Dairy Women’s Network: Celebrating 25 years

It’s hard to believe how fast time flies, but that is never truer then when we reflect on Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) 25 year anniversary.

Jules Benton, DWN Chief Executive, says “we are enormously proud of DWN and what we’ve achieved over the quarter of a century. We started as an email group in 1998 with a handful of women and now have 11,000 members.”

DWN launched in the late 1990s when Hilary Webber became a director of the New Zealand Dairy Group and saw women working at the ‘coalface’ of dairy but that were almost invisible in the boardrooms. While attending the 1998 International Women in Agriculture Conference, Hilary, with Willy Geck, heard women described as the ‘silent heroes of agriculture’, which reinforced the need for DWN in New Zealand. This was the catalyst to lay the foundations for the DWN, along with Robyn Clements and Christina Baldwin (the original four).

Just two years later, in 2000, the first dairy group started with 33 women in the Waikato. What followed was the creation of a formal structure, with Hilary at the helm as the organisation’s Founding Chair, and after some seed funding, Lynda Clark was employed as the first General Manager. From there, the priority became setting up conferences in each Island and creating Regional Groups.

In 2005, the Trust Board was established, and DWN now had multiple sponsors, with extra funding from DairyNZ to survey dairy women. At this time, Willy took over from Hilary and that cemented DWN’s longstanding relationship with DairyNZ.

Jules says, “I can’t emphasise enough how much DairyNZ has meant to us over the years. We couldn’t have achieved what we have without their consistent support.”

“How DWN came to be is an incredible story, and recognition must go to the founding members, as it was their vision and passion that made a dream become reality. These women had the courage to step outside the norm and embrace something very different (at the time), creating a voice for dairy women and creating a mechanism to empower them to become leaders in our sector,” says Jules.

“It’s also thanks to all our network partners – their generosity, support, incredible knowledge, and advice has enabled us to support our members and dairy women in the ways that they need us.

Our success has also been down to people, and they are at the heart of everything we do. The amazing DWN team has driven much of what we’ve achieved. We are embedded in every rural community across Aotearoa New Zealand.”

In 2007, DWN ignited the spark with the Celebrate U Award, which transformed into the Dairy Community Leadership Award in 2013 and later evolved into the coveted Regional Leader of the Year Award in 2020. Not stopping there, in 2012, DWN introduced the prestigious Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year award, a celebration of our outstanding members.

“These awards are a resounding salute to the formidable women shaping the dairy sector. The nominations consistently showcase remarkable excellence. These women are making waves in their communities and across the country,” declared Jules.

Trish Rankin, DWN Chair says, “DWN has been many things to so many people over the years – and that’s what we do best. We are an organisation that strives to grow our members, but also to grow the organisation. The original dream that drove Hilary, Christina, Willy and Robyn of building strong leadership and supporting life-long learning has stayed true.”

“I know I started out in 2000 going to my first calf rearing workshop, and I reminisce about how many of those workshops I’ve now been to! Each one teaches me something new and that’s the beauty of DWN. As something evolves, improves, or changes, we are there to support our women to grow, learn, connect, network, and strive to do better too,” says Trish.

Trish reflects that as we fast forward 25 years, DWN has not only grown individuals through training and networking opportunities but also grown the capability of the women in farming sector.

Jules adds, “we are embracing the drive at a grassroots level to support dairy women in business, in their leadership and to help them to be empowered to reach their potential. We are embracing the evolution of our webinars, events and conferences. And we will continue to celebrate women in the dairy sector,” said Jules.

“Going forward, we will continue to have courage, as we have for the last 25 years, to support our members. The future, as it always has been for dairy, is changeable. We’ll be alongside our members to help every step of the way.”