Held at Griffith Exies Club on Wednesday the 21st of July, the event attracted 40 attendees in business, industry and agriculture from the local community who heard from previous and current participants in the PYia Young Farming Champions Program such as Constance Mort, Veronika Vicic and Dylan Male.

Lynne Strong, National Program Director and Founder of Picture in Agriculture spoke on the night, telling The Area News that the dinner event was a 'fabulous opportunity' to action for young people in agriculture and ensure that their voices were not only heard at the decision making table, but their opinions valued.

"Young people not only want to make change, they want to drive change" Mrs Strong said.

"It was an extremely rewarding night, to see so many community members encouraging young people to pursue a career in agriculture, a career with purpose."

Since starting in 2010, 100 participants have gone through the Young Farming Champions where there have developed skills in leadership and confident communication as well as developing their capacity to be trusted voices in the community.

Recently, PYia was renamed to Action in Agriculture, to reflect the continued advocacy work the organisation is doing to give voices to the passionate young leaders of tomorrow.

"Our youth are our future" Mrs Strong said.

"Farmers today are very progressive, our young farmers even more so and they want to be part of the solution against climate change."

READ MORE

Will Mead, Member of Griffith Soroptimists said that the relationship with PYia had been ongoing for about two years, and the club had supported a number of young women who were enrolled in the Young Farming Champions Program

"It is a great relationship that we share, we feel extremely lucky to be in partnership with an organisation whos values and objectives are so similarly matched to our own" Mrs Mead said.

"We are excited to continue supporting young people going through the program, and platform how exciting the agriculture sector really is."

The Griffith Soroptimists will host their next event on Sunday 12 September, a wellness day for all local Women.

More information can be found about the Young Farming Champions Program here.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: