Latest Recipient

The recipient of the Kate Sheppard Memorial Award for 2020 was 28 year old Laura Keenan for her PhD research "Yield Prediction Tools for a National Forage Database"

Ag a Passion

Laura has always been interested in agriculture, which she finds face-paced and multi-faceted. She grew up is Southland and any chance she got she would be on her grandparent’s sheep and beef farm. This provided the underlying passion for Laura to head to Lincoln University after leaving school where she completed an honours degree in Agricultural Science graduating in 2014. Laura’s connection to Lincoln has led to her starting a PhD in plant science in June 2020 where she is working in the Hill Country Future’s Project on three pasture species with the aim of helping on farm decision making through the development of a national forage database.

A Career Helping Farmers

Her first role after leaving university was for three years as an Environmental Consultant in Canterbury – Soil Matters, helping farmers with their consents and farm environment plans. Laura then moved into a role as the Territory Manager for Agricom based in Palmerston North and managing the Western North Island. The Agricultural sector is a great place to work as there is a high level of support and encouragement. Its size means everyone is almost instantly connected and people are quick to share their stories.  To Laura, there is nothing better than listening to a farmer’s story, helping them make a plan, seeing them execute it, and watching them succeed and make a profit, which is the main outcome of her PhD, helping farmers make better executed decisions when it comes to their forage program.

Other Roles

Laura is currently a member of the Central Districts NZIPIM branch and joined in 2018. She was named the NZIPIM Emerging Rural Professional of the year in 2017 and used her prize package to successfully complete a Kellogg Rural Leadership Program in 2019, a highlight of her career thus far.

In 2018 Laura joined the NZGA Executive Committee. The aim of the New Zealand Grassland Association (NZGA) is “to enhance pastoral agriculture” through providing a forum for communication of science, technology, and knowledge. Laura is also one of the founders of the Women in Agribusiness initiative. A group of national rural women who come together to learn, grow, and network, founded in 2017. 

The Future

The complexities of the interactions that now exist between human and natural ecosystems require critical decisions to be made with pre-evaluated impact; these factors and skills combined are rare and not to dissimilar to superpowers. What is needed is more people with these “superpowers” in the primary sector, people with deep farm systems knowledge, environmental knowledge, provenance and market knowledge, animal and biosecurity knowledge and people who show empathy and a pathway forward with innovative thinking when challenged with adversity.

Laura’s goal is “for our primary industries to collaborate and integrate for more productivity and profitability across the sector. There are many challenges ahead. There are complex policy trade-offs between environmental protection and economic growth that current and future generations will have to address. The challenge of compliance to farmers is one of the most significant challenges they may experience in their lifetime.”

For Laura, there is no more a noble profession than being in the business of food production. She believes that there is an opportunity in everything – people just have to have the tenacity, determination, and motivation to find their superpower.