DPI's Loretta Serafin wins Young Agronomist Award at national conference

“Loretta who is based at Tamworth is an outstanding young agronomist with DPI and has had a major impact with farmers particularly in the north west of the State,” Dr Sheldrake said.

“She began as an agronomist-in-training with DPI in 1999 and has since been a district agronomist at Moree, Gunnedah and Tamworth.

“Currently Loretta is DPI’s Technical Specialist, Northern Farming Systems responsible for co-ordinating northern and central district agronomists and assisting in the development of broadacre cropping.

“Loretta’s passion for ensuring farmers have valued advice on the latest research developments – to be profitable and maintain their resource base – has been rewarded with this accolade from her peers.

“I congratulate Loretta on her achievements and look forward to her continued contribution to the State’s primary industries. I also congratulate James Hunt from CSIRO in Canberra who has been acknowledged with the same award.”

In addition to Loretta’s dealings with farmers and coordination of staff, she is a well-published author of agricultural publications for producers.

She is the joint author of the annual summer crop production guide and joint author of “Sunflower production guidelines for the northern grains region”.

Loretta is nationally recognised for her work on cropping systems and summer crop production, particularly sorghum and sunflowers. She is also a past convenor of the 2008 Grassland Society of NSW annual state conference.

Loretta’s award was presented at the 16th biennial conference of the Australian Society of Agronomy hosted by the University of New England and Department of Primary Industries at Armidale this week.

The award recognises outstanding young agronomists aged 35 and under who have achieved excellence in research and/or the application of science on crops and pastures.

Loretta was nominated for the Award by her colleagues who regard her contribution to the grains industry extremely highly. She will be giving a presentation at the Conference tomorrow on her experience as an agronomist with DPI in north west NSW.

Previous winners of the award include Dr Lindsay Bell (CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences) and Dr Graeme Doole (University of Western Australia) in 2010; Jason Brand (Department of Primary Industries, Victoria) and Barry Haskins (NSW DPI) in 2008; and Andrew Whitlock (Department of Primary Industries, Victoria) in 2006.

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