Deanna is a journalist, editor and communicator specialising in primary production, natural resources and agripolitics.
In 2016, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study communication and engagement methods to improve the understanding of agriculture – both in rural and metropolitan audiences. As part of the fellowship, she will travel through the United States, United Kingdom and Canada and develop a report for the Churchill Trust.
Deanna’s broad media experience includes both regional and metropolitan media across Australia. She has a rare mix of agricultural knowledge, political experience and communication ability, gained through her role as an adviser in the Premier’s Media Unit, working with the Minister for the River Murray and Water Security during the millennium Murray-Darling Basin drought.
She is a former editor of South Australia’s rural weekly the Stock Journal, and was a national commodity journalist specialising in the sheep and wool industries, writing for all the Fairfax rural weeklies, including The Land, Stock & Land, and Farm Weekly.
Deanna is an award-winning journalist and has previously been recognised as the South Australian Rural Journalist of the Year and the Australian Young Leader in Rural Journalism, a national award recognising leadership potential in agricultural journalists. Her writing was awarded internationally as part of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ award for reporting of sustainable agriculture.
Deanna holds a Bachelor of Journalism and a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and maintains an active membership with the organisation.
Deanna and her husband Steen Paech farm in South Australia, cropping cereals, pulses and oilseeds, and running sheep and “a handful” of cattle over 4000 hectares at Palmer.