Views from the conference floor: Farmers have their say

Gayle Lee, Glenrowan, Victoria.

Gayle Lee, Glenrowan, Victoria.

Together with my husband, we have a farm at Glenrowan in Victoria and on that farm we have 212 hectares of solar panels. Today’s (conference) has been interesting, particularly the presentation about people being able to respect each other and respect their decisions and think about the community perhaps a bit before we think about ourselves.

Brent Finlay, Southern Downs, Queensland.

I farm sheep, cattle and goats on the Southern Downs, about 4000 hectares. I have a large renewable energy project being built on my property as we speak, so it’s important to come to events like today to understand more about the industry and how it’s actually being rolled out across Queensland but also across Australia.

Nikki Thompson, “Echo Hills“, Roma, Queensland.

My husband and I and our young family, we’re at Echo Hills and we’re 18,000 thousand acres (7284ha) and we’re in the Maranoa, so about four and a half hours west of Toowoomba. I think (the conference) is a great thing and then it’s how do we get more farmers to come along because often they’re just too busy farming and it’s often not enough farmers here to be able to tell the story from the grassroots so yeah, and it’s great that someone can create a place where all the different stakeholders can connect and really understand each other.

Sandhya Tewari, Lonsdale Tomato Farm, Point Lonsdale, Victoria.

My name is Sandhya Tewari and I own Lonsdale Tomato Farm. I’ve learnt a lot, I’ve learnt a lot. For a farmer, you know, your day-to-day consumes you and you have little time to think about, you know, where we are going and you know what renewables offer. It forces me to think about what we can do and how we can do more so it’s been very, very inspirational.

Sally Hunter, Narrabri, NSW.

I’ve come up from Narrabri in north-west NSW. We run beef cattle. Today I’ve learnt about other businesses and the ways they’ve managed to fully electrify their farms, which has been fascinating. And also ways that they’ve used their waste products in agriculture to produce more energy for their business, which has been really interesting.