WA gained a budding agricultural leader when Matt Rigby relocated from western Victoria to Kojonup three years ago.
The 26-year-old is now one of seven young Australians participating in the GrainGrowers Australian Grain Farm Leaders Program (AGFLP) for 2017.
He joins Callum Wesley and Jasmyn Allen as WA representatives in the national program.
Mr Rigby moved from Horsham to WA to pursue a career in agriculture.
He works for Kojonup farmer Neil Jackson on a 3200 hectare sheep and mixed cropping property and is responsible for running the 1100ha cropping program.
Mr Rigby has his hands full, working full-time on the farm while studying an advanced diploma in agriculture through RuralBiz Online.
He is also a Southern Dirt Young Farmers network board member.
Mr Rigby said the challenge of agriculture in WA attracted him to the west.
"I always had a passion for agriculture, so I decided to follow that," he said.
"It's the challenge of farming here, just with the soil types, and obviously innovation in WA is at its peak.
"It's an interesting place to farm for sure and I do see myself sticking around in WA."
AGFLP participants are required to implement and evaluate a project of their choice, with the help of a trained program facilitator and others within the industry.
Mr Rigby will explore pasture manipulation in his project and hopes to uncover the best methods to lessen the damage from weeds and improve pastures before they go into a crop rotation.
"I'll be working on rejuvenating pastures, keeping N (nitrogen) in the ground, keeping that all healthy so when it does come back into the cropping program you're going to have less grasses, you're going to have a healthier soil base and more micro-organisms," he said.
"I'll work with an agronomist with that and we'll go through some trials with some different sprays, different fertilisers, different grazing techniques and just see where we're at.
"We'll get some soil tests after it's all been done and see the difference in the health of the soil compared to if it was just left with a lot of unwanted grasses in there."
Mr Rigby is planning his project and will start trial work in the coming months.
He hopes to present his results at the end of the year.
As part of the program Mr Rigby joined fellow delegates on a week-long trip to Canberra in February where he met with politicians, other grain growers and industry leaders.
Each participant could learn from their fellow delegates.
"You've got people there trying to change or ease up the laws of oversized equipment and then you've got people looking into succession planning," he said.
"There were lots of different roads and avenues you could take which was good, so you learnt from everyone, which way they're going, and you can see how their projects are going."
Mr Rigby wants to bring the on-farm advantages he learns to the Jacksons' Kojonup property for the cropping and sheep programs.
"Not being my farm, that was a ride I could take on this farm that was really going to help Neil with the Merinos as well and it's going to help the cropping program out in the long run and benefit both of us.
"It should be a really good networking and basis to sort of see what's out there and see what avenues you can take in agriculture."
Up next on the leadership program agenda for this young gun is the GrainGrowers Innovation Generation event scheduled for July in Adelaide.
The conference with focus on issues around the theme of "Telling the Ag story in a digital age".
