In 2024, Narelle Zanker turned her 4,000-acre family dairy farm near Mannum into a living classroom where visitors could bottle-feed calves, watch milking in action and learn where their food really comes from. Two years later, her agritourism venture Dairy Adventures had welcomed more than 1,200 guests and earned her the 2026 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award for South Australia, followed by the national title at Parliament House in Canberra. According to AgriFutures Australia, the former teacher was recognised for bridging the gap between farmers and consumers through hands-on education and regional tourism, with new plans to reach even more students through virtual farm lessons and school resources.
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From classroom to cowshed
Narelle Zanker grew up on her family’s mixed farming property near Mannum, about an hour east of Adelaide on the Murray River. After spending four years working as a school teacher, she returned to the farm with a clear idea. She wanted to combine her love of education with her lifelong connection to dairying. With support from her husband Joel and wider family, she launched Dairy Adventures in 2024 as the only agritourism experience of its kind in South Australia.
The venture operates on a working 4,000-acre dairy and mixed farm that milks around 300 cows with year-round calving. Instead of a static display farm, visitors step into a real food production facility. They tour the dairy, watch mechanised milking in action, learn about calf rearing and biosecurity, and hear how milk moves from paddock to plate. Zanker has woven teaching frameworks into every tour so that preschoolers, school groups, families, aged-care residents and disability groups all leave with a clearer picture of modern farming.
