 Don Mentz began his impressive career as an agronomist in the mid 1950’s in the Victorian public service. Don was Executive Director of the Crawford Fund between 1999 and 2002 and his most important contribution related to enhancements in the Fund's management practices and processes.
In memory of Don, the Crawford Fund's former Executive Director, Dr Bob Clements, has prepared an obituary which can be accessed via our website. To read his tribute, click here. |
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PLANT PATHOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS ON INSTAGRAM
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 Honorary Professor Lester Burgess, renowned plant pathologist and member of our NSW Committee, is currently mentoring Australian volunteers and scientists in plant pathology in Laos. His current work also involves working closely with farmers and local scientists, in particular on diseases of watermelon.
To share their experiences and build awareness, Lester and his wife Jillian have set up an Instagram site and are uploading photos of their project work in Laos. To access the site, click on this link. To read more about Lester and his work, go to our website.
We will continue to report on our ongoing work around plant pathology in Laos, so keep an eye on our website for the latest news. |
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AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS TO BRUCE STANDEN
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 We are pleased to report the acknowledgement in this year’s Australia Day Honours of the commitment to Australian and international agriculture by Dr Bruce Standen, NSW Committee member and former coordinator. As reported in a number of rural publications, Bruce was appointed a member in the general division of the order of Australia (AM) for services to primary industry, particularly to agricultural economics, sustainability and research. In addition to his work for the Crawford Fund, many of his contributions were noted, including his roles at the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation, Ocean Watch Australia, the Sydney Fish Markets and the University of New England Foundation. Congratulations Bruce!
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The Crawford Fund’s public awareness program continues to facilitate journalist visits to developing countries and short video productions to showcase agriculture for development work, our training and volunteers. These videos are available on our YouTube site.
 We are currently finalising some videos from a recent filming visit to Vietnam on a range of projects and training supported by ACIAR, Global Food Studies at the University of Adelaide and the Crawford Fund. Stay tuned as some of the videos are being planned for International Women’s Day in March this year. Other ‘Seeing is Believing’ field visits are being arranged for the winners of the Fund’s Food Security Journalism Award, which will be launched next month.
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 The Crawford Fund recently supported training on sustainable furniture design for four young designers from Laos and Vietnam. The training, held at RMIT University’s School of Architecture and Design, provided participants with both theoretical and practical knowledge of sustainable furniture design.
The participants (pictured) were actively involved in the training activities, and stated that they were privileged to have an opportunity to gain new experience and knowledge from Australian experts in furniture design. To read more about the training, visit our website.
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 An intensive one week course on capacity building in natural resources and indigenous livelihoods took place in December 2015 at Charles Darwin University. The Crawford Fund training provided essential theory and hands-on experience in community-based enterprise development, sustainable livelihoods and indigenous rights-based management.
The trainees (pictured) were marine resource management practitioners from Eastern Indonesia and as part of the training they were exposed to several Australian case studies. To read about their impressions of the training, visit our website.
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 A Crawford Fund trainee from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia, recently visited the University of Sydney to learn digital soil mapping methods for characterising tropical peatlands. Dr Rudi Yanto (pictured) aims to estimate the depths of peatlands in Indonesia, and the amounts of carbon stored in them, by developing a model which uses field data for validation.
“Quantifying the amount of carbon will lead to a better understanding of the global significance of Indonesia’s peatlands,” said Prof Minasmy of the University of Sydney's Soil Security Centre. To learn more about Rudi’s work on mapping tropical peatlands, visit our website. |
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We will be announcing the theme and conference details for our 2016 annual conference in our February e-newsletter. In the meantime, we are happy to highlight upcoming events that have a food security focus. The following events may be of interest:
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FINAL CALL FOR DEREK TRIBE AWARD NOMINATIONS
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 The Derek Tribe Award was initiated in 2001, in honour of the outstanding contributions to the promotion of international agricultural research by the founding director of the Fund, Emeritus Professor Derek Tribe AO, OBE, FTSE. The award is made biennially to a citizen of a developing country, in order to recognise their significant contributions to agriculture or natural resource management.
Since the closing date is fast approaching (29 February 2016), this is the final call for nominations. For more details on the terms and conditions, please visit our website.
For information about supporting other Crawford Fund initiatives, click here to donate online.
Donations to the Fund are tax deductible.
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