WORKING for CBH over the summer holidays has become a right of passage for many country high school and university students.
For anywhere between three and eight weeks they are posted to receival sites across the grainbelt as CBH receives millions of tonnes of grain.
Many country kids return to their farms to drive chaser bins or headers and for others CBH employment is the logical choice.
Having employed grain samplers for 85 years, CBH has been a window of opportunity for country kids to earn some money over the holidays.
Working at CBH is a bit of a family tradition for Riley Hutton, 18, Merredin, something both her parents did after they finished school and studied at university.
Graduating from PLC this year, Riley said she was excited to work at CBH and it had been a lot of fun.
“I just live in town here at Merredin but my mum’s side of the family are from farms,” Riley said.
“So I have kind of grown up around it, but now I am seeing a lot more of the process here at CBH.”
Riley returned to Merredin from Perth three weeks ago to start at the Merredin sampling shed and she had clicked well with the other girls.
“Being from a similar area we have all got along well,” she said.
“There are farmers coming through who know me and my family and some people I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Riley has applied to study nursing at Curtin University next year and hopes to return to CBH next summer.
Jessica Murray, 21, who is from a farming family at Jennacubbine and is working at CBH Avon, said she was enjoying work as a sampler, allowing her to see the complete farming process.
“I see it at home on the farm, but coming here you see a completely different side of it with the importance of screenings and protein,” Jessica said.
Jessica, who is studying a double degree in crop science and animal science at Murdoch University, said sampling helped lectures make sense.
“I am taking a strong interest into the cropping side of things and what I have learnt at CBH in the past two years has just tied it all in together,” she said.
“It allows me to keep studying crops while I’m not at university.
“CBH just helps everything make sense.”
Jessica has also been working at the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
“When I was at boarding school I would come home for harvest and drive the chaser bin,” she said.
“Now that I am at university I am working at CBH because I feel it’s quite a natural progression and it pays a bit better than the chaser.”
Jessica said she enjoyed seeing farmers and building relationships with people in the industry she hoped to work in after completing her degree.
“It’s social as well – you build good relationships with growers,” she said.
“Agriculture is what I will be stepping into when I graduate so I need to make those connections now.”
Jessica hopes to work at CBH again after she graduates.
“CBH helps me to get my foot in the door,” she said.
“I can add it to my resume which just shows the experience I have had with cropping and grains.”
Rylee Della Bosca, 21, from a Southern Cross farming family, has just moved to Nungarin to be with her partner.
After studying in Perth she is working at the CBH Merredin sampling shed.
This is her second season at CBH and she is excited to be back.
“It’s good to be able to see, being a country kid, the process beyond the farmgate,” Rylee said.
“I would help on the farm if I could, but it’s better for me to be working at CBH.”
Rylee said the opportunity allowed her to form relationships with locals in the community she calls home.
“It’s a good bunch of people out here,” she said.
“My sister worked at CBH and I will come back next year if I can.”
Rylee will continue to finish her teaching degree online from Nungarin and hopes to work at CBH Merredin again next harvest.
Hannah Robartson, 19, Merredin, is on her third year as a sampler at CBH Merredin.
“I didn’t know much about farming before I started my first year at CBH, only what I had learnt from farm kids at school,” Hannah said.
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“But now I know so much more and it’s interesting stuff.”
Hannah has just completed her first year of medical science at university and said she was pleased that CBH allowed her to travel back to Perth for exams.
“I had four exams to do while I was at CBH and luckily I was able to drive back to Perth and sit those exams before returning for work,” Hannah said.
She enjoyed chatting with the growers and carters and interacting with colleagues.
“CBH is just a thing that country people do,” she said.
Hannah said her time at CBH was her income source for the year.
“A full-on degree such as medical science doesn’t leave much room for a job at university,” she said.
“I have a couple of more years at university so I hope to come back every year for that reason.”
