AGRICULTURAL blogger Stephanie Coombes is one of a new breed of 'agvocates' raising awareness of the importance of farmers.
She sees social media as a way for them to connect with consumers and explain how they are producing their food.
Through her agriculture-related blogging site Ausagventures, the self-confessed country girl hopes others will share their stories of life on the land, and actively participate on facebook, twitter, You Tube and other such groups.
Stephanie, who grew up in Perth, started blogging in March last year while working on a cattle station. Her online diary entries of her 15 days as stockperson on the Ocean Drover live export vessel, with tens of thousands of sheep bound for the Middle East, and another subsequent trip on a live cattle boat from New Zealand to China, have provided new insights to the live export debate.
She changed the name of her blog site from Steph's Ag Adventures to Ausagventures in January so many more could blog about their agricultural experiences.
The Ausagventure site has more than 50 contributing bloggers and is receiving about 2000 unique hits each month.
"Agriculture is such an incredible industry and there are so many cool stories," Stephanie said.
"It is a way that farmers are becoming a part of consumers' lives. It doesn't always need to be about animal welfare or other industry issues but building a picture of the lifestyle and what you do," she said.
Stephanie was guest speaker at the recent Get with the Program dinner at Naracoorte - a workshop to help beef producers learn about using technology for better production outcomes - and said the Ausagventures blog was having a huge influence, going by conversations consumers are having with the bloggers.
Stephanie says a blog can be as simple as posting a series of photos with captions. She tends to write a longer blog every week or fortnight.
During her speech, Stephanie shared her incredible journey in agriculture in the past seven years.
The 24 year-old entered the industry as a fan of hit TV show McLeod's Daughters, but has grabbed every opportunity since.
"I thought I wanted to be the next McLeod's Daughters although I had never stepped on a farm, seen a sheep or cow, or ridden a quad bike. So I had no idea what I was getting myself into," she said.
The 'city girl with a horse' studied Agricultural Science at the University of Western Australia and graduated with honours in meat science in 2011.
It was while mustering on a station during her university holidays in 2008 that she fell in love with the beef industry, and has since seen nearly every part of the supply chain, from abattoirs and feedlots to the live export trade.
Just days before the Get with the Program event, Stephanie flew back from Canada where she had been working on a 25,000-head feedlot for the past five months.
A recent highlight was winning the 2013 NAB Agribusiness Rising Beef Industry Champion run by the Cattle Council of Australia, which will see her attend the Five Nations Beef Alliance Conference next week in Queensland.
* Full report in Stock Journal, September 5 issue, 2013.
