CURIOSITY has led Esperance farmer Belinda Lay down an agtech path that she would have never anticipated a couple of years ago.
From wanting to improve the welfare of her sheep while increasing her farm efficiency and productivity, she has found herself being a grower leading the way as agriculture in WA advances through a technological evolution.
"I think I'm very curious about lots of things and have lots of questions and until I became involved in agtech, I couldn't collect data to satisfy those curiosities," Belinda said.
"I think that's why I love it, because I can collect data that answers my questions."
Channelling her curiosity into a research project eventuated in her being awarded AgriFutures 2019 WA Rural Woman of the Year.
Her project involved monitoring pregnant ewes by using electronic collars, which could send alerts to her phone when something was out of the ordinary.
Belinda's empathy towards her animals is a part of her personality that underpins the way she farms sheep.
"My empathy and compassion for animals probably started with personal experience of giving birth and managing multiple pregnancies, it has become an expression of my values and how I like to operate," she said.
"I have no problem with accountability, transparency and responsibility and until you acknowledge that, you won't address them either."
As she is a part of the decision making about a sheep's breeding program - what nutrition is available, when they breed and the genetics behind their progeny - she believes she has a heightened responsibility and accountability of the outcome.
"Because I have made these decisions, I have taken them away from the ewe and I feel responsible for my choices," she said.
While agriculture is still a male-dominated industry, agtech is a sub-industry that arguably has even less female representation.
Although she might be one of the few women in the space, Belinda has found her venture into agtech to be very positive.
"I think I have been fortunate in my agtech networking journey - I have navigated my way through this space based on core values and objectives and I've aligned myself with people that share my views and respect where I am trying to go," she said.
"I don't know if that's an agtech thing or gender thing because everyone falls in love with their own tech.
"I have come across people that I prefer not to work with - like Tinder you swipe left or right and move on."
The beauty of being self-employed has also meant that Belinda's projects and work in agtech have been supported in her business.
"Although the men in my business can be sceptical, they don't block me," she said.
"If I want to try something, I have to show them that it works because they want to see the value in it, but now that I have done that, they are happy for me to investigate other things."
Take buying rams for example - this task has typically been done by the men in Belinda's farm business, but this season she poured over ASBV data, which has been used this year for selecting semen for an artificial insemination sheep breeding program.
