One of the dairy industry’s most vocal promoters and outwardly optimistic participants, Roma Britnell, has been named Victorian Rural Woman of the Year.
Ms Britnell and husband Glenn started their dairy careers 10 years ago as sharefarmers in south west Victoria milking 200 cows.
Since then they have grown their business to now own three separate farms milking a total of 900 cows.
Not content to just accept what the industry had given them Ms Britnells has taken an active interest in industry affairs through the United Dairyfarmers of Victoria and as a Director of West Vic Dairy, the body responsible for setting priorities and channeling funds for regional research programs.
More recently she has served as chair of both WestVic Dairy and the regional extension and education committee that works with dairy farmers in the south west,
Ms Bricknell has been a keen promoter of the dairy industry for its role in the regional economy where it was both the largest employer and the largest generator of farm income.
The Victorian Rural Woman of the Year award is sponsored by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and includes a $10,000 bursary that Ms Britnell intends to use to study farmer’s marketing options in other major dairy countries but particularly the UK and US.
She said farmers in those countries had been through a similar situation where the proportion of milk marketed through co-operatives had dropped from 80 per cent to 35pc in just a few years and she hoped to learn from that experience and to make her findings available to all dairy farmers in this country.