Fifth-generation farmers Angie Nisbet and Shona Larkin have always worked with their hands.
They’ve mustered cattle, they’ve worked the land and tended its soil. These hands have done the accounts, cleaned their homes and raised their families. They’ve worked in the brilliant Queensland sunlight for years.
So, in one way, it’s not surprising that Nisbet and Larkin have teamed up to create a range of fashionable, sun-protective gloves to help women working outdoors take better care of their hands.
What is more surprising is that they are selling those gloves from their rural properties near Hughenden in north west Queensland, where the products have to travel 500 kilometres before they even reach a post office (let alone their customers).
When I spoke with Nisbet and Larkin earlier this month, they were sitting in the same location where the idea for FarmHER Hands first came to them.
“Shona and I have spent a lifetime out west – it’s where our heart is and where we raise our families, and we spend a lot of time in the sun,” explains Nisbet.
It was over a morning coffee break at Larkin’s house after mustering their cattle one morning that the sisters’ conversation turned to their well-worn, standard-issue farm gloves.
“We got back to the house and took off our gloves that we usually wear, and they were just the most uninspiring things to look at, and Shona said, ‘surely, there’s got to be something better for us to wear while we’re working’,” Nisbet explains.
“And I just came out with the remark, ‘why don’t we make our own?’”
With Larkin’s artistic side, and Nisbet’s contacts in the fashion design industry, the idea didn’t seem impossible.
“So I scooted back to my house and jumped on the internet and just googled the heck out of how to make UPF 50+ gloves,” says Nisbet.
The first Chinese manufacturer Nisbet found through her Google searching turned out to be the perfect fit (pun intended) and within nine months, the pair were ready to take pre-orders for their range of brightly coloured and patterned gloves.
During this time, Nisbet gained invaluable advice from personal contacts she’d made in the design sector through her podcast, Married to the Land, including another business owner who makes swimwear out of the same material she was looking at using in the gloves.
“She was just very forthcoming with her information,” says Nisbet.
“I think a lot of rural people, we’re in one big community, and we love to be able to lift each other up.”
“You’d be surprised as to … the information your friends and family have,” adds Larkin.
In their case, it turns out that Nisbet’s father-in-law happened to have a contact who could help with arranging direct shipping of the products from China.
“There is always someone in your little community of people who will have some information and who will be willing to share with you,” says Larkin.
And when it came to finding the perfect name for the gloves, Nisbet and Larkin made use of their weekly 280km round-trip to take their children to swimming lessons for the ultimate brainstorming session over a two-way radio.
It’s been no small feat to launch the business and get their gloves onto others’ hands, but Nisbet and Larkin are firm believers in finding something you are passionate about, and sticking with it.
“There’s always space for everyone, regardless of what it is,” says Nisbet.
“We’re just really grateful that we are part of a community where everyone loves supporting each other and small business.”
Nisbet and Larkin only began selling the FarmHER Hands gloves in December 2023 and have this month placed an order for their third shipment of gloves.
Summer may still be months away, but with a lead time of around two months, excluding postage times, forward planning is key.
FarmHER Hands gloves are stocked by nine retailers across Queensland and the Northern Territory, and the sisters want to see their brightly coloured products stocked in every state.
They’ve set themselves the initial goal of providing gloves to 8000 women in regional Australia.
As Nisbet explains, that figure represents only 1% of the estimated 88,000 women who work in the agriculture sector in Australia.
“That would be a huge improvement to what we’ve got now,” she says.
“We’re not saying that’s our limit … but we wanted something that was achievable for us and what we do here.”
There’s plans underway for a range of equally fashionable gloves for men too, and a children’s line will likely follow soon after.
And while the aesthetics of the gloves are a key selling point, there’s a more serious message – and one close to Angie’s and Sonia’s hearts – behind the products too.
Nisbet has lost a close friend to melanoma and Larkin has had her own health scare too.
“We really started this as a passion project and we do hope it brings awareness around sun safety,” says Nisbet.
“And that’s not just for rural people, that’s for anyone who works in outdoor elements. That could be the road workers in the middle of the city, that could be someone in a garden.
“Just starting those conversations and knowing that there is something there that can potentially close that gap … [and] maybe even save a life.”
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Editor
Eloise is an experienced business journalist and editor, who has held senior editorial roles at SmartCompany since 2014. Prior to joining SmartCompany, Eloise was news editor at Books+Publishing, the trade press for the Australian book industry. Eloise has degrees in media and communications, marketing and business management, and political science. You can follow her on LinkedIn, and Twitter at @ellykeating.
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