Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme: Hawke’s Bay’s Tessa Appleby on resilience after disaster

Resilience took on a new meaning for Hawke’s Bay woman Tessa Appleby after she battled the Hawke’s Bay tuberculosis outbreak in 2020 and lost her new home to Cyclone Gabrielle.

Appleby had lived in her Waipawa home for four weeks when she was woken by a man frantically knocking at the door ordering her to evacuate in the floods.

While working for Ospri to manage animal disease in Hawke’s Bay she was offered the chance to attend the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme.

Tessa Appleby said resilience was about finding a healthy way to carry on with life. Photo / Paul Taylor

So in the name of resilience, the 37-year-old jumped at the chance.

“I sat down and made a personal commitment that the second half of 2023 was going to be really busy.”

The programme is designed for farmers, foresters, fishers, growers and agribusiness professionals who are developing as leaders and wish to contribute to their community and industry.

The programme was run over six months. Appleby attended sessions at Lincoln University, Wellington and Christchurch and worked to define her leadership style and grow food and fibre understanding and connections.

The Havelock North woman used her experience with TB and focused her research topic on “Eradicating complacency in long-term disease control” reflecting her persistence for resilience in the agriculture industry.

“The disease is technically fascinating, but for me, it’s the people.”

Tessa Appleby with her dog Dot in what is left of her Waipawa home. Photo / Paul Taylor

The self-described “people person” found through her research that storytelling and educating younger generations was an effective way to combat complacency.

“It [TB] poses such a risk to our industry, and trade, it is something rural New Zealand needs to be considering”

She looked into the neurological impacts of storytelling and discovered that when telling or listening to a story certain chemicals are triggered in the brain that allows a memory and connection to be made.

Appleby is now working with the marketing and communications teams at Ospri to put her research into a strategy to help the journey to eradication of TB and is in the process of sorting her home.

Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay newsrooms. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.