Passion reignited

Chelsea Hartwig is a young woman making her mark in agriculture, writes Alyssa Welke

Toowoomba native Chelsea Hartwig spent her early life surrounded by cattle and other farm animals on her family’s dairy farm. But she wasn’t always sure she’d pursue a career in agriculture.

In fact, the 22-year-old spent many of her teenage years actively avoiding cattle, and anything to do with agriculture.

But when she started studying at Downlands College in year 11, her passion for the industry was reignited through the Moo Baa Much program.

Downlands College hosted the AgForce Moo Baa Munch, a program which takes the learning out of the classroom to focus on where food comes from and the importance agriculture plays in our everyday lives.

Demonstrations are tailored to a variety of age groups, with secondary school students exploring possible career paths and covering units related to agriculture, food and fibre, geography, society, environment and science.

While Chelsea didn't participate in the program directly, she was allowed to go and have a look at it during her lunch break; this experience lit a fire in her. That culminated in her going on to the University of New England to study a Bachelor of Agricultural Production and Management and eventually becoming a project officer with AgForce, leading to her current position as a liaison officer in the AgForce School to Industry Partnership Program.

“I was born in Toowoomba and lived in town at Gowrie Junction with my parents (when I was little),” she said.

“Both of my parents are off dairy properties; when I was about two we moved on to mum’s parents’ dairy farm.

“At two, I spent a lot of time in the dairy, sleeping in the dairy pit (in the mornings).

“There’s a lot of photos of me getting around the paddocks in boots, being a farm girl.

“When I was about five or six, we moved into Dalby, as Dad opened a cabinet making business in Dalby.

“In town we had a two acre block so we had

chooks, a horse in the back paddock, and we’d have pigs, sheep and calves that would come and go.”

It was at the time that Chelsea’s involvement in the beef cattle industry began. Their neighbours were helping to run, and participate in, junior cattle showing camps.

“They said to Dad, ‘Why don’t the girls come along?’,” she said.

“So I started doing that for the next few years.

“But at about 12, I’d had it; I was just out of cattle completely. I couldn’t even go in the yards with the cattle, I was terrified. So I had a little break.”

But when she was in year 11 the ag science teacher at Downlands at the time, Brooke Cuddihy, suggested Chelsea join the cattle show team. Reluctant at first, she eventually gave in.

“I can remember being in the yard holding this little Lowline animal with tears streaming down my face, I was so scared,” she said.

“But I overcame it and ended up becoming the show team leader.”

It was while she was at Downlands that

she was exposed to how industry and education could come together. She headed off to uni and began studying but still couldn’t see how her passion for agriculture could become a career. But soon the strands of her experience would come together.

“I was still studying and I had started to wonder what am I going to do when I finish; so I jumped on Seek and saw an ad for a project support officer with AgForce,” she said.

“It was closing in an hour so I quickly put a resume together and applied. With in two days they had contacted me, and within a week I did an interview.

“I was kind of lucky, I got the job working two to three days a week.

“When I started, I’d never organised an event in my life,” she laughs, but I’m thriving now.”

Her liaison officer job is full time, but among work she also manages the family

farm and Charolais stud north of Toowoomba, which operates under the Hartwig Pastoral name.

She spends a lot of her “spare time” checking cattle, checking on calving and generally managing the day-to-day running of the farm.

As well as the stud cattle, the family runs a Brangus/Charolais cross commercial hard that has been specifically bred and handled to ensure a quiet temperament. This makes them safer and easier to work with in cattle yards but also makes for a better end product for consumers.

Chelsea finds meat science very interesting, and while her early exposure to

Oncetooscaredtobeintheyardwithcattle despitegrowingupondairyfarms,Chelsea Hartwighasovercomeherfearsandisnow passionate abouthelpingkidslearnmore aboutagricultureinschools.

cattle judging and handling has given her a good foundation for understanding prized qualities in beef cattle, she’d like to see kids learn more about what that means in terms of the meat that will eventually come from those animals.

“Ideally I’d like to build a better understanding between the product and the consumers,” she said.

“A lot of kids, we’ll ask, ‘Where does your meat come from?’ and they’ll answer (the supermarket).

“We need to build a better understanding of the paddock to plate supply chain. Lots of schools don’t even teach ag, and that is something all kids should be learning about.”