Sam O'Rafferty

A Temora farmer by birth, Sam O’Rafferty’s (T: @SamORafferty1) agricultural journey has been determined by water, and the lack of it. He grew up in the Millenium Drought and for 18 months helped his family cart water from town to support the needs of their mixed farm.

But farming was in Sam’s blood and the drought did not deter him from following agriculture to university. During holidays lack of water once again influenced him when he worked as an irrigation overseer, experiencing extended extreme heat periods, which caused increased water demand for crops and tightened irrigation schedules.

Coming full circle, Sam now works as an irrigation agronomist in the Riverina in a wet year and is seeing 100% water allocations lead to record crops, though he knows the next drought will be just around the corner. “My aim is to continually improve water use efficiency and productivity on farm and help producers adapt to the variability in the climate. This will come through a variety of improvements to on-farm water delivery systems, plant genetics and improved soil management practices.”