NQ’s Angie Nisbet named finalist for 2025 Queensland Rural Women’s Award

A fifth-generation beef producer, who also co-founded a business that produces UPF50+ sun protection gloves, is in the running for Queensland’s Rural Women’s Award.

Owners of FarmHer Hands Angie Nisbet and Shona Larkin.

A fifth-generation beef producer and the founder of a business that makes sun protective gloves for outdoor work has been named a finalist in the 2025 AgriFutures Queensland Rural Women’s Award.

Angie Nisbet, who lives on a property 80km south of Hughenden, is one of three finalists announced by the Crisafulli Government for their contribution toward Queensland in business, agriculture and community and said she was “very honoured” to be chosen.

“It really embodies all the things I hold dear, which is innovation, connection and making a meaningful impact in rural communities and creating opportunities,” she said.

“There’s always been a strong presence of rural and remote women being innovative and creative and I think now more than ever we are seeing a lot more of it because technology is allowing us to put our businesses online.”

Ms Nisbet and her sister Shona Larkin created the business FarmHer Hands, inspired by her sister’s diagnosis of stage-two melanoma in 2016.

Launched in December 2023 Ms Nisbet said the product was a gap-filler in the market to reduce the high risk of skin cancer among rural Australians – who are 60 per cent more likely to die from melanoma than urban-living Aussies.

“Prior to that we have both been pretty aware and conscious about our skincare,” she said.

“Then in early 2023 we’d just come back from mustering some cattle and Shona and I caught up over a coffee and we were talking about the gloves we were wearing at the time, which were very uninspiring and very impractical.”

“Shona said something along the lines of ‘I’m sick of these gloves, I wish we had something of our own’ and then I made a throwaway comment of ‘we should just make our own’ and then it snowballed from there.”

Owners of FarmHer Hands Angie Nisbet and Shona Larkin.

With different designs and patterns the gloves, the business took out the Australian Made Awards Most Innovative Workwear brand for 2024.

“A lot of farming women that spend time outside know to wear our jeans, shirts, hats and boots but a lot of the time our hands are exposed, so we needed something that was protective, practical and fashionable,” Ms Nisbet said.

Ms Nisbet, who also runs a podcast called Married to the Land, said the business has seen great growth over the last few years and positive feedback from customers.

One of three girls and a mother of three herself, Ms Nisbet said agriculture was in her blood and the ideas of working hard and creating solutions to problems was very ingrained in her day-to-day life.

“Having an agricultural background and doing FarmHer Hands was just such a seamless process because we just love it, it’s a product we made out of need that we can share with others,” she said.

Other finalists include Libby Cook-Black, a proud Zenadth Kes woman from Erub Island in the Torres Strait and the founder of The Female Co and Nicole McNaughton, the CEO of Food and Agribusiness Network.

Owner of FarmHer Hands Angie Nisbet.

Minister for Primary Industries Tony Perrett congratulated the finalists, paying tribute to their achievements and their positive contribution to rural Queensland.

“Rural Queensland simply wouldn’t operate without the vital contribution of country women who carry out a myriad of many crucial roles, often behind the scenes,” Minister Perrett said.

“As a husband and father of capable country women, I know how much of women’s contributions go unacknowledged, which is why awards like this are cause for celebration.

“I take my hat off to this year’s finalists Angie, Nicole and Libby, and recognise their success in three very different but valuable endeavours.”

The Queensland winner of the Rural Women’s Award will receive a $15,000 grant to further their work and represent Queensland at the national awards in Canberra later this year.

The Department of Primary Industries has supported the Rural Women’s Award since 2000, and it is a collaboration with AgriFutures Australia and supported by the Queensland Country Women’s Association and Westpac.

Minister for Women and Women’s Economic Security Fiona Simpson said the finalists were contributing a great deal to Queensland’s rural communities.

“From beef producing to agriculture and providing leadership programs for Indigenous women in rural, regional and remote areas – each of these three female finalists has excelled in their field,” Minister Simpson said.

The Queensland winner will be announced at a ceremony in Brisbane on Thursday 20 March 2025.

They will receive a $15,000 grant to further their work and represent Queensland at the national awards in Canberra later this year.

Originally published as NQ’s Angie Nisbet named finalist for 2025 Queensland Rural Women’s Award