Putting farmers through their paces with Ginny Stevens
“Everyone that lives in the bush, they love it, they live and breathe it, they choose to live there, but with that choice to live in the bush [there are] these conditions… challenges that are outside of your control,” said Ginny.
“Floods, fires, droughts, financial stress, succession planning, commodity price risk, you have isolation… we are herd animals, we are not meant to be alone a lot, there's a lot of farmers that are alone a lot.”
“I just absolutely loved everything about growing up on a farm and was so happy to be living in country again. And it's the best place to live in the world, right?” - Ginny Stevens IMAGE CREDIT: Provided
It’s like the old saying:
What would you do if you believed you could do anything?
Ginny Stevens believed, and still believes, that farms are one of the most amazing places in the world - to work, to live, to grow up - but as she grew up, she started to notice the immense challenges that come with living and working on a farm, and she believed she could do something positive for the people in those communities.
“I was thinking, ‘how am I going to do my bit?’”
Ginny started unpacking an idea that she calls: ‘The Team Sport Effect’.
She describes it as the feeling you get from being in a team, not only the physical and mental benefits from exercising, but also the sense of belonging.
You get to know your team, your team gets to know you. Changes in behaviour are noticed - if your attitude during training is off, a teammate will check in at the end, if you miss training, you get a call to ask if everything is okay.
“I thought, by trying to mimic that [feeling of being in a team]... I'm gonna try and get them to get off the farm, out of the house a couple of times a week, catch up regularly, get their heart rates up and just go home feeling stronger, both physically and mentally, without even really realising or thinking about it, it’s just kind of happening in the background.”
So in 2014, Active Farmers was born.
While Ginny was working in agribusiness banking in Mangoplah, NSW, she started studying personal training on the side, got her credentials, and the rest is history.
“I started [Active Farmers] just for Mangoplah, I didn’t think it would go anywhere else, it was just for my community.”
Nine years later, Active Farmers is part of 61 communities, has over 40 trainers, and participants range from young farmers, to older farmers, to community members from outside of agriculture, to Ginny’s own parents-in-law.
Family has always been a big part of Ginny’s life, growing up “half an hour up the river” from Launceston in Tasmania in a town called Rowella - her family had a mixed farm, and her extended family had properties nearby.
“We had a really nice community, mostly made up of family, but it was a very, very special upbringing.”
That was her life up until she was 12 years old, then her parents leased their farm and they lived halfway between the farm and Launceston.
After finishing school, Ginny’s dad encouraged her to go into work that allowed her to channel her love for horses and Rachael Treasure books.
“Dad said to me, ‘why don’t you go and be a jillaroo?’ And I said, ‘I couldn’t do that’... we got in contact with Anna Brown Recruitment and I got a job within a week on a property 10 minutes west of Katherine in the Northern Territory.”
Being a jillaroo thousands of kilometres from her family was hard work.
“It does challenge you and it does push you but it just makes you realise that... you can actually do more than you think that you can.”
It seems as though resilience has taken Ginny pretty bloody far in life (did we mention she found out she was pregnant with twins two weeks after quitting her full time job to pursue Active Farmers full time?) and after nine years raising her “fourth child”, Active Farmers, she realised that she’d given all she could as CEO, and she stepped down from the role.
“There’s so much opportunity for Active Farmers and me as a leader… but I maxed out. I actually can’t squeeze any more out of what I have to give. It probably took me about six months to actually say that out loud, like ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore’, because it needs to keep going, it needs to keep benefiting more people… but I can’t give any more… and so it was a really hard decision.”
Right now, Ginny is doing what she’s calling “maternity leave in reverse” - her twins started school this year, her third child is toddling along and the farm she and her husband own is also keeping their hands busy.
Ginny and her family IMAGE CREDIT: Provided