“I worked in sheep, cattle, crops, irrigation, soils, feral animals, you name it, travelling for work from Victoria right through to Queensland,” she said.

“There’s just something special about working in agriculture.”

Although born and raised in Melbourne, Mrs Bird-Gardiner said from a young age country life was calling her.

In 1980, Mrs Bird-Gardiner started her agriculture career. However, she didn’t expect to be breaking the glass ceiling of a male-dominated industry in doing so.  “It was the era where, unless you were male and  married, you could not readily get employment in commercial agriculture,” she said.

Mrs Bird-Gardiner has been with the NSW DPI livestock genetics unit for over two decades at Trangie Agricultural Research Centre.  During this period, she has worked in the ‘Advanced Breeding Services’ unit (genetic analysis and extension for the sheep industry); been the site manager for the Sheep CRC Information Nucleus Flock; managed data collection on multiple sheep research projects including QPLU$; CTSE and the Merino Lifetime Productivity Project- and these are just a few of her achievements.

Mrs Bird-Gardiner has witnessed many advances in agriculture over the years, particularly in the livestock industries.

“To me, one of the biggest game changers for industry has been electronic applications, combined with genetic and genomic evaluation” she said.

“Instead of having just a ‘mob’ of sheep, industry and research has now embraced individual performance.  Electronic data capture (through the use of EID tags) has greatly increased efficiency and reduced data errors over just using pen and paper and recording from visual ear tags.  Electronics and genomics has also provided new ways of capturing and recording data; from pedigree and trait performance through to predicting the merit of future sires and breeding stock.”

Mrs Bird-Gardiner also added that communication we take for granted today had also undergone a major evolution during her time in agriculture.

“In the late 1980s and early 90s there wasn’t any readily available internet or mobile phones,” she said. “I remember when I was doing industry placement for uni and that I was not able to email documents back to the University as they did not have email capability to receive them!”

Mrs Bird-Gardiner has been working behind the scenes on some of the largest livestock projects within NSW DPI.

Currently the site and data manager for the Merino Lifetime Productivity Project, Mrs Bird-Gardiner has also been heavily involved in the development of the Low Methane Beef project.

“This includes budgets, finance, logistics and procurement. Plus, I was involved in the early stages of the Southern Multi Breed project regarding software and hardware for data capture for all the sites,” she said.

“I think that’s the beauty of the ag industry that most people don’t realise; it can take you in so many directions and send you down so many different career paths.”