New Far head has extensive credentials

Foundation for Arable Research (Far) new chief executive officer Dr Alison Stewart speaks to a Women In Arable meeting in Ashburton last week. Photo: Toni Williams
Foundation for Arable Research (Far) new chief executive officer Dr Alison Stewart speaks to a Women In Arable meeting in Ashburton last week. Photo: Toni Williams
The new head of the Foundation for Arable Research (Far) has an open, honest style, a sense of humour - and a warm Scottish lilt.

And that is just the tip of chief executive officer Dr Alison Stewart's credentials.

Dr Stewart was guest speaker at a Women In Arable meeting in Ashburton last week.

Her warm, honest style and sense of humour was evident.

But her wealth of knowledge and experience was inspiring.

In Dr Stewart's words at the time, she has been in the top job for six weeks and four days.

She says the job has already been a real eye-opener.

Hailing from Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow in Scotland, Dr Stewart had no agricultural background when she decided to study agricultural botany at university.

She went on to get a PhD in plant pathology from the University of Stirling before heading down under.

She started at Auckland University, and in her early research years did work with vegetable growers at Pukekohe, which she enjoyed. So when she moved south to Lincoln University she focused on applied research.

As an applied plant scientist, she focused on sustainable disease management, soil biology and plant biotechnology.

She was the founding director of the Bio-Protection Research Centre at Lincoln University from 2003 until 2011. During that time she gained an AgResearch Technology Transfer Award (2002), MAFBNZ Biosecurity Award for Excellence (2008) and was awarded a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of services to biology (2009).

After moving to the United States, Dr Stewart worked in the private sector as senior vice-president R&D and chief technical officer at Marrone Bio Innovations in California.

She was there for three years before the lure of New Zealand called and she returned, this time into the forestry sector.

As Scion's forest science general manager she led a range of activities including breeding, agronomy, biosecurity, remote sensing, wood quality and value chain optimisation.

She was also responsible for Scion's strategic relationships with national and international stakeholders.

Last year she was a member of the Ministry of Primary Industries-led primary sector science direction steering committee.

She is a Fellow of the NZ Institute for Agricultural and Horticultural Science and a Fellow of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society.

She also has specialist knowledge in the area of plant protection, a wealth of experience in managing research groups and programmes in New Zealand universities and Crown Research Institutes.

Her research encompasses everything from cutting edge molecular technologies to product development and on-farm trials.

In her commercial work in NZ and the US, she developed and commercialised several biologically based pest and disease management technologies for the agriculture, horticulture and nursery sectors, and sat on the boards of Plant & Food Research in New Zealand and The Waite Research Institute at the University of Adelaide.

-By Toni Williams

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