The External Advisory Board (EAB) provides the Institute of Agriculture with industry interaction, advice and feedback.
The EAB has an independent Chairperson and meets twice each year.
Roles of the Board
- Industry feedback on agricultural industry needs and issues
- Enhancing the profile of the IOA to the industry and wider community
- Providing independent advice to the IOA Director on IOA policy and direction
Board members
Mr Bruce Piper, Chair
Bruce Piper grows cereals, pulses and oilseeds on his farm at Bindi Bindi. He has been active with the WA Farmers Federation, sitting on numerous sub-committees. He has been the chairman of COGGO Limited for eight years, a director of Export Grains Centre Ltd and a director of Canola Breeders Western Australia Pty Ltd. Mr Piper is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Neil Young
Neil Young operates a mixed farming business, which now has a no-till system with stubble retention and controlled traffic. He is a former national and state president of Rural Youth and became a key player in the Landcare movement as it was starting. He is a former president of West Australian No Till Farmers Association (WANTFA) and actively participated in the start of similar farmer groups in South Australia and Victoria. Mr Young initiated CAAANZ, the Conservation Agriculture Alliance of Australia and New Zealand. He is currently chair of the GRDC Western Panel.
Mr Philip Gardiner
Philip Gardiner was brought up on a family grain and sheep property at Moora and graduated from UWA with a BSc(Agric)(Hons) in 1969. After a short period with the Commonwealth Department of Trade and Industry, he completed an MBA at IMEDE (then Harvard's European Business School) in Switzerland. He was a founding director of Macquarie Bank Ltd and non-executive director until 1994. He has been a member of the Australian Wheat Board, a director of Barbeques Galore Ltd, chairman of The Sydney Futures Exchange Ltd and Index Ltd. He chaired the WA Government's Wool Strategy Group.
Mr Imre Mencshelyi
Imre Mencshelyi joined Cooperative Bulk Handling Ltd in 1967, becoming CEO of Australia's largest bulk handling company in 1994. His career has also included working on the introduction of a bulk handling system in Egypt to consultancy work for the Argentine Grain Board in Buenos Aires. His current focus is to streamline CBH operations to increase efficiencies and generate benefits for Western Australian grain growers, while positioning the company for increased domestic and international competition. Imre Mencshelyi is the president of the Australian Grains Institute.
Mr David Fienberg
David Fienberg is the senior manager for the Australian Grain Centre and Metro Grain Centre for the CBH Group, based at Forrestfield, Western Australia. He has many years experience with the grain industry including operations senior management, strategic and technical support, research and development within both the CBH Group and as a board member of the Stored Grain Research Laboratory and Corporate experience as the Assistant Company Secretary to CBH Ltd. David is a member of the participants committee for the CRC for National Plant Biosecurity, focused on developing solutions for sustainability of the national grain industry.
Dr Peter Trefort
Peter Trefort was educated at the Narrogin Agricultural College and has been farming at Narrogin ever since. The family farm has been under his control since clearing began in 1992 with enterprises including cattle, sheep, lamb finishing and cropping. He has spent eight years as a member of the WA Meat Industry Authority. Peter was elected to the Board of Meat and Livestock Australia in 2003 and became a board member of Ausmeat in 2006. A former member of WA Sheep Research and Development Committee, Peter was offered an Honorary Doctorate in Science at Murdoch University in December 2006. He has been actively involved in agricultural education advisory councils since 1976.
Dr Tony Fischer
Tony Fischer has Bachelor and Masters degrees in Agricultural Science from Melbourne University, with a PhD from the University of California Davis. He has worked for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico and with the CSIRO Plant Industry as Principal and Senior Principal Research Scientist. He has also been a director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science, the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Dr Fischer is an Honorary Research Fellow with CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, and is a member of the Board of the International Rice Research Institute.
Dr Jim Fortune
With a degree in Agriculture at UWA, the lure of research took Jim Fortune to Massey University in New Zealand in 1979 to do a PhD (agronomy and physiology). Massey provided Dr Fortune the opportunity to lecture and gave very real insights into agricultural systems. In the mid-1980s, he returned to Western Australia, first at Curtin University's Muresk campus and then at UWA as an academic/researcher in the plant-animal interface. At Adelaide University's Roseworthy campus he was involved in extension and plant-related research and teaching, later managing the crop protection program at the CRC for Weed Management Systems and Grains R&D Corporation. He was the executive director of the Grape and Wine Research Development Corporation from 2003 to 2007 and is still active as a consultant.
Mr Garry Robinson
Garry Robinson was one of the first students to graduate with a BSc(Animal Science)(Hons) degree from the then UWA Faculty of Agriculture. He has extensive experience in northern beef cattle production and export, intensive tropical poultry production and crocodile farming systems in the Northern Territory. He is involved in the production and development of specialist livestock for niche markets such as the Awassi sheep for live export to the Middle East. Mr Robinson was awarded the AWB Landmark Live Export Young Achiever of the Year Award in 2005. He is serving on an industry taskforce to guide the strategic direction of the live export industry services body LiveCorp. Garry is manager, livestock export, at Wellard Rural Exports Pty Ltd. Locally, he is involved in liaison with community and government representing industry in relation to issues of live export and Animal Welfare in Western Australia.
