Cunderdin Agriculture College graduate Marion Lewis gets her mix of farming experience.

Having grown up on a property at Corrigin and with her parents the former owners of a local stud business, her family's farming history dates as far back as she can trace.

The women's contribution to farming, including that of both her grandmas and her mother, continue to be a motivating factor to this day.

"When I listen to the stories my grandma tells me about how when she and pop were married - he was running a stud and she was left with no car, no phone and three little kids to manage - that's something that keeps me going in agriculture when things get challenging," Ms Lewis said.

"Knowing how tough and hard the women in my family are - including my mum who was born and raised at Bulyee and worked on her parent's farm up until she was about 30.

"She's always been incredibly hard working, helping out with the farm before she had us kids.

"Now she drives the school bus, cleans at the hotel and does a bit of a hobby business raising chickens."

Attending Corrigin High School up until year 10, her family's example led Ms Lewis to follow the agriculture pathway and enrol at the Western Australian College of Agriculture, Cunderdin, where she was elected head girl in year 12.

"It was very different, living away from home and going from a very small school where there were about 10 people in class to a school where there are about 120 kids that were all the same age as you," she said

"Everyone also came from pretty different backgrounds so it was a pretty eye-opening experience."

Initially having signed up to study her ATARs, Ms Lewis soon dropped out of that pathway to focus on completing her agricultural and trade certificates and instead enjoy the experiences provided by the agricultural college setting.

"I just wanted to allow myself that time to be young and stress free," Ms Lewis said.

"It was also nice not having to be in class all of the time."

Finishing third in WA for her Vocational Education and Training (VET) certificates, when Ms Lewis graduated she was nominated for the prestigious Beazley Medal and was the VET Certificate of Excellence: Primary, Environmental and Animal Care Industries recipient.

Upon graduating, she worked for eight months at a Merino stud at Broomehill and found the experience challenging.

"They did a lot of genetic measurement and management sort of stuff, which is definitely the pathway I was aiming towards, but I was two hours away from home and was working very long days," Ms Lewis said.

She then stepped away from agriculture for a brief period to work at a sustainable living business in Beaconsfield, Ecoburbia, partly owned by a relative.

"At Ecoburbia, they have two milking goats and a bunch of chickens and they basically try to teach people about sustainable living," Ms Lewis said.

Run by Shani Graham (the first cousin of Ms Lewis' dad) and Tim Darby, the business partners have a house on the property which they share with five other people.

"They have a thing called the 'Beacy Bunch' where once a month they get together with people in the neighborhood and do activities like clothes swap, or pick the olive trees," Ms Lewis said.

"I stayed there for about a month as a 'woofer' which is the term they use for people who come and stay for short stints and do two hours of work in return for free accommodation.

"As part of my jobs I would do weeding, gardening, I learned to milk the goats, would do some cleaning and pretty much help them out with whatever they needed.

"While they still had a few animals there, it was the first time I wasn't constantly thinking about whether or not the sheep were fed or if it had rained or not, so that was a nice change."

Through that experience Ms Lewis discovered the HelpX website, where farm and hobby farm owners provide food and short-term accommodation to volunteers in exchange for various jobs being completed on their properties.

After making her own profile on the site, the owners of a dairy farm in Metricup in the South West reached out and recruited Ms Lewis.

On the small dairy farm which had about 300 head of cattle, she would start her day setting up the dairy for milking at 5am and herd the cows up in the afternoon to milk.

"All of a sudden I was learning how to motorbike through some very wet paddocks to get all of the cows in in the afternoon," Ms Lewis said.

"It was phenomenal, I learnt so much and absolutely loved my experience down there."

Ms Lewis subsequently spent a harvest working at a CBH Group grain bin at Mindarabin near Albany in the Great Southern before enrolling in Curtin University's associate degree in agricultural business at the start of this year.

She stays at the Muresk Institute in Northam one night a week so she can attend her classes over two days.

"While Muresk is great in the fact that I can be home the rest of the time, and work at our local chemist on my days off, I think it's a bit of a wasted facility at the moment, especially considering that it would cost a fortune to upkeep" Ms Lewis said.

"So far in my degree, besides doing some water sampling on the farm we haven't really been involved in anything that happens there, which is quite disappointing.

"We had people come and do some artificial insemination of some cattle and had the option to be a part of that process, but for the most part the student's activities are very separate to the farm itself."

READ MORE:

As the Muresk Student Association president, Ms Lewis said she hoped to influence some change at the education facility so that it was better utilised in the future.

Now with multiple experiences under her belt in the dairy, cattle, sheep and grains industries and also having completed her Certificate 3 in Pork at school, Ms Lewis said once she finished her degree next year she would like to work in the stud industry over east.

"The stud industry is a bit bigger over there, so I'd like to focus on the genetics side of things and hopefully do some management type work," she said.

"I'm yet to experience what it's like to work on a cotton or sugar farm, so that's also on the list of things I want to try.

"My plan is to do more of the physical type work while I'm still young and then head into more management type work later on."