Our 2021 National Conference was free and online this year, with an exciting line-up of industry leaders from both Australia and overseas. The event explored how Australian agriculture can achieve a better and more sustainable future, and bolster our contribution by aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
There were four sessions over two days, focusing on four of the UN's SDGs including:.
Watch the recordings on YouTube via the links below:
Although our 2021 National Conference was a virtual event, it offered a unique opportunity for organisations to highlight and promote their product and service offerings to a highly targeted and engaged national agricultural industry audience.
The strength of our Nuffield alumni network is a major point of difference of our program. This ensures the conference investment continues to be valuable for many years to come.
We thank our two Platinum Partners, Rabobank and CSIRO.
Our 2019 Scholars presented their findings virtually in March 2021, but this event was another opportunity for them to expand on how their scholarship has impacted them.
We also highlighted extraordinary members of the alumni who shared stories since completing their scholarship and how the Nuffield experience has contributed to their success. They included two Australian Scholars now farming overseas, including:
2009 Scholar Stuart Barden moved to Kenya nine years ago following his Nuffield Scholarship where he studied grain production in low rainfall environments. He and his family run AusQuest, a 1,100 hectare farm with arable owned and leased land near Athi River. He is practising conservation farming, growing chick peas, beans and fodder including silage, haylage and hay using unconventional methods that are paying off, landing him a new title locally as ‘conservation farming ambassador’.
2014 Scholar Paul Niven studied management systems and price risk management for multi-site dairy operations. He moved to China in 2015 where he established and lead the Pure Source Dairy business – a joint venture between Fonterra and Abbott – with 8,000 cows and 5,000 acres of crop. Since June he now leads the Dairy Consultancy practice for Asian Agribusiness Consulting, working with large scale dairies across China to build new farms and improve financial and operational performance. Paul has a bachelor of Veterinary Science from the University of Sydney, Masters of Veterinary Science from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK.
We also had four special guest speakers:
Dick Wittman is board chair and former manager of a 20,000-acre dry land crop, range cattle and timber operation in northern Idaho. Management of the farm has transitioned to a partnership of four other family partners. He also provides private consulting to farm, ranch and agricultural support businesses. Wittman has served on the faculty for the TEPAP Ag Executive Program in Austin, Texas since 2003, and is an adjunct faculty member of Texas A&M University. Stewardship has been a Wittman Family Farm tradition. The farm was selected as the national Millennium Farm Family in 2000 by the Ag Earth Partnership.
Lachlan Monsbourgh currently leads sustainability in Rabobank’s Rural division which services farmers across the America’s and Australia and New Zealand. After completing Agribusiness studies at Orange Ag, Lachlan developed a career working in tropical plantations and commodities across the equatorial belt leading to senior international roles in Barry Callebaut and Ecom. He returned to Australia at the beginning of 2018 to join Rabobank. Lachlan enjoys the daily challenge of helping the bank evolve to meet the rapidly evolving needs of farmers on either side of the Pacific Ocean.
Dr Jen Taylor leads the Systems research program in CSIRO Agriculture and Food, involving more than 120 scientists working across a distributed national footprint including eight sites and multiple research stations. Dr Taylor completed honours in biochemistry at the University of Queensland and a PhD in medical genetics at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research studying candidate gene identification strategies in human disease. Jen has held roles as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Statistics and then team leader for functional analysis at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, both at the University Oxford, UK. In 2016, Jen completed the six-week Nuffield Global Focus Program. In 2017, Jen completed a Graduate Diploma in Executive Management (UNSW).
Gabriela Burian is global partnerships and multi-stakeholder platform lead at Bayer, where she is responsible for overseeing the company’s global sustainable agriculture strategies. For over 20 years, she has worked to build meaningful cross-cultural relationships and deliver results in sustainability, food and agriculture business, environmental strategy, diversity, and collaboration. Guided by the vision “Health for all, hunger for none,” Bayer has established clear targets to be met by 2030 around food security, health care, and ecological footprint reduction, while also becoming one of the first industrial companies in the world to integrate sustainability targets into management compensation. Gabriela was recognized among 50 ESG (Environment Sustainability Governance) who are driving change: “Purposeful 50”.
Our 2022 Nuffield National Confernce will be held in Tamworth, NSW in in mid-September.
Details are available on the '2022 conference' webpage on this website.
Please contact Nicola Raymond, 2006 Scholar and Nuffield Program Operations Manager for more information HERE