AGRICULTURAL science wasn’t Carissa Horsey’s first career choice but it was something she’d always wanted to do.
“I wanted to be a jillaroo and muster cattle” she said.
“But to make mum happy I started a Paramedic Science degree.”
Carissa soon decided paramedicine wasn’t her calling, agriculture was where she wanted to be.
She is the first in her immediate family to go into agriculture and was raised in a typical suburban home in Ipswich.
The only experience she’d had on a farm was spending time at her uncle’s property – an organic beetroot farm near Gatton in the Lockyer Valley.
Carissa joins the growing number of women aged between 25 and 29 deciding on agriculture as a career.
A Westpac Regional Champions and Changemakers Report discovered what it calls a ‘generational change’ with a 30 percent increase in young people taking up careers in agriculture since 2006.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It also found the number of young females working in agriculture increased significantly, up 42 percent compared to 15 years ago, in the 25 to 34 age group.
After pulling out of paramedicine Carissa spent a couple of years harvesting and packing produce on her uncle’s farm.
“My uncle always said he was surprised a city girl like me was so taken with agriculture,” she said.
“As I got older I didn’t really like living in the city as much and tried to get out and into the country as much as possible.”
She completed a Certificate III and IV in agriculture and as part of her practical block landed a job as an irrigation farm hand.
“I really liked it, I was working with cotton, learning about irrigation and cultivation, preparing fields, spraying and driving a tractor,” she said.
The 29-year-old acknowledges while she enjoyed the work it wasn’t quite where she wanted to be.
She decided to give research and development a go and enrolled at the University of Queensland (UQ) taking on a degree in Agricultural Science.
“UQ’s Agricultural Science degree is highly regarded and it is close to home,” she explained.
“At UQ I was working for Rice Research and looking after trials associated with a project to develop aerobic rice that will grow without the need for lots of water.
“I was working on varieties that were tolerant to cooler weather because water offers insulation and protection from the cold.
“I left there earlier this year and I’m now working at a school in the Logan area, in its agriculture department.
“The school has a farm, they have sheep, chickens and a bit of a horticultural area.
“I’m a farm hand, my title is agricultural assistant...I feed the animals and maintain the gardens, that kind of thing.
“It’s right on the Logan river and flooded last year so we are trying to update all the infrastructure.”
Carissa said her dream job would be one within research but she wasn’t looking to return to uni and study.
“I enjoyed working on my uncle’s farm and on the cotton farm, I graduated with honours in my ag science degree but I am not really interested in more study,” she said.
“I would love to have my own farm one day if I can afford it, what I’d grow would depend on where it is.
“Perhaps in Lockyer Valley or the Somerset region.
“I’d have some cows and crops that I can use rather than going to the shops, chickens for eggs that kind of thing.”

FEMALE FACE OF AGRICULTURE