Engagement and Extension Officer

About Dairy Australia:

Dairy Australia’s role is to provide services that benefit and advance dairy farm businesses and the industry. These services deliver value by enhancing farm business management, supporting farm employment needs, driving herd and feed innovation, managing climate and environment, promoting Australian dairy and commitment to sustainability, supporting policy development, growing international markets and responding to critical issues and events such as floods and bushfires.

​Our Vision and Values:

At Dairy Australia, our vision is simple, to be leaders in shaping a profitable and sustainable dairy industry. Our passionate and talented people share this vision and make an impact each day through their commitment to our values of:

• Farmer First - Farmer needs guide our purpose 
• One Team - We work together to achieve great things 
• Innovative Thinking - We embrace new ideas and learning as we go 
• Decisive Action - We make informed decisions and move quickly to implement 

About the Role: 

To realise our vision, it is essential we provide effective leadership and support to the dairy industry and deliver innovative, well planned and collaborative regional extension and education activities in dairy regions. Critical to being effective in this role is our strong relationships with dairy farmers and being a trusted point of contact within Dairy Australia. 

Joining our team at DairySA, this role will be offered as a fixed term contract until end of June 2025. As the Engagement and Extension Officer, you will engage regularly with local dairy farmers to build an understanding of their farm business needs and in turn support them to identify and access the right services and resources so they can drive practice change and increase their capability, sustainability and profitability. 

Your ability to develop and strengthen relationships will be valued by both dairy farmers and the broader Dairy Australia team as you capture and share insights and trends and influence program development and delivery to meet the needs and feedback gained from the farmers you support. You are analytical and insightful and will consider where challenges and impacts may emerge and consider what solutions Dairy Australia can offer in support.

 Our ideal candidate

We believe in equality. We treat everyone with fairness, consideration and respect and welcome applications from candidates from diverse backgrounds. 

Our ideal candidate will be someone who is open-minded, and able to proactively build relationships. You stay up to date with current issues in the dairy industry and are driven to understand and explain the benefits of the service offerings of Dairy Australia. You will have strong organisational and facilitation skills to plan and coordinate the delivery of extension programs. Ideally, you will have qualifications in agriculture, business, or related field or significant experience in the dairy industry or agricultural sector including a solid knowledge of farming systems.

 Just as important is your initiative and enthusiasm for: 

• Building Relationships: You thrive on interacting with multiple stakeholders, establish rapport easily and impress people with your ability to tailor your communication to their needs
• Communicating Information: You convince people, challenge ideas and appropriately articulate information to your audience with strong attention to detail
• Showing Resilience: You convey self-confidence, demonstrate composure and resolve conflicts as they arise
• Giving Support: You understand people and value individuals, you work well as part of a team
• Evaluating Problems: You examine information thoroughly, document facts and can interpret data
• Providing Leadership: You make timely informed decisions and empower others

 About your work life with us

We aim to provide benefits that promote the overall wellbeing of our employees. In joining our team, you will be rewarded with:

• Flexible working environment - Work from your home office, on the road visiting stakeholders, as well as connecting with your colleagues and stakeholders virtually
• Being a key member in our small supportive and high performing team of experts in their field
• A caring and innovative culture -we are open to each other’s ideas, we love to innovative, we have integrity and are driven to find the best solutions for our employees and stakeholders
• Fully maintained vehicle 

If your motivations and skills set lines up to what you’ve read, please “Apply Now”