Aus ploughing champ to take on the world

Scott Loughridge is just 25 years old, but his youth hasn’t stopped him taking out another Aussie crown.

Scott Loughridge is just 25 years old, but his youth hasn’t stopped him taking out his fourth national title at the National Ploughing competition last week.

Held in Manjimup, about 300km south of Perth, Western Australia for the first time, many competitors flew across the country to compete, but Scott loaded up his own gear for the big trip across the Nullarbor.

“We took a B-double over with all our tractors and ploughs on it … we get a little bit of an advantage that way, but we know not everyone can do that because it can be very costly,” he said.

Scott Loughridge won the national ploughing champs in WA.

Hailing from a dairy farm at Poowong, Scott grew up surrounded by the sport, with his father Brett also a champion ploughman and his mother Jodi heavily involved in the sport.

“Dad’s been competing for many years and has gone to many world contests, so just being around the sport, I sort of had no choice to get into it!” he said.

“Ploughing is a bit of a dying art in agriculture, so it’s good to be able to keep that going … and it’s competitive, but everyone is friendly and willing to help each other out.”

Already a four-time champ at such a young age, Scott plans to keep competing for as long as he enjoys it, and will next year travel to Prague to compete in the World Ploughing Contest, after competing previously in the US in 2019 and Latvia last year.

“It’s great to be able to see different infrastructure and different ways of farming in different countries, and you get to see some places you wouldn’t usually go to,” he said.