Inspiration, encouragement, opportunity, networking, the future and passion are the common words being repeated over and over by women to describe their experience at the 2015 Advancing Women Conference West in Calgary earlier this week.

The conference saw nearly 600 women take part from across the country, many of them coming from the agriculture community.

Independent consultant Annemarie Pedersen tells Rural Roots Canada she took home a lot from the speakers.

“I think the speakers we have had have been really inspirational talking about following your passion and to looking for what you want to do and making that your life’s work, which is interesting to me because I just recently did that,” says Pedersen.

Deborah Wilson, who is the Senior Vice President of BIXS, says the conference is all about the people she meets.

“It’s a great opportunity to network, make business contacts here, renew business contacts, connect with younger women in agriculture that I very often visit with, encouraging them in their career paths and generally just enjoying the flavour of the whole event,” says Wilson.

Kate Sanford Mitchell from Bayer CropScience says she has taken away a lot of information, which will help her grow.

“It’s been a fantastic conference so far, some great speakers have been out today with some really interesting points on how to balance work, life and relationships with other women in the industry and also those other relationships you have with your co-workers as well going on, so it’s been a lot to learn.”

Trish Jordan, who was one of the speakers, says was inspired by all of the young women at the conference.

“I think what it tells me is that the future of agriculture is very bright, not only for women but obviously there is still a lot of men involved in agriculture but I just think for a young person now a days there is just so much opportunity and that is really inspiring to come here,” says Jordan adding “to have people who have been around for a while mentoring and coaching and really encouraging people to build your career in agriculture because we compete with so many other industries.”

For information and to register for the Advancing Women Conference East in Toronto on October 5th and 6th click here.