Flower Power

By Alice Dell (3rd Year LaTrobe University)

Glenmore entrepreneur, Nikki Davey, has been named the winner of the 2023 AgriFutures Rural Women’s National Award.

Her digital platform, Grown Not Flown, won her the Victorian Rural Women’s Award in April, putting her up against the winners from other states in the running for the National title.

“I was so pleased to have even been announced as the state winner. It was awesome to be going forward into the nationals,” Davey says.

All of the state winners were flown to Cairns to do a few days of workshops and pitch refinement. They then each had to do their pitch along with a Q and A with the judges.

“The other finalists had such incredible projects. We’re all such good friends. I think to us it didn’t really matter who won, we were just really glad that we were together and experiencing it with each other,” she says.

She was able to come home with the trophy, along with a $20,000 prize.

Davey plans to use the grant to expand the offering within her platform to small scale producers and farmers. She also wants to run and support local campaigns to raise awareness around the benefits of supporting local producers.

The main goal of Grown Not Flown is to support local farmers, local communities and strengthen local economies.

“We also want to create that community feel and connectedness to the actual growers themselves. We want to support those small scale growers to really thrive and help consumers to be able to easily connect with them.”