Tamworth Agricultural Institute's Loretta Serafin is an inspiration

This statement is like a motto for Loretta Serafin, an agricultural scientist based in Tamworth's Agricultural Institute and an inspiration to anyone looking to enter agriculture.

She started out as a trainee agronomist for the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), but after a restructure in 2013, she moved into their research stream, conducting research on summer crops like sunflowers and corn.

"Basically, I run our experimental research program which stretches from Tamworth and the Liverpool Plains up to the Queensland border," Ms Serafin said.

This means early mornings and long nights for Ms Serafin, who sometimes needs to make the five-hour drive up to Mungindi to check the crops and take studious measurements.

"We measure things like how many days it takes for the plants to reach flowering, because that varies based on which variety you're growing or which nutrition practice you have," Ms Serafin said.

Once the data is analysed, the science team then writes up the results of their findings to create up-to-date advice and guidance for farmers.

Ms Serafin said her favourite parts of the job are sewing seeds and the harvest at the end.

"You get that feeling when you're planting the seeds and setting up new experiments. It's always great to be looking at the new experience and what's likely to come for the season," she said.

READ ALSO:

Ms Serafin hopes her research can help farmers make their crops more resilient to drought, floods, or animal damage.

In the era of climate change and severe weather, she said it's more important now than ever to see problems as opportunities for research into new methods of crop protection and resilience.

She credits agricultural science as a team effort and said that every issue is a chance for more people to put their heads together and contribute to the world's collective knowledge.

Regardless of whether the challenges are as simple as putting in a hard day's work of crop cutting, or as complicated as measuring the effects of global climate patterns, nothing stops Ms Serafin from pursuing her lifelong passion for plants.

"I always loved plants. It might sound weird, but one of my favourite places to go [as a child] was always the nursery," Ms Serafin said.

After completing an agricultural degree at the University of Western Sydney in 1999, Ms Serafin moved from her hometown near Camden up to Moree, then Gunnedah, before putting down roots in Tamworth in 2005.

More than two decades into her career, Ms Serafin has faced as many challenges as she's received rewards, travelling to agricultural conferences as near as Northern NSW and as far out as the United States, Argentina, Italy and France.

She said what keeps her going is the joy she gets from the people she gets to work with, and the knowledge that she's doing something that helps communities all around the world.

"You'd have to go a really long way to find a nicer group of people to work with than farmers and agronomists," Ms Serafin said.

"People are genuinely interested, not only for their own benefit, but from an industry point of view ... people have been very generous to me, allowing me to run trials on the land, and that's something you don't get from a lot of industries these days," she said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: