What's your job about?
I am a Sales Agronomist. I am employed to help farmers with their cropping needs such as doing yearly farm plans, soil tests, tissue tests, paddock inspections looking for pests such as insects, weeds or crop diseases and/or diagnosing any crop abnormalities and recommending products that they require for that situation. My day can consist of loading chemical that a client requires, looking at paddocks for clients and giving recommendations. Depending on the time of year I can be doing farm planning from in the branch and working out crop rotations and pre-emergent plans. I can also be out for a few days doing soil tests that I send away and get results from that I use to work out fertiliser requirements.
What's your background?
I grew up in Werneth, Victoria on a sheep/broadacre cropping farm. I never really knew what I wanted to do while I was at school, but I knew I loved being on the farm and being a part of agriculture by working on the family farm and doing part-time roustabouting. I knew I didn’t want to do year 12 so after year 11, I left school and went to Longerenong College where I was studying my Certificate IV in Agriculture. That is where I found my passion for agronomy. I then continued on from my Certificate IV and did my Advanced Diploma of Agribusiness Management and Diploma of Agronomy. After Longerenong, I got a part time job doing sowing for a bloke up in the mallee, during that time I was able to get an interview at a Nutrien branch at Berriwillock for a Graduate Agronomy position. I got the job and going on my 3rd year here have been promoted to Sales Agronomy.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
I think there is no background limits for someone that wants to get into the field of agronomy. If you have the passion and the willingness to learn, then you would be able to get yourself into the field. I believe all it takes is the right start with education in agriculture such as Longerenong College to gain the basic understanding and then having the right company like Nutrien that will help guide you with mentors in their Graduate program and give you the right tools for you to be, the best agronomist you can be.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The coolest thing about my job I believe is getting to help farmers solve issues that they have encountered with their crops. In a situation where a farmer can come in quite stressed about a problem, they’ve encountered and together, coming up with a plan of attack for the situation and getting to see the look of relief when we have a plan is a great feeling. The best moments are when or if clients/farmers come in and praise you for your help and recommendation after they have had a great result. It really is just a nice reminder of the kind of work we do and who we are helping, after all, it’s not just a job, you’re helping someone with their livelihood and source of income for their families and that’s pretty cool if you ask me.
What are the limitations of your job?
With this kind of job, you do bare a lot of responsibility. After all, we are recommending chemicals and fertilisers, that can affect someone else’s livelihood if we don’t do our jobs properly and carefully. Farmers can lose yield and/or waste money on products that may not have been correct for that particular situation. Not checking product labels and paddock history can cause big screw-ups for our clients that could lead to complete crop failure or big yield losses. This job can be physically demanding by not all the time, it definitely comes in waves. Leading up to sowing can be quite busy with chemicals getting out on the farm and soil testing. But then during planting time when farmers are busy sowing it can quiet down, and it's like that throughout the year and can depend on what kind of year we have, whether it’s a really wet year and fungicides are needed left right and centre or whether it’s a drought and farmers are trying to be conservative with inputs as they aren’t sure of what kind of harvest they are going to have and are waiting on rain.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
Some advice I wish I could’ve given to myself when I was a student would be probably a classic, and that’s asking more questions. You probably think what you’re going to ask is stupid but it's most likely not and if you don’t speak up and ask, you won’t know, and you’ll continue to not know or understand because you didn’t speak up. In agronomy, the questions you have, are probably questions farmers will have and ask you, so you want to know how to answer their questions.
Another piece of advice I would give someone wanting to get into agronomy is to make sure you want to do it, if you have a family agronomist or know of someone, just ask to jump in the ute with them and go around some paddocks. Ask them lots of questions get to know what their day-to-day is and see if agronomy suits you, as there is a fair bit involved in it, but it definitely does get easier the longer you do it, there is just a lots to learning and it will take time.