During lockdown last year, Ms Cook took the plunge and opened her own business, Nine Creek Consulting.

In this role, she utilised her background in agricultural extension; she works with farmers to facilitate farmer practice change, helping design projects that can take research outcomes and design them into packages that will help make farmers more profitable, productive and sustainable.

Ms Cook grew up on a farm between Nhill and Kaniva and studied agricultural science.

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She wanted to use her skills to help farmers.

"I love communicating, I love talking and I'm really fascinated with how people learn, how people change, " she said.

"I started my career helping farmers adopt smart phones and social media and it has grown from there."

Ms Cook said she found agricultural extension tended to be based in larger areas which missed out on ground knowledge of the area.

"There is a bit of a gap in the market," she said.

"A lot of Wimmera businesses often have to go to bigger regional centres when they need a consultant.

"They many not have an understanding of regional issues and don't understand the local landscape and local people."

She said she wanted to develop her business to provide the Wimmera with consultant services that understood the local climate.

Now Ms Cook has been accepted into Diversity in Agriculture Leadership Program, she will work with leaders of the industry to further her skills.

"There are two elements in terms of what I'm hoping to get out of the project," she said.

"A professional perspective would be improving networks and developing my own style of leadership.

"I'm looking forward to the mentorship."

Ms Cook also wants to use this experience to benefit her community as someone who is a proud resident of the Wimmera region.

"I also want to develop leadership skills from a community perspective. For agriculture to thrive, our community needs to thrive as well," she said.

"Our communities need to have economic, social and environmental supports in place to ensure that it's a good place to live for everyone and not just for farmers."

Ms Cook said she wanted to shine a light on women in agriculture and being able to have a young family and still do what you love doing, especially since becoming a mum.

Ms Cook has a 16 month old daughter, Millie.

"The exposure to the challenges of working and raising a family at the same time have been really front and centre when you see people working from home," she said.

"I'm hoping we can see a bit of a shake up in terms of working mums, who are incredibly productive and contribute greatly but give them flexibility to meet the needs of their family.

"It's something I'd love to see change at an organisational and individual perspective.

"Starting a family does not mean your career needs to be paused or take a step backwards."

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