Agriculture

2017

In her second year of studies at Marcus Oldham College in 2017, Dayna recieved her BBM Scholarship. During her scholarship trip Dayna spent time at Luiten Foods in the Netherlands, and made such an impression she was invited to return. There Dayna learnt primarily about intensive production and waste management.

This was Dayna’s first time travelling alone and it was both a challenge and a blessing for her.

“The amount of personal growth I underwent on the trip is what set me up to accept a position, 12 months ago I would never have thought in my right mind I would be capable of.”

Because of the skills, both professional and personal, gained from her time overseas, Dayna was offered a position at Thomas Foods International in Adelaide, where she now works as their Livestock Assurance Coordinator.

Dayna’s career highlight, so far, is the opportunity to travel to Germany for the Anuga Fair – one of the leading food tradeshows in the world. Anuga is attended by more than 170, 000 visitors and has 7500 exhibitors.

From her scholarship experiences Dayna found a love of travel and international markets. While she acknowledges she is not yet directly impacting her industry, she hopes to one day influence the agricultural industry through a career in sustainable supply chain management.

Specifically, Dayna is interested in carbon neutral produce as a growing trend in the agricultural industry. Particularly as something consumers are looking for on the labels of products, as more people are keeping sustainability in mind.

To our current scholars, planning their trips Dayna “strongly recommends using every moment you have spare to get out, explore and immerse yourself into the different culture.  Even try and do something outside of your comfort zone.”

Her biggest take away from her Scholarship is that “no matter what industry you are following a career in, it is the relationships and contacts that you make and maintain that can take you to places.” As she met people all over the world that could link her to colleagues in Australia and help her to expand her professional network.