Dr Peter O'Brien
Peter O'Brien is managing director of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. RIRDC is a strong partnership between rural industry and government. Its research and development underpins productivity growth and sustainability in new and established industries and across national rural issues. Dr OBrien is a scientist who studied feral goats for his doctorate. He was previously executive director of the Bureau of Rural Sciences, advising the federal government on trends and issues in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. He has served on the board of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, the Cooperative Research Centre Selection Committee and the Australian Research Council Expert Committee. He is a board member of the Australian Poultry Science CRC.
Dr Don McFarlane
Don McFarlane received a BSc, MSc(NatResMgt) and PhD in geology, soil science and hydrogeology at UWA. He worked as an exploration geologist in Western Australia and on North Sea oil rigs. He joined the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, including 11 years based in Albany working on soil research and catchment hydrology. For his research on salinity, waterlogging and remote sensing he received awards from the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, the WA Minister for Primary Industries and CSIRO. For the past three years, he has been in charge of the WA node of the Water for a Healthy Country Flagship at the CSIRO. He is also an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.
Dr Stephen Loss
Stephen L oss completed his BScAgric(Hons) at UWA in 1985 and joined the WA Department of Agriculture to examine ways to manage frost damage in cereal crops. In 1989 he returned to he University to undertake a PhD investigating the effects of lupins on soil fertility, later rejoining the Department of Agriculture and the Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture to develop management packages for the alternative pulse crops such as faba beans, chickpeas and lentils. In 1999, he joined CSBP to manage its field experimental program and he is currently the manager of its technical services department, encompassing soil and plant testing, precision agriculture services and their field trial program.
Ms Naomi Arrowsmith
Naomi Arrowsmith is the south coast regional manager for the Department of Water, based in Albany. She has 22 years experience in the water industry. Ms Arrowsmith has a strong background in community involvement in natural resources management and in catchment and salinity planning and recovery. She advocates good science and community participation as the key elements to underpin water and catchment planning. She is a member of the Board of the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resources Management, of the regional catchment council SCRIPT Inc, and of the UWA Albany Foundation.
Mr Roger O'Dwyer
Roger O'Dwyer has worked in many sectors of Australian primary industry. As a principal policy officer with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, his main focus was on strategies to accelerate the rate of growth of primary industry. He has also been the director of Pastoral Division of the Northern Territory Department of Primary Industry, responsible for the agriculture and animal health areas, in addition to the pastoral industry. He has also worked as a rural consultant, in rural finance with Rural Adjustment in Western Australia and the Agricultural Bank of Tasmania as well as a period lecturing in farm business management at the Muresk Institute. In his current position as executive director for Industry and Rural Services with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food, Mr O'Dwyer has overall responsibility for strategic direction of the three main industry sectors of grains, animals and horticulture. The core outcome is improved productive capacity and profitability of Western Australias agri-industry. He is also responsible for the regional delivery of services.
Mr Andrew Ritchie
Andrew Ritchie has a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from UWA and a Masters in Textile Sconce from the University of Leeds in England. He spent eight years involved in sheep industry research and development with the Department of Agriculture and Food, focusing on breeding and management of merino wool quality and sheep breeding. In 1998 he joined JRL Hall and Co as a farm management consultant and has 10 years experience in farm management consulting, where he has developed an interest in farm business benchmarking and enterprise analysis. Mr Ritchie is the president of AAAC (Australian Association of Agricultural Consultants) and a long-term committee member.
Professor Tony O'Donnell
Professor Tony O'Donnell joined UWA as the Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences in August 2008. He obtained his PhD from the University of Bristol. His lecturing career started in 1984 in the Dept of Agricultural and Environmental Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. From 1992-1994 he was a Senior lecturer, and later (1996) promoted to Professor in Soil Microbiology and Molecular Ecology. Prof O'Donnell was the Director of the Institute for Research in Environment and Sustainability from 2002 - 2008. He currently sits on the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grants board for Plant and Microbial Sciences and on their Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Panel. Prof O'Donnell also sits on the Natural Environment Research Council research advisory panel for the Centres for Ecology and Hydrology (Biodiversity panel). He has previously chaired the grants board of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and holds adjunct Professorships in Thailand and Brazil. He has strong research interests in SE Asia and has led training workshops and UK trade missions in Thailand, Malaysia and Korea.
Professor Kadambot Siddique
Professor Siddique holds a BSc (Ag) 1st Class Honours, MSc (Ag) and PhD in Crop and Environmental Physiology. Professor Siddique has over 25 years experience in agricultural research and training in both Australia and overseas. He has developed a national and international reputation in the fields of farming systems, production agronomy, crop physiology, genetic resources, breeding and market research in cereal, grain legume (pulse) and oilseed crops. He has also developed an extensive network of scientists within Australia and overseas. The clearest demonstration of his original and independent research achievements is his substantial list of publications which includes: 128 peer reviewed scientific papers (refereed journals, book chapters, review papers), 76 conference papers, more than 100 technical publications, and two theses. A number of his publications are considered as key papers in the field of crop physiology, production agronomy, farming systems and germplasm enhancement, and are widely cited by other international researchers.
