SPONSORS
Conference Secretariat
Louise Watson
Conference Manager
Conferences &
Events Ltd
P O Box 1254
Nelson
New Zealand
Tel: +64 3 546
6022
Fax: +64 3 546
6020
e-mail: gas@confer.co.nz
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SPEAKERS
Dr Richard Eckard |
Dr
Richard Eckard completed his B.Sc. (Agric), M.Sc. (Agric) and PhD
through the University of Natal in South Africa. Richard worked as a
Grassland Scientist with the Cedara Agricultural Development Institute,
South Africa between 1983 and 1994. In 1995 he joined the Tasmanian
Institute for Agricultural Research, University of Tasmania, located in
Burnie, Tasmania, as Dairy Research Leader.In July 1997 he was jointly
appointed by the Faculty of Land and Food Resources, University of
Melbourne and Victorian Department of Primary Industries, located at
DPI Ellinbank, to lead a statewide research program entitled
“Best Management Practice for nitrogen fertiliser use on
intensive pastures”.
This
research project investigated ammonia volatilisation, nitrate leaching
and denitrification, including nitrous oxide, losses from a fertilised
and grazed dairy pasture system. In 2001 Richard initiated the DPI
project “Greenhouse and Climate Change in Agriculture”,
funded largely by DPI and the Victorian Greenhouse Strategy. This
research project investigated methane emissions from dairy and beef
cattle, nitrous oxide emissions from irrigated dairy pastures and
dryland winter wheat in Victoria, as well as spatially mapping the
agronomic impacts of climate change scenarios on a range of
agricultural production systems in Victoria.
When DPI
and DSE joined the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting in July 2003 this
project formed the majority of the work under their “Non-CO2
emissions” program, of which Richard was the national program
leader. Although the CRC ended in June 2006, the “Greenhouse in
Agriculture” project continues within DPI, focusing on methane
emissions from dairy cattle and nitrous oxide emissions from mixed
farming systems in western Victoria. Richard also leads a new statewide
research team investigating adaptation options for agricultural
production systems in Victoria. Richard also leads a farm systems
modelling project entitled “Whole Farm Systems Analysis and Tools
for Australian and New Zealand Grazing Industries”, funded
jointly by Dairy Australia, Meat and Livestock Australia and AgResearch
New Zealand.
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Mark Leslie |
During
the 1990’s Mark worked as a Farm Consultant with Livestock
Improvement Corporation before becoming Technical Support Manager in
the same organization providing technical information and support to
field staff advising dairy farmers on farm management.
In the late 1990’s Mark joined the
New Zealand Dairy Board as a Commercial Strategist. With the formation
of Fonterra Co-operative Ltd he joined the Fonterra Milk Supply Team,
the interface between Fonterra and its Supplier-Shareholders. Mark is
the General Manager, Sustainable Milk Growth for Fonterra. The position
involves leading Fonterra’s strategic approach to protecting and
developing its global milk sourcing position including
specialty milks, delivery of strategies, policies and cross-industry
initiatives to drive on-farm sustainability also Fonterra’s
response to national / international sustainability and biosecurity
risks and standards. The position covers direct operational delivery of
Milk Quality processes, systems and procedures ensuring the business
unit meets their strategic and operational KPI’s and targets.
Mark has been Chair of the Pastoral
Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium (PGgRc) since it commenced
operations in 2002. The PGgRc aims to understand and provide mitigation
solutions for greenhouse gases produced by grazing animals. The PGgRc
research programme aims to provide New Zealand livestock farmers with
the
knowledge and tools to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.
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Michael Kreuzer, Professor of Animal Nutrition |
Born
on May 5, 1956 in Germany, Michael Kreuzer graduated in Agricultural
Sciences at the Technical University of Munich. He obtained his
doctorate in 1984 and completed his habilitation in 1988 both at the
Institute of Nutritional Physiology of the Technical University of
Munich. His doctoral thesis was awarded the Thurn and Taxis Prize and
his habilitation thesis won the Henneberg Lehmann Prize.
In 1991 he
was appointed Professor of Product Quality at the University of
Göttingen. Michael Kreuzer was appointed full Professor of Animal
Nutrition at the Institute of Animal Sciences of ETH Zurich in 1994.
From 2004 to 2006 he was the deputy head of the Department of
Agriculture, and since 2003 he is the delegate of the ETH Research
Stations comprising Chamau, Früebüel and the high altitude
station Weissenstein. He is a member of the board of the Centre for
International Agriculture (ZIL). Within ZIL, he is head of the Steering
Committee for the program 'Livestock Systems Research in Support of
Poor People'.
