WHEN moving to Kangaroo Island 33 years ago to take up a soils officer role with SA's Department of Agriculture, Lyn Dohle envisioned returning back to the family farm in Victoria after a couple of years.
She "never quite got round to going back".
Over more than three decades working with the KI farming community, Lyn has become woven into the fabric of the Island's pre-eminent industry.
She recently became the inaugural life member of AgKI, the farming systems group she had an integral role in forming 26 years ago.
Always modest about her achievements and role in the Island's farming community, Lyn said the acknowledgement was a huge honour.
"To get life membership for anything is a huge honour, but to be the inaugural life member blew me away," she said.
Describing herself as a small cog in the wheel of a progressive farming community, Lyn's journey started on the family farm near Dunkeld, Vic.
The youngest of three girls and with agriculture in her DNA, she had always envisioned coming back to the family farm as her career path.
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"I was going to ag college and my mother, very wisely, said if you're going to get the same job as a bloke you'll have to have more qualifications so how about you go to university," Lyn said.
Lyn studied agricultural science at university in Melbourne, and with the expectation of spending her life in Vic, decided to move interstate to work "for a bit".
She applied for a job on Kangaroo Island - "I had to look up where it was and thought that'd be fun" - and made the move in 1989 when she was appointed as a soils officer with the Department of Agriculture.
"I came over here to work for a couple of years before going back to the family farm," Lyn said.
"That was 33 years ago and I never quite got round to going back."
She was the first soils officer appointed by the department and the first female extension officer appointed on KI.
"My Mum ran the family farm just as much as my Dad did, so I never had an upbringing where 'girls couldn't do things'," Lyn said.
Lyn moved to KI in a difficult period for the Island's farmers, with the wool market losing its floor price.
She said she was still welcomed with open arms by a progressive farming community that had a culture of working together, borne from the Island's soldier settlement days.
"Things were really tough when I came over here, but I still got great support from the farming community," Lyn said.
"They became my family, my support.
"It was the beginning of the landcare era and I took on a landcare role as well as soils. For farmers at the time, it was one positive when everything else was doom and gloom.
"They cared for their environment, but there was also some money available to support them in doing that.
"It was important at an early stage in my career to have something positive I could work on with the farming community."
In more than three decades of working closely with farmers and in landcare, Lyn said some of her proudest achievements were being involved in the adoption of practices like clay spreading and delving on non-wetting sands, using kikuyu as a perennial pasture option, grid soil mapping for pH and nutrients, and the landcare movement on KI during the 1990s, which had the highest rates of adoption in the nation.
"I feel honoured with the trust the Island's farming community has placed in me and the connection I have with them," she said.
"Whilst definitely not a highlight, my role during the 2019/20 fires in both response and the ongoing recovery will be something I will never forget."
Another of her crowning achievements has been her involvement in the foundation and ongoing success of KI's farming systems group AgKI.
"It has always been strongly supported by the farming community," Lyn said.
"While not all farmers are members, the majority get benefits.
"One of the strengths of AgKI is that everyone is on the same page. To have an organisation that's 26 years old and as strong as the day it was created is incredibly impressive."
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There was no shortage of farmers willing to speak about Lyn's impact on Kangaroo Island agriculture.
Tracie Heinrich, Ella Matta, Parndana, described Lyn as passionate about the industry, forward-thinking, and a motivational figure.
"She's like the backbone of farming over here and one of the reasons why it's such a successful industry," she said.
"She has always been there for all farmers. There wouldn't be a farmer on Kangaroo Island that doesn't rely on Lyn for advice and support.
"She's like a mother that is always there for everyone."
Ros Willson, Willson River, said Lyn was integral to holding the KI farming community together and keeping them abreast of advances in technology.
"She has been important in helping farmers access grants, as well as educating them and helping with health and resilience after the (2019/20) bushfires.
Having worked with Lyn on-farm, Mrs Willson said she was approachable, well-grounded, professional and gave important, unbiased advice.
