Evaluating 'Australian Women in Agriculture': 1992-2002
Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) will be 10 years old this year. This paper draws on 20 interviews with members of AWiA to describe the changing nature of the group over this period and to examine its achievements and future in terms of its five stated goals. The group has been most successful in achieving its first aim: raising the profile of women in agriculture. AWiA has achieved its second aim: securing local, regional and international recognition; and its third aim: of being seen as a political force. There is, however, still much for the group to achieve in meeting its final two goals: addressing rural and agricultural inequities and ensuring the survival of agriculture for future generations. The AWiA, having achieved status and recognition, is now in a strategic position to address these goals. How it may do this and not unsettle the members' shared identity as ‘women in agriculture’ to the point where the future of the group is threatened is the challenge for AWiA as it begins its second decade.