Inspiring women:
 Fiona Higgins – City worker turned rural farmer
After meeting an eco-aware cotton farmer from south-east Queensland at a Melbourne conference, Fiona never expected the upheaval of falling in love and moving to a remote farm where the nearest town is called home by a mere 750 people.
Ultimately, Fiona – with no prior agricultural experience - had to learn how to cope with the devastating impact of the drought that gripped the countryside, and what it meant for Stuart, the farm, and their future together.
As a child, Fiona Higgins had a single, traumatic journey to an uncle’s farm. Sitting at the table for a Sunday lunch, she discovered that the lamb on her fork was the same one she had been petting a day earlier.
Skip forward a couple decades, to Fiona, a vegetarian living and working in Sydney – with a professional background in Indonesian translation, corporate communications and non-profit management. Those two worlds – urban and rural – each with their own dilemmas, values and battles – were about to collide.
Having shared her story through the media – including her recently published book, Love in the Age of Drought – what brought those two worlds together is almost the stuff of folk tales. When Fiona met Stuart Higgins at a conference in Melbourne, she wasn’t looking for a relationship, let alone the upheaval of falling for an eco-aware cotton farmer from south-east Queensland.
But when Stuart sent Fiona a pair of crusty old boots and a declaration of his feelings just sixteen days into their relationship, it catalysed the start of a love story that endured – in spite of distance, the strain of Stuart's farm entering its fourth year of drought, and Fiona's own issues with commitment.
 Whilst most people living in cities would baulk at the idea of giving up their urban comforts and moving to a farm where their life would be turned upside down, to Fiona her journey is not particularly exceptional.
“Everyone has a story to tell in their life,” Fiona contends. “My story is mirrored in the lives of many regional and rural Aussies. Fate and serendipity simply drew a lot of interesting elements together.”
But where the culture shock might send some people packing, Fiona dug in her heels and made a home of this remote farm in Jandowae, on the Darling Downs.
With an eye on the philosophy that ‘if you don’t laugh you’ll cry’, Fiona reflects that “on my first night at Stuart’s house, I almost stood on a black snake in the kitchen in the middle of the night. This could have meant death. But Stu simply said to me, ‘It’s a tough world out here, babe. Get used to it’. Eventually, I did.”
Perhaps above and beyond the challenges that other women may face in remote areas, Fiona also had to contend with a job back home in Sydney. After negotiations with her workplace, her employer agreed to trial and monitor telecommuting.
“My role didn’t involve daily face-to-face meetings. I could prepare well in advance and do research and then hit a series of meetings in the city,” Fiona explains.
According to Fiona, the locals were fascinated by it.
“It was great for the town. They saw it as something new coming to the rural world. It was a two-way exchange.”
In true-blue Aussie style, Fiona turned Virginia Wolf’s maxim – that every women needs a room of one's own – well and truly on its head. Her workspace, only just keeping the elements at bay, involved a tiny blue tin shed with a satellite dish on top.
Despite all the challenges, it was the perennial, merciless nature of the drought that proved the hardest.
Whilst there is no up-side to drought, necessity can prove to be the mother of invention.
“As a function of the drought, Stuart looked for ways to diversify his income and keep his mind active,” Fiona explains. “He took on contracts overseas, which opened up possibilities otherwise unavailable to him.”
In July 2008, Fiona and Stuart made the difficult decision to sell the farm – an event that coincided with a more fortuitous and celebratory occasion: she fell pregnant.
Back in Sydney, Fiona put pen to paper and started the arduous task of documenting her remarkable journey.
“Some say writing is cathartic, but I wouldn’t say that that it has been therapeutic. Some of it was terribly difficult to write,” Fiona laments. “I didn’t enjoy reliving the bad parts. I was forced to be accountable for times in my life when things with Stuart were not going too well.
“And it involves a lot of real people, in Jandowae, many of whom have a stake in my portrayal of the town and its populace. While I was careful to be accurate, my own perceptions of Jandowae may not reflect what the locals think – and how they interpret my writing is really up to them. So it’s been an exercise in loss of control to some extent.”
For now, Fiona is facing new challenges: not only getting back in touch with the demands of city life, but the ceaseless task of raising a toddler. In the odd moments of respite from nappies, playgroups and Tonka trucks, she continues the soul-searching process of making sense of her truly remarkable story, while contemplating the future, wherever that may be.
For more information, visit:
Love in the Age of Drought
Pan Macmillan Australia
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