest Her Power conference, um, paid out of my pocket because I believed so strongly in the importance of it, uh, and the gap that it was filling.
And I never thought that we would be three years on as a registered non-for-profit association with a full board, volunteer board Uh, we have moved from being mostly, um, [lips smack] New South Wales focused.
So in that first conference, I was absolutely blown away that we had people from Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, uh, Victoria, and South Australia.
So that is all except for two, uh, three states, um, of Australia came to that first one, which spoke so highly to what it was that we were addressing, and that it was different and it was needed.
We roll out national webinars, um, and then have the national conference now.
And our aim is just to make women in agriculture see, feel seen, heard, understood, and help them in their day-to-day to build that resilience, and build that strength and empowerment and recognition that what they are doing is so absolutely incredible, and is necessary not only for themselves, but their family, and their farms, and their greater community.
What would you say has been your proudest moment since launching the organization?
Seeing it grow, uh, seeing the passion in other women's eyes, and men, when they come onto the board and the committee and say, "Yes, we believe in this as much as you do, and we wanna help and support our fellow farmers."
If you could change one thing about the way that women are viewed in agriculture, what would it be?
I know every family, family farming operation is different, but there's no just about it.
Like, you are part of the farm, you are part of the business, and you are part of the community, and your role is so important.
It hurts in my chest every time I hear someone say, "Oh, I'm just." [chuckles] And it's like, "No, no, no, no." [laughs] Um-
if I c- if people could acknowledge the role, um, that women play in, in family farming and in their community.
We, we've been doing the Women in Agriculture groups for the Farm Advisory Service since 2017, and it was similar.
A lot of the women that came along described themselves as farmers' wives, not the farmers.
And it, it was interesting yesterday, I h- I hosted a meeting for the Lothians, and there was 16 people there, um, and nearly all of them wrote on the form, it asks what your, what your occupation is, nearly all of them wrote farmer.
And I thought that's, that's so nice now that that's what they're writing rather than farmer's w- there was still one farmer's wife I noticed [chuckles] on the form, but the rest had written farmer.
Uh, so I self-funded the first Harvest Her Power conference, um, paid out of my pocket because I believed so strongly in the importance of it, uh, and the gap that it was filling.
And I never thought that we would be three years on as a registered non-for-profit association with a full board, volunteer board Uh, we have moved from being mostly, um, [lips smack] New South Wales focused.
So in that first conference, I was absolutely blown away that we had people from Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, uh, Victoria, and South Australia.
So that is all except for two, uh, three states, um, of Australia came to that first one, which spoke so highly to what it was that we were addressing, and that it was different and it was needed.
We roll out national webinars, um, and then have the national conference now.
And our aim is just to make women in agriculture see, feel seen, heard, understood, and help them in their day-to-day to build that resilience, and build that strength and empowerment and recognition that what they are doing is so absolutely incredible, and is necessary not only for themselves, but their family, and their farms, and their greater community.
What would you say has been your proudest moment since launching the organization?
Seeing it grow, uh, seeing the passion in other women's eyes, and men, when they come onto the board and the committee and say, "Yes, we believe in this as much as you do, and we wanna help and support our fellow farmers."
If you could change one thing about the way that women are viewed in agriculture, what would it be?
I know every family, family farming operation is different, but there's no just about it.
Like, you are part of the farm, you are part of the business, and you are part of the community, and your role is so important.
It hurts in my chest every time I hear someone say, "Oh, I'm just." [chuckles] And it's like, "No, no, no, no." [laughs] Um-
if I c- if people could acknowledge the role, um, that women play in, in family farming and in their community.
We, we've been doing the Women in Agriculture groups for the Farm Advisory Service since 2017, and it was similar.
A lot of the women that came along described themselves as farmers' wives, not the farmers.
And it, it was interesting yesterday, I h- I hosted a meeting for the Lothians, and there was 16 people there, um, and nearly all of them wrote on the form, it asks what your, what your occupation is, nearly all of them wrote farmer.
And I thought that's, that's so nice now that that's what they're writing rather than farmer's w- there was still one farmer's wife I noticed [chuckles] on the form, but the rest had written farmer.
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