Drive to inspire more female leaders Since the foundation of Queensland’s sugarcane industry, women have played an integral role in the industry’s growth and success. From long hours picking rocks or planting cane by hand to days driving modern farm machinery, women have always contributed in the paddocks. Since the beginning too, managing farm records and finances has often fallen to women in family farming businesses. Yet, despite all of this work, women have been under-represented in leadership roles. Now there's a push to change that with growers like Zenan Reinaudo in the Herbert River district stepping forward. BY WAYNE GRIFFIN
In recent years, women have become more visible in the sugarcane industry. There's a growing number of female productivity officers and agronomists, scientists and researchers, all of them working to increase yields and protect crops. Most Smartcane BMP facilitators are also women, and if you walk into any CANEGROWERS office you'll generally be greeted and assisted by a woman. But if you walk a little further, into the boardroom, it’s a different story. In June this year, just three of the 76 grower representatives sitting on
CANEGROWERS district boards were women - less than 4% of elected grower representatives. That number improved slightly in July, with the appointment of Zenan Reinaudo as the first ever female director at CANEGROWERS Herbert River. The 46-year-old joins an impressive, but short list of women in leadership roles within CANEGROWERS over the years. There are Anna Attard in Bundaberg and Susan Bengtson in Isis, along with Rocky Point director Michelle Fischer, who is
also a member of the CANEGROWERS Policy Council currently on boards. In the far north, there have been former Mossman director Liza Giudice and Tableland's chairwoman Maryann Salvetti, both of who now sit on the board of the grower-led Far Northern Milling venture. Like her peers and predecessors, Zenan hopes to bring a fresh perspective to the challenges facing the industry. First, though, she wants to learn as much as possible about those challenges and the growers she's representing. Despite marrying into a respected cane-growing family more than 20 years ago, Zenan has only been working in sugarcane for a little over 18 months. The Reinaudos have a long and proud history within the Herbert River sugarcane community, spanning more than a century. Today, brothers Michael and Darren are one of the district’s largest growers, cutting 150,000 tonnes of cane each year across 2,400 hectares, under the name RFC Agri Services. Eight members of the family work on farm, including Michael’s father Nelson, uncle Victor, niece Mikaela, brother-in-law John and nephew Callan.
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