TATIARA Young Citizen of the Year Georgi Cornford, Keith, is a big believer in moving out of comfort zones and trying new opportunities.
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Ms Cornford was the 2014 Keith Rural Young Ambassador and a state finalist in 2015, as well as a 2014 winner of ABC radio competition Heywire.
Ms Cornford said her Keith show involvement began before she took on the farm produce and scarecrow sections.
“When I was young, mum was part of the committee and I used to help set up in the days before,” she said.
Her mother also influenced her love of working with livestock and preparing them for showing
“Mum used to show dairy cattle and got me involved,” she said. “Then from Year 6 at Keith, I was on the show team.”
She said another big moment was getting involved in the SA Junior Heifer Expo.
“I was initially hesitant to go to the Heifer Expo, but I made some friends who are literally my best friends,” she said. “There is no family like cow family.”
The opportunity to meet new people was echoed when she entered the Keith Young Rural Ambassador program.
“It was a chance to make a difference and make my voice heard,” she said.
In Year 12, Ms Cornford stumbled across the Heywire competition. She was writing a story for her English class about her late father, and decided to enter.
“I forgot about it until I got the phone call, then it snowballed from there,” she said.
Winning the competition allowed her to travel to Canberra, where she had the chance to meet politicians and other young enthusiastic people.
She also worked with a team of people from each state to develop the Ag Gap program.
She said the program, based on a similar scheme in the military, was inspired by school leavers who may be considering a career in agriculture but were not sure where to start.
“It gives people contacts, knowledge and a foot in the door,” she said. “It is also keeping young people in communities…and they are the lifeblood of the community.”
The program is still in development but the team is in talks with NSW training institutes Hay Inc and Moree Tafe about its roll-out.
Ms Cornford is halfway through her first year studying archaeology through Flinders University.
“I always wanted to do archaeology, then I became involved in agriculture at school,” she said. “(After finishing school) I started thinking ‘can I find another way to get into ag?’”
Ms Cornford said she enjoys looking at farming from an archaeological angle, including the history of the domestication of farm animals.
Later this year Ms Cornford will defer a semester of university and return to Peru to volunteer on a farm.
She travelled to South America last year, and worked on a Peruvian farm “in the middle of nowhere”.
She plans to go back and volunteer for a longer period, and wants to explore Incan and Mayan agricultural practices – combining her two passions.
