Women in Seed Forum draws 120 to Christchurch gathering
- Claire Inkson
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
More than 120 women from across New Zealand’s seed and arable sectors gathered in Christchurch for the annual Women in Seed Forum, a day focused on leadership, innovation, wellbeing, business and connection within the industry.
Hosted by Seed and Grain New Zealand on May 28, the event brought together women working across the sector for a programme spanning agritech, artificial intelligence, financial wellbeing, entrepreneurship and leadership.
Seed and Grain New Zealand director and past president Charlotte Connoley said the purpose of Women in Seed was to grow knowledge while creating stronger connections across the industry.
“Women in Seed enables a collective of talented leaders and influential women in the seed industry to come together, to be themselves, to be inspired and energised, supporting each other to continue to thrive and contribute in our own extraordinary way,” she said.
Connoley said the continued growth of the annual event showed just how important connection and support networks were for women working across the industry.
“The attendance numbers at this event show women really crave this connection, this network and this opportunity,” she said.
“What’s really special is seeing those relationships and networks evolve. In those early years, or if it’s your first time attending, it can feel a little daunting, no different to walking into any industry conference.
“But now people walk in and immediately recognise familiar faces. Every year you meet someone new, strengthen connections and grow those networks further.”
Connoley said those support systems were particularly important given the pressures many women were currently carrying both at work and at home.
“Women are often the cheerleaders. They’re the fabric of home life as well as playing significant roles within the industry, so having a space like this where people can connect and support each other is really valuable.”
Seed and Grain New Zealand chief executive Sarah Clark said the forum had become an important way of connecting women across the wider seed and grain sector, particularly in an industry still largely dominated by men.
“The agriculture sector is still male dominated,” she said.
“Currently women make up about 35% of the food and fibre workforce, with higher female representation in support, advisory, science and value-chain roles.”
Clark said while more women were now leading farming businesses and sitting on governance boards, there was still work to do across the wider sector.
“There remains a gap in gender diversity on agricultural governance boards,” she said.
“There’s an opportunity there for the wider agriculture industry to enable more participation from women; and an opportunity for women to step into those roles.”
Clark said the future looked positive, with strong numbers of women now entering agricultural education and graduate programmes.
“Women are now well represented and often dominate in agricultural education,” she said.
“Fifty-six percent of tertiary agriculture students were female, and in some graduate programmes more than 60% of applicants are women, indicating a strong incoming pipeline.”
She said Women in Seed helped create both confidence and connection within the industry.
“There’s a community of women doing important work in their companies, for the seed and grain industry and the NZ economy,” she said.
“I think the day reminds women to know their value and what they bring to the table.”
Clark also reflected on how much the event itself had grown since launching in 2019.
“The first Women in Seed forum was held in 2019, with 40 attendees,” she said.
“And here we are seven years later with over 100 attendees, bringing inspiration, education, personal and professional development opportunities, and connection to our community.”
The day featured a diverse lineup of speakers from across business, technology, finance and agriculture.
Gallagher’s Sarah Adams spoke on agritech innovation and leadership, drawing on more than 25 years in agricultural business development and her work helping lead Gallagher’s eShepherd technology platform from concept to commercial reality.
AI Forum New Zealand executive director Madeline Newman explored the growing role of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, encouraging attendees to think about how AI would continue shaping industries and business decision-making into the future.
Financial adviser Amy Po-Ching focused on financial literacy and wealth building, particularly for women navigating careers, family life and long-term financial planning.
Linden Leaves founder Brigit Blair shared the story behind building one of New Zealand’s best-known wellbeing and skincare brands, reflecting on entrepreneurship, purpose-led business and growing an internationally recognised company from New Zealand.
The final keynote of the day came from leadership speaker and media strategist Cassie Roma, whose presentation centred on confidence, resilience, identity and navigating change.
Federated Farmers arable chairperson David Birkett stepped in at short notice after scheduled speaker Hamish Marr became unwell following overseas travel.
Birkett’s presentation quickly became one of the major talking points of the day, offering a frank overview of both the opportunities and pressures currently facing New Zealand’s arable sector.
He said resilience and diversification would be critical to the future of the industry, particularly following two extremely difficult seasons for many growers.
“The last two seasons have probably really highlighted that while those crops are higher value, they also become associated with a higher risk,” he said.
“What we do every day is basically manage the risk that we have in front of us, whether that’s from a weather point of view, market point of view or international factors.”
Birkett said New Zealand’s arable industry remained globally important, underpinning much of the wider agricultural sector through seed, feed and crop production.
He warned however that increasing imported feed use and continued dairy conversions were placing pressure on the sector.
“We used to be about 200,000 tonnes of imported feed into New Zealand. We’re now four to four and a half million tonnes this year,” he said.
“That’s $2 billion going out of our economy that could be circulating around the New Zealand agricultural economy.”
He also raised concerns about the loss of quality arable land and infrastructure as more farms converted to dairy production.
“What we’re seeing this time around is a significant loss of good land and good arable growers too.”
Despite the challenges, Birkett said New Zealand remained well positioned internationally due to its climate, expertise and reliability of production.
“The Northern Hemisphere is really starting to struggle for production,” he said.
“With our good water, good skills and good farmers and agronomy knowledge, we are able to keep that reliability as high as possible.”
Birkett also challenged the industry to rethink some long-standing systems and structures, saying parts of the sector had changed little in decades.
“We’ve been operating the same system of production and procurement for about 40 years now,” he said.
“Forty years is a long time in this day and age.”
He said bringing more women into leadership and decision-making roles would help drive fresh thinking across the industry.
“I think women coming into the industry bring a different and newer look at the way in which the industry can develop and what a new system might look like.”
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