In the
EU-COST Action 852 'Quality Legume-Based Forage Systems for Contrasting
Environments' he is working group leader and management committee
member. He is the secretary of the International Scientific Committee
of the regular 'International Symposium on Energy and Protein
Metabolism' and is editor of the Journal of Animal Physiology and
Animal Nutrition. He authored or co-authored >400 publications (200
thereof refereed). He was the organizer of the second Greenhouse Gas
and Animal Agriculture congress (GGAA2005).
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Karen Beauchemin, PhD
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Karen
Beauchemin is a senior research scientist at the Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada Research Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta, and an adjunct
professor at several Canadian universities (University of British
Columbia, University of Alberta, and University of Saskatchewan).
Before starting a career in research, Dr. Beauchemin spent three years
in the feed industry. She obtained a PhD in ruminant nutrition at the
University of Guelph (1988), an MSc in animal nutrition at Laval
University (1982), and her BSc in agriculture at McGill University
(1978).
Dr. Beauchemin has developed a broad-based research program to improve
feed utilization by ruminants. She is recognized for her
expertise in the areas of rumen function and forage utilization of beef
and dairy cattle. More recently, her work explores the potential of
reducing greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from cattle through diet.
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Cecile de Klein
of AgResearch |
Dr
Cecile de Klein is a senior scientist with AgResearch, based at its
Invermay campus near Dunedin, New Zealand. Born and educated at Utrecht
University in the Netherlands, Cecile completed her PhD on
denitrification in grazed grasslands in the early 90s. She then took up
a 2-year postdoc with ADAS in Cambridge, UK, to develop their
capability for measuring N2O emissions from agricultural soils.
Since arriving in New Zealand in
1995, Cecile has worked in the general area of environmental science
and soil science, but remained a strong focus on research into N2O
emissions from soils. She was convenor of the national N2O
research network, NzOnet, and coordinated national research programmes
on N2O emissions from soil to improve New Zealand’s inventory
methodology. Cecile has also led various research projects on
evaluating the effectiveness of N2O mitigation technologies such as
winter grazing practice and nitrification inhibitors, using both field
experimentation and modelling approaches.
Recently, Cecile was the New
Zealand representative and lead-author, for the development of the N2O
chapter of the 2006 Revised Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Inventories
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cecile is currently
the Programme Leader for the research component of the Dairy InSight
Environmental Sustainability platform. She is leading a
cross-organisation R&D programme focused on the development of
farmer-friendly tools and technologies for reducing losses of nitrogen,
phosphorus, sediment and faecal indicator organisms to our surface
water bodies.
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Jamie Newbold |
Jamie Newbold graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne with
BSc Honours in Agricultural Biochemistry and Nutrition in 1981.
He went onto do his PhD on Microbial metabolism of lactic
acid in the rumen at the Hannah research Institute in Scotland.
Currently Jamie is Professor of
Animal Science and Director of Research at the Institute of Rural
Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Walkes, UK. Prior to
joining the University, Jamie was based at the Rowett Research
institute in Aberdeen, Scotland for 16 years. Jamie has recently been
appointed as co-director of the Centre for Integrated Research in the
Rural Environment a collaborative venture between the University of
Wales, Aberystwyth and University of Wales, Bangor which aims to
bring together expertise in innovative research of the highest
quality from within the two universities that is integrated across
disciplines to provide evidence that underpins the key decisions for
the sustainability of the rural environment; in Wales, in the UK and,
through collaboration, throughout the world.
Jamie’s research interests have focused on the understanding and
manipulation of gut ecosystems to improve animal productivity while
reducing the environmental impact of animal husbandry.
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Hugo van der Meer |
Hugo van der Meer is a senior scientist with the Agrosystems Research
Unit of Plant Research International at Wageningen UR, The Netherlands.
Hugo
has 25 years of experience in conducting and managing research on
nitrogen management in grasslands and ruminant livestock farms. This
includes: (1) analysis of the efficiency of N utilisation in farming
systems and of opportunities for improvement; (2) analysis of factors
affecting the efficiency of N utilisation on dairy farms; (3)
development of low-emission slurry application techniques; (4)
quantification of N flows and losses in grazed grasslands and livestock
farms; (5) quantification of the contribution of legumes to the N
supply of farms; (6) integration of this knowledge in farm models and
in new environmentally sound farming systems; (7) participation in
regional and national studies on the impact of agriculture on the
environment; (8) consultancies on livestock production and the
environment in USA, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam.
