Celebrating WA Aboriginal women in agriculture on International Women's Day
International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on 8 March to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women worldwide. The day has been celebrated for over a century with the first event held in 1911.
This year, the Department’s Aboriginal Economic Development (AED) program is sharing the story of two inspiring women from Yallalie Downs - the first Aboriginal cattle backgrounding business in WA. The farm is managed by young Aboriginal women, Lexine Mourambine and Madeline Anderson.
Lexine is the operations manager and can be found out on the property with the cattle, day in and day out, while Madeline handles the books and finances, keeping on top of the business side of things.
Yallalie Downs, owned by Beemura Aboriginal Corporation (BAC), is a 1200ha farm, located, 263km north of Perth. In 2014, Lexine left her public sector job to work on the property full time with grandfather, Kevin Barron.
The farm was not set up to run cattle - BAC has tried producing sheep and horticulture and over the last four years, with support from the department’s AED program, BAC has become a profitable and sustainable cattle backgrounding business.
Producers send cattle to Yallalie to reach a required weight on Yallalie pastures. The cattle are managed on behalf of the owner, who generally pays for this service on a weight gain basis. Over the last few years, Lexine has had a crash course in all things cattle backgrounding, including animal husbandry, low stock stress handling and cell grazing.
Lexine completed a Low Stock Stress (LSS) Handling course with Bruce Maynard in early 2018. Working with the cattle and using her LSS skills is now her favourite part of working on the property. Lexine uses their nine cell paddocks and laneways to fatten up to 600 cattle at a time.
Calm cattle are integral to this process andshe does her best to get new cattle acclimatised to the property and relaxed as soon as possible after their arrival. Seeing a change in the cattle compared to when they arrive on the property is the best reward Lexine could ask for.
Madeline, a mother of two, returned to Yallalie earlier this year with her 11 year old daughter, whilst her 12 year old son attends boarding school in Perth. She has been assisting Lexine with the finance and book work for Yallalie for years from Perth.
Now that Madeline lives on the farm, she can assist with all aspects of the business, including their corporation governance. This involves compliance with the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations and the organisation of directors meetings and annual general meetings for members. She is loving life on the farm where she is able to put her creative side to use.
AED staff have accompanied the women to several Indigenous pastoral workshops at various locations in Australia over the last few years and they were soon nicknamed the ‘power duo’ by other participants. The workshops, and networks made at this year’s Rural, Regional, Remote Women’s Network (RRR Network) conference, presented Lexine and Madeline the opportunity to make lifelong contacts with other producers.
Yallalie is continually opening new opening new doors, and was the location of a trial of the department’s new LanzaTM tedera variety, launched late last year.
Lexine and Madeline welcome a challenge and AED staff hope to continue supporting and assisting them to tap into new learning opportunities on the horizon.
