Too many women?

Recently, someone with many years in media gave me a piece of advice.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.

“Be careful not to have too many women in one issue.”

Really?

Because in all my years doing this job, nobody has ever warned me about having too many men.

Well.

Hold my gin.

Because this issue is full of women.

And unapologetically so.

October 15 is International Day of Rural Women, and 2026 is also the International Year of the Woman Farmer, so it seemed like the perfect time to put some of rural New Zealand’s women front and centre.

Not because women need to be shoehorned onto pages to tick a box. Quite the opposite.

I have always believed the best stories are simply the best stories.

It just happens that rural women have some bloody good ones.

There’s also saying that you can’t be what you can’t see.

We shine a spotlight on rural women not just to celebrate what they are doing now, but so the next generation can see what is possible.

So a girl growing up on a farm can see a pathway into leadership, science, business, governance, farming, entrepreneurship, or wherever else she wants to go.

And just as importantly, so the women already out there in the trenches, whether that trench happens to be a muddy paddock or a boardroom, can see themselves reflected back.

Their work matters.

Their contribution matters.

Their voice matters.

And they should know their value and their worth.

For generations, too much of women’s work in rural New Zealand has been quietly folded into phrases like “helping on the farm”, when the reality is often very different.

She might be doing the books, payroll, GST, banking and compliance. She might be raising calves, shifting stock, managing staff, working off-farm, raising a family and keeping the whole operation moving.

Sometimes all before smoko.

Women are running farms and businesses, chairing boards, leading organisations, doing research, starting companies and holding communities together.

Some are highly visible.

Plenty aren’t.

And if we want to get practical about it, women are also major decision-makers in households and businesses. In farming businesses, they are often closely involved in the finances, the planning and the decisions about where money gets spent.

So telling women’s stories is not niche.

It is part of telling the story of rural New Zealand properly.

For this feature, I wanted women from across rural New Zealand, not one tidy version of what a “rural woman” is supposed to look like.

There are farmers here. Business owners. Industry leaders. Researchers. Rural advocates. Women who have broken new ground, and others who have quietly got on with the job without ever thinking what they do is particularly remarkable.

We asked them about the challenges, the opportunities, what they would change for rural women tomorrow and, for a bit of fun, what their rural superpower is.

Their answers are as varied as they are.

And that is the point.

There is no single story of the New Zealand rural woman.

There are thousands of them.

We just need to keep telling them.

So yes, there are a lot of women in this issue.

Funny that.