Observant travellers may have noticed, stacked in farmer’s fields up and down the country, piles of pink hay bales!
Paddocks of pink bales are there for a cause – getting in behind women and their families who have secondary breast cancer. The charity farmers are supporting is the Sweet Louise Foundation which gets a percentage of the cost of each silage and hay wrap.
Rural woman often suffer a disadvantage – that of distance from care and support. ‘To get to and from their appointments can be really difficult and expensive and it’s a hard hitting reality…. A life changing diagnosis’ says Fiona Hatton, chief executive of Sweet Louise.
Supported by Agpac, (crop protection) which imported 3000 kilometres of pink wrap, it was then on sold in less than a month because the interest was so high. Rather than just writing a cheque in support Agpac thought this would raise awareness of the role of women in a farming business. The farming woman often get overlooked as they work behind the scenes, doing the books, managing the business, feeding the troops while often working outdoors alongside their men folk.
Every year more than 650 women die from breast cancer in New Zealand. Financial support from the Sweet Louise Foundation makes a difference to these women and their families. Hatton says that ‘We can’t change the diagnosis. We can’t fix it. What we can do is try and alleviate the pressure and inject positivity.’
Agpac states on their website in bright pink:
This silage season Agpac is releasing a limited edition run of pink/black netwrap and pink balewrap to raise awareness of breast cancer in rural communities.
Agpac crop packaging specialist Sam Southcombe says we have worked with two of our company’s international suppliers to develop the pink silage products in order to highlight rural women’s health and in particular breast cancer.
Tama is supplying rolls of pink and black striped netwrap and Trioplast is supplying pink balewrap.
“Women have integral roles in the contracting and farming businesses that we work with but they seldom get the attention and recognition they deserve,” Sam says.
“We are also aware that rural women do not have the access to the health care and information that women in our towns and cities have.
“We wanted to do something to change this and the pink balewrap and pink/black netwrap is our way of supporting breast cancer awareness. Agpac sales representatives will have an allocation of pink balewrap and pink/black netwrap this season so you can expect to see pink bales dotting the rural landscape all across New Zealand.”
Along with providing a visual reminder that women should be aware of breast cancer prevention, Agpac will donate a percentage from the sale of
each roll of pink balewrap and pink/black netwrap to the Louise Perkins Foundation.
The Louise Perkins Foundation is a charitable trust that operates under the name Sweet Louise to improve the lives of New Zealanders living with secondary breast cancer. Sweet Louise provides support, therapy and practical support to make the lives of cancer sufferers easier.