Moora Miling Pasture Improvement Group aims to support young people to stay in agriculture

WA’s oldest grower group is showing no signs of slowing down despite reduced numbers of farmers in the area, and is now aiming to encourage young people to stay in agriculture.

The Moora Miling Pasture Improvement Group, founded in Miling in 1939, aims to promote best-practice farming to ensure agricultural sustainability for a profitable future in the region.

The group, made up of 60 farming members, shares the latest farming information at local field days and at practical workshops and meetings, and by encouraging social interaction at entertaining and informative events.

MMPIG president and fourth-generation farmer David Hamilton said while the group went through quiet periods, targeting sustainable farming practices in the Moora, Miling and Victoria Plains area had always been the focus.

Mr Hamilton farms 20,000 sheep on his 6500ha Berkshire Valley farm, east of Moora, in addition to a cropping enterprise that makes up about 10 per cent of his operation.

He said research had been the focus in the past, but in recent years a stronger focus had been placed on socialising, educating, and sharing any relevant information from Government or private organisations like Western Power and WorkSafe.

Mr Hamilton said another key focus lately had been supporting local youth in their agriculture industry journeys through bursaries and donations to scholarship programs.

“We like to support anyone to keep farming multigenerational, and try to keep young people in ag,” he said.

“We’ve lost a lot of farmers in this area . . . we want to try to encourage more people into the area because it comes harder to keep these groups going or fight fires over summer when you’re only at half the numbers you used to have.”

Secretary Rachel Walmsley said MMPIG focused on a handful of main events every year, including the February annual general meeting, a winter event, and the FarmHER field and networking event.

“We do a few things, but we do them well,” she said.

“People are isolated here. There isn’t a lot of opportunity for social interaction . . . that’s the overall aim of the group.”

Ms Walmsley said the group used to conduct more trials and research, but now chose to “cherrypick” what it worked on.

“We try to balance what we go with, or piggyback off other groups with their trials, and then we’ll do a social occasion afterwards,” she said.

“We’re conscious not to take on too much.”