It took one radio interview for Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano to realise the importance of advocacy in agriculture.
And its easy to see why.
Ms Germano, a third generation potato grower and grazier from Gippsland, Victoria, held centre stage at the Australian Banana Industry Congress held in Cairns this week, where she highlighted the value of advocacy, particularly in tough times.
With banana growers struggling under escalating input costs, ongoing labour shortages and poor returns, her messaging was on point - "sign up, join up, get involved and tell your story".
"I realised my story on the farm was all that was valuable," Ms Germano told the 400-strong audience. "Those practical stories that people need to hear so we get the right policy.
"We have an entire community now that simply don't know where bananas come from - they don't understand the challenges, they don't know what the input costs are. If the community is behind us, we have more leverage when it comes to government, retailers and the supply chain.
"All the conversations I have been having about the banana industry - they are the same problems the whole way around agriculture. That's why we need to come together and tell people what we need and formulate really good policy.
"And put up a fight when we need to put up a fight."
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Ms Germano is managing director of I Love Farms, a family run mixed farming operation growing fresh vegetables and running sheep and beef cattle.
She drew on her own personal experiences - carrying a huge debt from a failed restaurant venture, returning to the family farm with the threat of bank foreclosure and negotiating succession planning, all the while working to streamline and diversify the farming operation to ensure its sustainability.
There were many turning points which put her on her current trajectory but a Nuffield Scholarship in 2014 on global challenges of food production cemented her passion for farming.
"Going on that scholarship and looking at the global challenges of food production around the world solidified for me that I really cared about being a food producer," Ms Germano said.
"It didn't matter whether I was in France with dairy farmers or in the US with apple farmers or anywhere else, the problems we face are really similar. Food producers face the same trouble all around the world despite slightly different markets and regulatory systems."
Her parting message was poignant, driven by her own experience bringing the family farm back from the brink of debt.
"We diversified and moved back into livestock, put in a retail shop at end of the farm gate and put in crops that we could sell direct to market," Ms Germano said.
"We are more profitable now than we have ever been.
"It took my Dad to be able to accept that being the biggest grower of cauliflower was not his self identify and for me to realise connection to the land is meaningful but shouldn't stop us to make good business decisions.
"In tough times, you have to search yourself.
"There is something beyond your farm, there is something beyond the self identity about being a banana grower and you can make different decisions.
"During this tough time, know that the community trusts you more than any other profession and feel proud of what you do."
