SARAH Houston was born into agriculture so the only surprise in her chosen path was moving across the country to develop her career.
The new Grower Group Alliance (GGA) project officer hails from Tasmanian vegetable-growing roots and believes agriculture is the ideal industry for those who like variety.
Sarah left the family farm after completing an agricultural science degree at the University of Tasmania and travelled the east coast working in agribusiness for the National Australia Bank (NAB).
It was during this time her sense of agriculture was broadened to include everything from the paddock to the plate as her client base covered grains, vegetables, meat-processing and dairy operations.
The trip to the west was a bit of a gamble for Sarah but four years later she doesn't regret the move.
"I grew up seeing a lot of different things," she said.
"I was born on a dairy farm, then we had a sheep farm and really we've done a bit of everything."
She said being an agribusiness banker didn't necessarily mean specialising in grains or dairy.
"It's just your region and whatever farming or agri or food enterprises are in your region that will be your client base," she said.
Sarah said the themes of what made a good business, rang true regardless of the product, and she saw this across fishing operations, oyster farms, wineries, cattle properties and into manufacturing.
"It was a really big learning curve seeing how good businesses were run regardless of what their industry was," she said.
Sarah made the decision to travel west after returning to NAB in a Sydney office, following a period of overseas travel.
"I got a bit sick of being in the office and didn't really want to be in the city," she said.
"Vegetables WA had a position going in Perth, I thought I don't really want to go to Perth, all my family is in the east coast and I've never been to Perth and don't really know what it's like and that was four years ago.
"I came over for an interview and I haven't left."
Vegetables WA's grower outreach role took Sarah everywhere from Carnarvon to Albany and exposed her to all that WA has to offer.
She went on to work for Curtin University in a seafood industry project role dealing with value chains and other fishing industry projects before moving to GGA.
At home, Sarah grew up with the intensely domestic-focused Tasmanian agricultural market.
Her family was behind an initiative in the 1990s that brought pre-washed and packaged salad mix to the shelves of supermarkets - a first in the movement towards ready-to-eat products and an example of the marketplace adapting to the needs of the consumer.
"I'm very proud of my family and what they achieved, it was a very new thing back in the 90s when we first started doing it," she said.
"It was a really new market and we developed that into now a big corporate enterprise."
He brother now manages the property and grows vegetables for domestic use only, a common focus for Tasmanian growers.
"Tasmania in its essence of agriculture is very diverse," Sarah said.
"You've got much smaller farms and doing things a little bit differently because you don't have the scale.
"It involves a lot of value adding, direct marketing and a lot of vertical integration where you're really going from scratch all the way through marketing to the consumer."
Sarah said Margaret River was a great example of this approach in WA where people connected with a story.
"You've got that regional focus and you can really connect with the consumers as you're selling what you believe and your values," she said.
"It's that paddock-to-plate or farm-to-port connection through the supply chain."
Since starting with the GGA in January, Sarah is now focusing on connecting grower groups, agribusiness professionals and researchers throughout WA and the nation.
She said WA had a great community feel across all types of agriculture, but different in its connection to consumers than the east.
WA's tendency to export meant growers were more removed from the markets she said, but there was evidence this approach was changing and this could be for the better of growers.
"It's a different part of the country and things are done differently, but that sense of WA-grown and made is really strong," she said.
"I think we do that very well and I think we're very patriotic but also supportive of what is WA and we like to hold onto that.
"Things like Buy West Eat Best, that initiative is great and the collaboration of farmer groups to work together is really good.
"You don't see that so much on the east coast as people are very segregated over there, they're not as willing to work together I really like that sense of WA having a real State community feel."
Sarah's variety in her career was something she said other people could enjoy in agriculture if they were passionate and willing to work hard.
"I'm passionate about the land and supporting a sustainable future, but I'm also passionate about rural communities and communities in general and how they support each other.
"There's not a lot of industries where if you're a part of the supply chain you can be involved across the whole chain.
"That's the exciting thing about agriculture, you can be caretakers of the land, be involved in the community and be a really successful community."
