Growing up as the eldest of four children on a cattle and sheep enterprise in Armidale, a current agriculture industry leader had her passion for the livestock sector ignited while being her father’s ‘right-hand man’ on the family farm.
Emily Pollock, 29, has built her career at Mort and Co’s Gunnee Feedlot, Delungra, working her way through the ranks from pen rider to her current role of livestock supervisor.
Through the discovery of her passion to work outdoors and with animals, Ms Pollock has built her career over a five-year period, collecting along her way the prestigious Young Lot Feeder Achievement Award, at the BeefEx feedlot conference in October.
Enthralled by watching cattle on her family farm grow and perform, Ms Pollock attended the University of New England to study a Bachelor of Livestock Science, majoring in animal health and nutrition.
“From a very young age I was quite involved in the family business and just loved it – so I always knew I wanted to be apart of the industry,” she said.
After completing her degree, she headed north to work as a jillaroo at a cattle station in the Northern Territory, before returning to start her career with Mort and Co’s.
Drawn to the feedlot sector because of the vast opportunities, she said the daily challenges maintained her interest, while building industry skills.
“I selected the feedlot sector because it’s a fairly fast paced job and quite often challenges pop up that you need to address and it really interests me that each day there is something different to do,” she said.
“I enjoy seeing the cattle perform, especially the progress the animals can reach in 100 days – it’s a tight-knit industry too, in that we share a lot of information and training – everyone is willing to help out because we face similar challenges.”
Her award has also played a role in her passion about the feedlot sector, saying the recognition was inspirational and concreted her commitment to the industry.
Ms Pollock said the vision for her career is to continue as an advocate for the feedlot industry and to keep expanding her knowledge and experience to eventually become a feedlot manager.
“While I am within the industry I want to create awareness about the importance of training supervisors and leaders.
“I have been very fortunate to have formal leadership training opportunities and this has definitely made a large difference to the way I operate as a leader and also the way my team operates around me,” she said.
“I was recently named the vice-president of the Women of Lot Feeding organisation, which is a support group for women in the industry to offer career progression help and networking opportunities.”
In early 2018, Ms Pollock will set off on an industry tour of the United States to build knowledge of their feed lot systems.