Working in the sugar industry - CANEGROWERS

I'm Luke Calcagno, I'm a sugar cane grower in far north Queensland. I supply a little over 7,000 tonne to the Mulgrave Mill which is in the Cairns region. Aside from that I work full-time in sales at the local ag store as well, town and country. My name's Angela Williams and I'm the manager of Cane Growers, one of the offices in the southern region based in Childers. We support our grower members with their agribusinesses. The day in the life of Phil Petanis, I'm the Herbert District Manager and the Agricultural Machinery Specialist for Sugar Research Australia, the leading research and development organisation for the Australian sugar industry. I've been in farming since I was tiny. From a young age I grew up on my father's cane farm. Learned how to do everything when I was young, always had an interest in it. As soon as I left school I fell into my job where I still am. About 18 months ago I made the decision to buy my own cane farm in the Bovina District. I studied at the University of Queensland a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree and I've always, I guess, I've always grown up around the sugar cane industry but to be directly involved now in the last eight to nine years, it is very rewarding, it's very fulfilling and at the same time it's also challenging and you've got to constantly look at identifying what the problems are, what the limitations are, but then putting in regards to facilitated solutions and to assist industry that we can remain sustainable for the long term and the next generation. I'm an agricultural scientist. I went to the University of Queensland and studied agriculture. I am particularly focused around how do we support growers in the field, in the paddock. Two of the key parts when I was a teenager was going to a careers market, going to a place where you could go and have a look and talk to people that were already in the field and that was really inspiring. I talked to a soil scientist and it really inspired me about if we have really great soil health, what can we grow and the plants we can grow and I thought that was excellent and also some career guidance, counselling, actually going to see someone about what your strengths are and what my strengths were and obviously minds and communication and how do I meld the two, how do I meld agriculture with communication and here I am as an agricultural extension officer. Definitely the main thing being outdoors. I love being outdoors and doing hands-on work and there's definitely no shortage of that in the ag industry, but also the diversity. You're never doing the same thing for very long at once and there's always the next job and never a dull moment. The best part of my day is if a grower calls or if I've contacted a grower and trying to solve a problem with them together. I get to know their families, I get to know some of their issues and whenever I get a chance to talk to them one-on-one, I just absolutely love being able to help people and particularly growers where they're so time-strapped. Things like GPS saves a lot of time in the day, up to speed of all the processes, particularly groundwork. Further to that, kind of the same note, tablets, computers, anything that helps digitalise record keeping, things that you'd normally come home and do, spend an hour doing maybe in the afternoon or an evening, you can do in the cab while the GPS is driving. It massively influences my working day. For example, over the last eight years we've seen the progress of yield monitors for example. From yield monitors now we're getting into cane loss monitors, that's live feedback to the harvesting contractor and their growers. So technology is evolving. Oh there's a fantastic future in agriculture. There's so much work, so much possibilities and as a woman in agriculture I've been so well supported, challenged, professionally, personally. It's an opportunity to give back, support farm families, help people to do that and actually provide a fantastic result being practical, useful and relevant every day and make a difference. The endless possibilities. When you think of how different our part of the ag sector was 10, just 10 years ago, God knows where we'll be in another 10. So yeah, definitely keen for whatever the future holds. There's always new and different, better ways of doing things coming along. So yeah, can't wait. I love my job. Every day is different.