CHOOSING a career path can be a difficult decision for many young people, but for the Corrigin Farm Improvement Group (CFIG) executive officer Veronika Crouch, there was never any question that her future was in the agriculture industry.
When growing up on her family’s mixed cropping and sheep farm at Badgingarra, Veronika developed a keen enthusiasm for the agronomic world – and the 27-year-old has never looked back.
“I had always been interested in agriculture growing up on the farm and it was just something I’ve always wanted to go back to,” Veronika said.
“I don’t think I ever had any other profession that I was looking to go into, I always wanted to find something in agriculture because I really enjoy living outside of the city.”
Veronika had her first taste of city life when she started boarding at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School in Perth and then went on to complete a Bachelor of Science degree at The University of Western Australia (UWA).
She then returned to the country to be a Landcare zone manager in the Great Southern.
For two years Veronika ran sustainable agriculture projects from Landcare’s Wagin and Woodanilling offices, before relocating to Corrigin in 2015.
“Corrigin was a really good move for me, it was a very similar role working really closely with growers, but it allowed me to focus more on agronomy and soil constraints,” she said.
“All of the groups of farmers, whether they’re in Wagin and Woodanilling or in Corrigin and the surrounding areas, I feel I’ve had really good relationships with.
“I’ve always got along well with the growers – that’s what makes my job most enjoyable.”
As executive officer and the sole staff member of CFIG, Veronika has her hands full with a range of responsibilities.
She co-ordinates the group’s daily operations including managing its finances, administration and public relations, while also running trial work, assisting with demonstrations and event planning.
“I am very well supported by my committee and various members that do trial work and demonstrations, so I don’t feel like I’m on my own,” she said.
“There’s quite a lot of stakeholders involved with grower groups and you want to ensure you’re getting the best value into the area.
“The more people you can bring in, the more information you can disseminate to your members and hopefully that actually leads to them having increased production and profit in their business in the long run.
“It’s quite rewarding work.”
More than 20 trials and demonstrations are being run by CFIG in collaboration with various project partners and group sponsors this year, in a bid to address some of the challenges affecting the Eastern Wheatbelt.
“We’re looking at rotations on chemical fallow and also some non-wetting soil work, whether that be through amelioration, soil wetters, or different seeding points.
“We’ve also got some mouldboarding trials taking place looking at the efficacy of pre-emergent herbicides on mouldboarded paddocks.
“I’d really like to see some more frost research in our region too, as it’s having a significant impact on our growers’ bottom lines, especially last year.”
After celebrating its 35th anniversary last year Veronika said the group was showing no signs of slowing down, with plans to expand trial work into the neighbouring communities of Bruce Rock, Narembeen, Kulin and Kondinin.
Veronika said the grower group was also exploring value-add opportunities for the region.
“We want to find a sustainable model that will allow CFIG to do the things that our growers want to do in the area and find some value-add opportunities that we could investigate.
“It is always good to find another avenue for growers within the area to make more of a profit.”
Veronika now lives on a property 15 kilometres from Corrigin, while her family has moved from Badgingarra to a farm in Harrismith.
Eventually she would like to run her own farm but for now is excited to continue her CFIG duties to learn from the group’s experienced growers.
“You’ll never stop learning with agriculture because it’s constantly changing, there’s always new technologies or chemicals or machines coming out, and there’s a lot of challenges so it’s quite good if you’re interested in problem-solving.
“With all of the different commodities there’s just so much to learn.
“I think the most rewarding part for myself is getting to work with growers on-farm and to assist them within their businesses and finding new ways to approach some of the issues that they have.
“It’s a very interesting industry to be working in and I’m quite happy in Corrigin, I think we’ve been doing some really good things here so it has been very rewarding.”
