NIAB Board of Directors
MRS ALISON BLACKBURN
Retired senior Civil Servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, currently Chairman of the Board of Governors at Harper Adams University College, a Director of LANTRA, the Sector Skills Council for the Land-based industries, and a Director of the Nuffield Farm Scholarships Trust. Alison has also served on the SCOP Governance Network Co-ordinating Committee and the HEFCE Leadership, Governance and Management Committee.
MR DAVID CAFFALL
Chief Executive, Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC), which represents 300 supply industry members supplying £6.5 Billion of the £9 Billion inputs into British Agriculture. David has held Chief Executive appointments in the supply industry since 1987, and is currently a member of the BASIS Board.
MR P HEYGATE
Joint MD of Heygates Group, Britain’s largest independent millers, a company employing 820 people and involved in flour milling, feed milling, baking and farming. Its bakery Fine Lady at Banbury is one of the most modern in Europe. The Bugbrooke site is steeped in history, incorporating flour milling, feed milling, research laboratories and a state of the art test bakery that was completed in 2005.
MR JEREMY LEWIS FCA (Chair of Finance Committee)
Currently has a Private Rural Business Consultancy with varied roles in the livestock, arable and poultry sectors. Was previously a partner in the accounting firm Grant Thornton as Head of Agriculture and with client work over 30 years in the rural sector. Latterly he was involved with the firm's UK and International Governance Boards. He is also a governor of Tudor Hall School and associated with a number of charitable organisations in the UK. He farms Dexter cattle in Oxfordshire.
PROFESSOR JOHN PARKER
Professor John Parker is Professor of Plant Cytogenetics in the Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Clare Hall. He is Director of the University Botanic Garden and Curator of the University Herbarium. His research concerns genetic mechanisms underlying plant evolution, with an interest in the history of evolutionary thinking itself. He is also concerned with the relationship between sustainability and architecture. As well as scientific papers on genetics and evolution he has written many popular articles concerning plants, evolution and the environment and gives public lectures on plant and evolution-based topics. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Natural History Museum, has served on the Council of the RHS and as a Trustee of RBG Kew. Currently he is a Trustee of Science and Plants for Schools and a Visiting Professor at Universidad Complutense, Madrid.
MR TONY PEXTON (CHAIR)
Tony Pexton oversees the operation of a family farm in East Yorkshire where pigs are reared from progeny to bacon and wheat, oilseed rape and vining beans are grown. He was elected to the NFU Council in 1981 and went on to serve as Chairman of the National Cereal Committee from 1987 to 1992 and as Vice-President and Deputy President between 1992 and 2000. Mr Pexton has served on the Council of the Oxford Farming Conference, acting as Chairman in 2002, and as a Board member of Assured Food Standards, and Chairman of the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme. In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Farmers Club. In 2005, he was awarded the OBE for services to agriculture and currently holds office as Chairman of the Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust, Chairman of NIAB and Chairman of the Sustainable Arable Link Research & Development Programme Management Committee for Defra.
PROFESSOR PETER SHEWRY
Currently Associate Director and Scientific Director of the Centre for Crop Genetic Improvement at Rothamsted Research. He has over 30 years' experience of studying seed structure and composition. He has participated in a number of EU funded projects and co-ordinated the EUROWHEAT project under FP4. He was awarded the Thomas Burr Osborne medal by the American Association of Cereal Chemists in 2000 and the Rank Prize for Nutrition in 2002.
PROFESSOR FRANCESCO SALAMINI
Professor Salamini is Professor of Genetic Technologies at the University of Milan, Chairman Scientific Board at the Parco Tecnologico Padano (Lodi), and honorary Professor at the University of Köln. He has been Head of the Maize Section in Bergamo of the Institute of Cereal Research of Rome (1975-1985); Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung in Köln (1985-2004); Chairman Scientific Committee of the Genome Programme Genoplante in Paris (2000- 2006). He has published more than 550 articles in specialized journals and holds a degree in Agricultural Sciences.