It takes a village: reflections from the Rabobank Women in Ag breakfast

The Rabobank Women in Ag breakfast in Sydney this week brought together three speakers with genuinely different stories: Ruby Riethmuller, Founder and CEO of Womn-Kind and Deputy Commissioner for Lived Experience at the Mental Health Commission of NSW; Emma Williams, Founder of Acre Agency; and Amanda Ferrari, Director of The Boarding School Collective. Three very different paths into and through the agricultural world, but a lot of shared threads running underneath.

The observation that landed most clearly came from Ruby. We talk a lot about "it takes a village" to raise a child- her point was that it takes a village to build a business too. Not just the founders and the internal team, but the people around them: the mentors, the ones who take a chance early, the ones who back what you're building before it's obvious they should. That framing stuck, because it's true of most things worth building, and it's particularly true in agriculture, which has always understood community in a way a lot of industries haven't. The sector's instinct for connection and mutual support, the networks that run through producer groups, Landcare, industry bodies and supply chains, is genuinely one of its strengths.

The other thread that came through across the morning was how much the shape of agriculture is changing. A lot of the businesses represented in the room had been built out of necessity (identifying a gap and going after it) and the increasing digitisation of the sector is opening it up to a much more diverse range of skills and perspectives than it's traditionally drawn on. That's showing up in what's being built, and in who's building it.

It was also a good opportunity to connect with some of the people doing interesting work across the industry- including Meredith King from Landcare Australia, Sarah Farrell from Andrews Meat Industries, Alison Osborne from Rabobank, Jennifer Brown from Cotton Australia, Kira Picknell from Number 8 Bio, and Rachel Gallagher from The Woolmark Company.

Ruminati's own team reflects something of this shift, with women across marketing, customer success, strategy and partnerships. It's not something we talk about much, but mornings like this are a good reminder that it's worth saying out loud occasionally!