Women's History Month 2010

Demeter’s Daughters: women’s harvest history

Portrait of Lu Moo (Granny Lum Loy) by Karolina Venter 2010 - download poster

Women's harvest history - a resource for students and teachers

The history of food farming in Australia is much more than the record of agricultural production. When the focus is on women, the story starts with Indigenous food harvesting and includes the pioneering cultivation of familiar crops in unfamiliar soil by colonial women.

It also involves meat producers, dairy and poultry farmers, and market gardeners of Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese and many other nationalities. Demeter, Greek goddess of agriculture, also symbolises women growing food in the Depression and those of the wartime Women’s Land Army; women in wartime ‘victory gardens’ when food was still rationed, those who pioneered viticulture and those whose hand was on the plough of agricultural education and research.

Food security and the conservation of food-producing land are vital issues for the 21st century, making this a timely topic for Women’s History Month 2010.

See Demeter's Daughters Gallery

See further reading