The award provides both personal and professional growth development through a fully personalised education, training and mentoring package.
Both winners also get to spend time with leaders across all areas of the primary sector.
This year’s Kiwi winner, Harriet Bremner, strongly encouraged others to enter.
“The award is one of those things that offers more than you could ever dream of or imagine,” she told The Country’s Jamie Mackay.
Bremner farms at Jericho Station in Manapouri, Southland.
She is also a children’s book author and a health, safety and wellbeing advocate for agriculture.
Bremner said the award opened “so many doors” for a young person starting out.
Although the cash prize was nice, it wasn’t the most valuable aspect of the award, she said.
“It’s the networking opportunities.”
Listen below:
Who was Zanda McDonald?
Zanda McDonald was a prominent identity in the Australian beef and livestock industry and was proud to be a farmer who worked tirelessly to encourage young people to work in the industry that he loved.
He died in April 2013 at the age of 41, following a tragic accident on his Queensland cattle property
This transtasman award was born in 2014, out of respect for McDonald, one of agriculture’s natural leaders.
It is run independently by industry leaders and is backed by a group of supportive businesses and organisations in Australia and New Zealand.
The Zanda Mentoring Group (ZMG) is a collective of more than 150 of Australasia’s top rural leaders.
This network of mentors throughout Australasia provides support to the award, its finalists and winners.
The award recognises young people working in the primary industry sectors in New Zealand and Australia and supports their future career development.
Entries open on Sunday, October 1, 2023 - find out more here.
