Every fortnight, the WA Agricultural Scientist Spotlight shares the stories of the people helping shape Western Australia’s agricultural future, highlighting their career journeys, research achievements and the ideas driving progress across the sector.
This edition features Lizzie Von Perger, Chief Executive Officer at Stirlings to Coast Farmers, whose career has spanned agronomy, sustainable agriculture, environmental management, industry engagement and grower-led research, development and extension.
Today, Ms Von Perger leads a team delivering locally relevant projects across the Albany region, helping farmers assess and adopt research that can improve productivity and address emerging challenges.
Discovering a career in agriculture
Ms Von Perger grew up in the city, but school holidays on her mother’s family farm gave her an early connection to agriculture.
While she loved spending time on the farm, she did not realise agriculture could offer a career to someone who did not own one.
That changed at a Year 12 careers night, when a conversation with students and lecturers at an agricultural science display prompted her to reconsider her university plans.
“I was so excited after the conversation that my immediate intention was to change my university preferences so I could study agricultural science at The University of Western Australia (UWA),” Ms Von Perger said.
“I had to get past Mum first, because she was also adamant that I couldn’t study agriculture if I didn’t have a farm, but I got her across the line in the end.”
Ms Von Perger completed a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at UWA, where soil science became her strongest area of interest.
Her honours project was supervised by Professor Bob Gilkes, whose teaching helped shape her enthusiasm for the subject.
“He was terrifying in my first year at university, but he was also passionate and brilliant, and taught me so much,” she said.
“I have many fond memories of my time in soil pits and I think we might need to include one in our next Spring Field Day.”
Building experience across industries
After university, Ms Von Perger began her career as an agronomist with Elders, before moving to Germany where she lived and worked on a farm in Bavaria.
“The German farmer had a true gate-to-plate set-up and would deliver the lamb himself to restaurants in Munich once a week,” Ms Von Perger said.
“He would also often invite the top chefs to his property to cook lamb for them and show them his farming operations, which was really quite unique.”
After returning to Australia, she worked with smaller mining operations that were being established or reopened.
Her responsibilities included developing environmental management systems, assisting with approvals and managing relationships with pastoralists and Aboriginal corporations.
She later returned to agriculture through a sustainable agriculture role with a natural resource management organisation in the Wheatbelt, followed by a position as a relationship manager with the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
“I’m lucky to have had so many diverse opportunities within multiple industries, which has helped me grow my experience,” she said.
“I’ve also been privileged to work with some amazing managers and colleagues who taught me that in businesses, people are your greatest asset and two-way empathy, respect and trust are the key to building great teams.”
Leading locally relevant R,D&E
Ms Von Perger is now Chief Executive Officer at Stirlings to Coast Farmers, a grower group based in Albany which manages between 15 and 20 projects at any given time.
Much of her role is now office-based, with responsibilities spanning finance, human resources, occupational health and safety, stakeholder management, member and sponsor engagement, grant applications and project oversight.
“I won’t lie, I do miss being out in the field but I get to live vicariously through the team and also love seeing the results of what we do,” she said.
“It’s a small team, so we all pitch in during the busy times with sample collection and measurements during seeding and harvest, so that’s where I get my paddock fix.”
Stirlings to Coast Farmers delivers research, development and extension (R,D&E) across a wide range of topics, including nitrogen, legumes, pest, weed and disease management and farm business.
“Being located in the high-rainfall area, and in a highly productive region, nitrogen application is one of the largest input costs,” Ms Von Perger said.
“Combine that with legume-based pastures on the decrease due to less stock in the region, and we’ve seen this as an important aspect of research and extension, and as a result have a number of projects on the go in this area.”
Grower groups provide an important link between research and farming practice, using their independent, farmer-led structure to test whether new ideas are locally relevant and practical under commercial conditions.
For Stirlings to Coast Farmers, that means working alongside growers to assess high-level research through the realities of regional farming systems.
“Working so closely with farmers, the most fulfilling aspect of what I do is seeing the successful adoption of new practices that either boost production or help navigate a particular farming issue,” Ms Von Perger said.
“It’s a great model and Western Australia is lucky to have so many of these groups that have been set up by local farmers and pull funding into their regions for locally relevant R,D&E.”
Building a career that fits
While Ms Von Perger is proud of the role she now plays in supporting farmers and locally relevant research, her greatest achievement is more personal.
Balancing a demanding career with raising a young family required flexibility, persistence and a willingness to take her children along for the journey.
“I’m not entirely sure how I managed in the baby days, but I still worked and travelled a heap, and both my kids would travel with me as babies to regional towns where I was running workshops or attending events,” she said.
“I’d book them into the local town’s daycare centre for a day or two and then strap them to me for the evening functions.”
That experience has reinforced her belief in the flexibility of agriculture and that there is no single pathway into agriculture, or one type of career that an agricultural science degree must lead to.
“You don’t need to come from a farm to work in agriculture,” she said.
“There are so many diverse careers available within the industry, so you can bounce around and find your fit.”
Ms Von Perger’s career shows how varied a pathway through agriculture can be, and how experience gained across different industries can strengthen the way research is led, translated and delivered.
At Stirlings to Coast Farmers, she is helping ensure that work remains grounded in local priorities, practical for growers and connected to the people it is intended to benefit.
Through the WA Agricultural Scientist Spotlight series, WAARC celebrates the contributions of researchers like Lizzie Von Perger, whose work exemplifies the dedication and innovation needed to advance agricultural science in Western Australia.
By sharing their stories, the series aims to inspire a new generation to pursue careers in this vital field, ensuring the State remains at the forefront of agricultural research and sustainability.