10 years of R&D in
improvement of grassland and fodder production in different
eco-regions, viz. temperate regions, tropical highlands, humid tropics
and semi-arid regions in Central America, Peru, China, Pakistan.
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Chris McSweeny |
Chris
McSweeney is a Senior Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO Livestock
Industries. He leads a research team which focuses on the ecology and
physiology of gut microrganisms in food producing animals.
Recent areas of research include the microbiology underpinning
hydrogenotrophy in gut ecosystems, ecology of food-borne pathogens in
livestock and microbial detoxification of plant phytochemicals. His
laboratory is also at the forefront of development and application of
new and improved molecular ecology tools for complex analysis of gut
microbial communities.
He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and multiple
reviews/book chapters on research relating to herbivore nutrition and
related gut microbiology.
____________________________________________________________________________ |
Dr.
Frank O'Mara |
Dr.
Frank O'Mara has been Assistant Director of Agriculture Research in
Teagasc (the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority) since
November 2006. Before that, he lectured in University College
Dublin for 13 years, where he was Associate Professor of Animal
Nutrition.
His research covered many aspects of ruminant nutrition and production
systems, and in recent years it had involved a programme on nutritional
influences on methane production in ruminants. He was Secretary
to the XX International Grassland Congress in 2005, and was one of the
Lead Authors of the Agriculture Chapter of the IPCC 4th Assessment
Report - Working Group 3: Mitigation.
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JB LIANG |
JuanBoo Liang obtained his B. Agric. Sc. at University Malaya, Malaysia
(1974), MSc in animal nutrition at James Cook University of Northern
Queensland, Australia (1984) and PhD in animal nutrition at University
of Alberta, Canada (1993). He is a senior research fellow at the
Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and an
honorary professor at Gansu Agricultural University and Yunnan
Agricultural University, China. JB Liang also serves as key
collaborator and consultant to several national and international
projects on wastes, particularly livestock wastes management, including
converting biogas from livestock wastewater treatment system into
renewed energy.
Earlier research of JB Liang focused on energy and protein metabolisms
of tropical ruminant livestock, particularly water buffaloes. Since
seconded to UPM in 1997, after serving 22 years in the Malaysian
Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), JB Liang has
widened his research areas to include minimizing the adverse effects of
intensive livestock production on the environment in developing
countries. His recent research interest covers areas such as use of
constructed wetland for wastewater treatment, phytoremediation of soil
contaminated with heavy metals and antibiotic residues and converting
agricultural wastes into renewed energy.
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Tim McAllister |
Tim
McAllister obtained his M.Sc. in Animal Biochemistry at the University
of Alberta and his Ph. D. in rumen microbiology and
nutrition from the University of Guelph in1991. He obtained a
NSERC postdoctoral fellowship with the University of Calgary where he
conducts studies on the role of microbial biofilms in feed digestion in
the rumen. He was appointed to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
in 1993 and after terms in technical and biologist positions he was
promoted to a Principal Research Scientist in 2005.
He is presently in charge of a diverse research team studying various
aspects of microbial ecology and nutrition as they relate to beef
production. He has participated on the development of methods to
both measure and mitigate methane emissions in ruminants. Tim
served as one of the lead authors on the chapter on Livestock and
manure emissions for Volume 4, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land USE
2006 IPCC and a contributing author to the Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in
Agriculture IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Tim has authored over
200 scientific papers and is a recipient of the Pfizer Young Scientist
Award, and the Elanco Award for the Production of Safe and Affordable
Food for his contributions to beef production in Canada. He
spends his free time mountain biking and hiking with his wife and two
children in the Canadian Rockies.
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Jan Willem
van Groenigen |
Jan
Willem van Groenigen is a senior scientist at the Alterra research
institute (Wageningen, The Netherlands), and assistant professor at the
department of Soil Quality of Wageningen University. He completed both
his MSc (1994) and PhD (1999) in spatial soil science / GIS at
Wageningen University. From 1999 to 2002, he was a postdoctoral fellow
at the University of California at Davis (USA), focusing on stable
isotope tracing of nitrogen and carbon through agroecosystems. From
2002 until present, he works at Alterra, which he combines with an
appointment at Wageningen University since 2006.
His main expertise is on nitrogen and carbon cycling in agricultural
systems, with a strong emphasis on greenhouse gas emissions and isotope
tracing. His current research interests include greenhouse gas
emissions from animal- and plant production systems and N2O production
and - consumption in the soil. Ongoing projects include the influence
of urine composition on N2O emissions; nitrifier denitrification as an
N2O-producing pathway; interactions between macrobiota, soil structure,
and nutrients in greenhouse gas production; and the isotope
geochemistry of N2O.
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