Kaitlyn Simpson

2022

Agriculture

In Honour of Clive Sisley

I have always been interested in being sustainable. I have grown up with a vegetable patch for our vegetables and chooks for eggs. My parents have an organic garlic farm on the Mid North Coast. Pursuing my career in Agriculture has given me many proud moments that keep me passionate about Agriculture. 

I have an interest in carbon farming and love the idea of how the world is trying to minimise carbon emissions, how people are trying to achieve net 0 carbon and how we are trying to stop use of single use plastic.

In Certificate IV in Agriculture, I studied an organic course that allowed me to visit different farms and farming practises and understand why they changed from traditional farming to organic or regenerative farming. I believe practices such as allowing diversity in pasture and caring for the micro and macro life in the soil will help farms to better deal with severe climate conditions such as floods and droughts.

My goal was to learn more about sustainable farming in America, and understand the different practices, for example the different way they handle their livestock or the methods they use to train working dogs. I am very keen to implement what I learn back in Australia.

This was also be my first time overseas and I love that I can travel for a career that I love and make friends that I can learn with.

Katie’s Global Footprints Story:

From Katie’s Application

I want to expand my knowledge of Agriculture and learn practices that will help us to become more sustainable in ways that benefit the farmer, the environment and consumers. I hope to get a better understanding of the change that Agriculture needs by going overseas to learn about approaches in other countries. 

I also want to make my parents proud.   Ever since I can remember I was working on my family property with my granddad and my father.  I helped them by mustering cattle from the bush, and vaccinating or castrating bull calves for them. My granddad and father always talk about how I helped them build the fences and helped where I could, but it all changed when I started to grow up and went to high school. A couple of years later, I was training my first brumby buckskin mare, she was my pride and joy, I rode her all the time until I went to college. I left home to study Agriculture and completed my Certificate III in Agriculture 202. I completed a skills challenge at the end of the year (horse riding, use of a chainsaw, motorbike riding and much more) that Tocal created and came 3rd overall, graduated from Tocal and received a Tocal Special Award.

In 2021, I finished studying my Certificate IV in agriculture and have started my Diploma in Agriculture. I was awarded a scholarship and named Woman of the Year by the Hunter valley Women’s Association for encouraging women to enter a male dominated industry.  Now working in Wagga Wagga, I am learning to work and train Kelpies, which I am proud of. After always having an interest in watching people work dogs, I have competed in 2 dog trials; with my first trial I came 4th in a trial of 12. That absolutely surprised me and has made me have a great passion for working dogs and their bloodlines.

I am passionate about women working in Agriculture and helping women create careers in an industry that can be quite challenging.  I am proud to be a role model, to encourage women to follow their dreams and to advocate that women can achieve anything they put their mind to.

I find it fascinating that Agriculture is always finding more ways to be sustainable to benefit the environment and businesses. One example that peaks my interest is selective breeding in merino ewes and rams. Selective breeding produces a more sustainable business because there have been studies showing that having non mulsed merino sheep produces more wool weight at shearing and at the age of 9 months they weigh more than their counterparts that were mulsed. 

Consumers are also jumping on board about minimising mulsing by buying non mulsed wool or products they can prove came from a non mulsed sheep. Having this market pushes farmers to produce more sustainably because they also get a premium for their wool.  I find it inspiring that farmer’s can give the consumer the knowledge that they have the power to better the environment as much as the farmers / growers do. If they source their produce, clothing etc from a sustainable producer such as organic and/or regenerative farmers they create a pathway for a better future.

I am looking forward to learning from the American experience and understanding more about why certain practices work and fail. There are so many questions I have about emerging technologies and traditional methods. I would also be awed to watch a trial and see how talented their dogs are and if they can teach me their ways of being able to load cattle in a trailer in a open paddock without any yards to assist.

“Kaitlyn has a strong passion for the industry and a willingness to learn”

- Quintin Murphy, Global Footprints Assessor

“Kaitlyn has already been exposed to sustainable and regenerative practices addressing PETA issues.”

- Paddy Fagan, Global Footprints Assessor