Rachel Bowman

Media

Rachel cut her teeth as Western Farmer’s livestock journalist, travelling the back roads of Western Australia’s wheat/sheep belt to cover stud and major commercial sales from Northampton to Katanning, Wagin and Esperance. She wrote on-farm articles across southern WA, including the coastal communities of Bunbury and Albany.
During this time she won the WA Rural Press Club award for Best Market Development Story with her feature article on the developing Japanese market for beef.
Rachel worked in newspapers across northern NSW at Grafton, Glen Innes and Inverell before moving to Queensland Country Life as the regional reporter at Roma. She was a highly regarded journalist and won the Henry Lawson journalism award for her coverage of Quilpie’s battle to retain its rail service.
After four years with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI), Rachel returned to freelance journalism in 1998, filing articles for Farming Ahead, Australian Hereford Magazine, Queensland Country Life, Australian Farm Journal and Australian Country Style.

Government

Rachel worked with QDPI at Dalby and Toowoomba as Information Extension Officer and Publications Manager with the Farming Systems Institute from 1994-1998.
Her key achievement was redesigning and relaunching the Crop Management Notes to increase readability and improve access to vital cropping information.
She also launched and managed CropLink – Information You Can Trust information quality assurance and production system, as well as editing, designing and managing key cropping publications. The CropLink system continued for more than a decade after Rachel left the department.

Agribusiness and Science Communication

Rachel has designed and led campaigns for the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), Meat and Livestock Corporation (MLA), Australian Hereford Society (AHS), Resource Consulting Services (RCS), Elders Limited and Landcare Australia.
Rachel worked for Cox Inall Communications for seven years and during this time led GRDC’s northern communicator project from 2006-2013. She was also communications adviser and project manager for WeedSmart, the national herbicide resistance management campaign.

Branding

Rachel was instrumental in the launch of the innovative GRDC Over The Fence grower video and written profiles and led the HoRiZon high rainfall zone communications program for GRDC. Both these initiatives required strong branding within GRDC’s corporate image guidelines.

Qualifications

Rachel holds a Masters degree in Professional Communication from the University of Southern Queensland; a Bachelor of Arts (Rural Journalism) from Curtin University of Technology, WA; and a Certificate in Extension from the Rural Extension Centre.