Feilding 18-year-old Emma Kendrick is helping pave the way for more women to take up sheep shearing as a sport.
The Year 13 Fielding High School student helped with shearing at Feilding's popular Rural Day event, which returned yesterday after being postponed due to Covid-19.
"The fact it takes my mind off everything - it's just a real nice place to be for me," she said.
Emma is an experienced shearer with many awards under her belt, but her goal is to encourage more women to get involved in the sport.
"We had a girls-only shearing course at school a couple of months ago," she said. "I pushed for that."
The young shearer said an ex-student had come to her school's wool shed to help teach girls about shearing.
"She was telling us how she wasn't even allowed at the school wool shed when she was at our school because they didn't have female toilets," Emma said, "so for her to come out and instruct the course - a shed full of women - it's just crazy."
Along with shearing, Rural Day also showcased other elements of New Zealand's agricultural sector.
One of the event's organisers, Gary Massicks, said it was important to celebrate farmers, as the mental health of those working in the sector needed to improve.
"It's got worse over the years. So by celebrating our farmers, calling them true heroes, getting them connected with people... and giving them a chance to share their story - it's quite an important thing," Massicks said.
Meanwhile, thousands of visitors showed up to the event, which was good news for local businesses.
"It has been quite tough on a lot of businesses but you know, thankfully, hopefully, everything's looking a bit brighter," Focal Point Café's Megan Piper said.
As for Emma, though, she's off to study agriculture at university next year but will still keep shearing.
"When you think it's getting hard, you think of all those women before us who fought for us to be here. Better embrace it while I can," she said.
Massicks added: "In our agricultural sector, we're desperately short of good people, and we want lots of Emmas. They're really cool people, they're passionate about what they do, and they're willing to do the hard mahi."
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