Hi everyone, my name is Chloe Blight, and I farm alongside my parents in Highbury, Western Australia.
We crop on approximately 850 hectares, including contracting, where we grow canola, lupins, oats and barely. The average rainfall in our region is around 300mm, however, last year we had a dryer season with around 310mm of rainfall.
We already have a better outlook this year compared to last year, mainly due to the uplift in the sheep market and experiencing 30mm of rain over the past few weeks.
I work full-time as an Agribusiness Bank Manager alongside working on the farm, so my parents are currently keeping busy selling and feeding our sheep. We are also busy preparing the airseeder and arranging fertiliser deliveries to make sure we can start seeding by around mid-April.
The main challenge we are currently facing is recovering from a few tougher years of well-below-average sheep prices. Unfortunately, this has put a lot of pressure on the business, especially when combined with a dry start to last year, which left us carting water and feeding sheep for extended periods.
Despite these challenges, diversification within the business is one of the exciting opportunities we are looking to explore. This may include some short-stay or farm-stay opportunities to help reduce reliance on farm income and weather. Another area I’m excited about is optimising efficiencies using new technologies within the ag industry.
I am proud to be an Australian grain grower. It’s very rewarding to grow a crop and see the results at harvest each year, knowing that your efforts help to feed the community. Having the knowledge and being able to see firsthand how our food is produced is something I am very grateful to be a part of.