Armand Smit is a young consultant who previously worked as a technical grower liaison for Mayo Macs in South Africa, where he helped growers manage highly productive orchards from the establishment phase through to maximising mature trees. Armand collaborated on much-needed research into macadamia water relations and tree stress in South Africa for his BSc (Agriculture) and MSc. Since moving to Australia to take up a position with Macadamia Farm Management in Maryborough, Armand has challenged traditional macadamia production systems with his fresh and principled approach.

Dublin born chef and restaurateur Colin Fassnidge first appeared as a guest judge on My Kitchen Rules in 2012 and has spent eight years on the program, becoming a fan favourite on the top- rating program. Colin also hosted his own two-part series ‘Colin’s Ireland’. 
Known for his nose to tail cooking philosophy, the cheeky and outspoken Irishman firmly believes the secret to cooking a great dish is planning and “having a bit of love for the food”. 
Colin, who counts pork, potato, lemon and peas among his favourite ingredients to cook with, says he was drawn to cooking as a career at the age of 12 after seeing esteemed French chef Raymond Blanc on a television program. 
The father of two began his career at London’s Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in 1994 where he completed his apprenticeship under his idol, Raymond Blanc. 
Colin stayed in London for five years before heading to Australia after deciding to combine his love of travel with work. Arriving in Australia in 1999, Colin worked at some of Sydney’s most acclaimed restaurants including Banc and est. While working at est, Colin met his wife Jane, who hails from Northern Ireland. Colin was Executive Chef of two-hatted restaurant, The Four in Hand Dining Room from October 2005 to January 2016, as well as hatted restaurant 4Fourteen, from 2011 to 2018.
Crowned GQ Magazine’s Chef of the Year in 2013, Colin released his first cook-book Four Kitchens in 2014, is a regular contributor to Delicious Magazine and recently released his long awaited second cook-book, The Commonsense Cook in 2020. 
When he’s not cooking, filming or writing recipes, Colin’s a family man and an avid supporter of a number of charities, including Oz Harvest and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. 

Craig Shephard led the Queensland Land Use Mapping Program in the Department of Environment and Science. He has 20 years professional experience in the mapping of landscape attributes, particularly land cover and land use. Before that Craig spent two years mapping crime in London. Craig holds a Bachelor of Science majoring in Environmental Science and Geography from Macquarie University, and is particularly focused on applying Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to natural resource management. Working in the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program, Craig collaborates with numerous project partners, stakeholders and industries to map horticulture tree crops around Australia.

Daryl combines his roles as a successful macadamia grower and owner of an earthmoving business, BDN Earthmovers. The business specialises in GPS guided farm services mainly for tree crops, including setting out for irrigation designs, mounding rows and planting trees, and Daryl also undertakes contract tree shaking of macadamia nuts in the district. Daryl and his wife Nicole bought the family farm from Daryl’s parents, who were second generation dairy farmers, and converted it to a 26,000-tree macadamia enterprise. A big challenge recently has been the impact of the drought as the farm has no access to irrigation water other than what is held in on-farm storages. This led Daryl to explore innovative ways of prioritising available water and of conserving soil moisture e.g. under-tree mulching.

David’s successful career as an award-winning farmer began in Zimbabwe where he grew both irrigated and dryland crops. In 2003, David and his family relocated to Australia, and he put his experience to work and bought a mature macadamia orchard near Gympie. David built up the neglected orchard up over a period of ten years so that when he sold it in 2013, it was recognised as one of the premium operations in the macadamia industry in Australia. David now manages Macadamia Farm Management orchards at Maryborough.

Denise works with trees and people. After completing her degree in Australian Environmental Studies, she campaigned to protect the Wet Tropics World Heritage Forests in Far North Queensland, then worked with the Forestry Department and Queensland farmers to integrate trees into farms – the right tree, in the right place, for the right reason. For the next 10 years, Denise and her family lived in Nepal, Uganda and Palau working on community forestry projects. As executive officer of the Macadamia Conservation Trust, she works with industry and the wider community to protect wild relatives of the world’s best nut – conserving the source of Australia’s gift to the world.

Dr John Grant has had thirty years’ experience in land and soil mapping and research across Australia and internationally. His particular interests lie in soil health, nutrient cycling and agroecology, carbon sequestration in soils, and soil parameters and plantation productivity relationships. John has been involved
in lecturing in soils at Southern Cross University for 18 years.

Dr Abigail Makim is an agroecologist who specialises in working in horticulture crops such as macadamias and blueberries. She is particularly interested in conservation biocontrol, cover cropping, crops for human and animal nutrition, and real-world research for regenerative farming systems. In recent years Abigail has been working with Bioresources Pty Ltd in trials investigating insectaries in the macadamia interrow. She has also worked with Berries Australia on phytonutrients.

Dr Chris Searle is an independent horticultural consultant who has been providing advice to the macadamia and avocado industries around the world for two decades. Chris has an extensive background in tree crop research and has worked in key roles at Australia’s premier research institutions, including CSIRO, University of Queensland and Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland, as well as at some of the world’s largest macadamia processing businesses where he provided practical, on-farm assistance to macadamia growers. He has a special interest in nursery and orchard establishment and optimisation and is committed to helping growers and investors increase their productivity and profitability using the latest on-farm innovation and technology. 

Dr Christopher Carr is an entomologist who also studies and teaches the ecology of insects. He has a passion for insect conservation and using beneficial insects in agricultural landscapes. Chris and the BioResources team are part of the Macadamia Integrated Pest Management Project and are focussing on inter-row management to conserve and encourage beneficials.

Dr Daniel Manson is a Bundaberg-based macadamia productivity consultant and researcher specialising in irrigation management and physiology in macadamias. Daniel has managed several, large-scale macadamia irrigation trials in central Queensland and helped growers increase productivity through improved irrigation management. He also has extensive experience in forestry management across Asia and Australia and has conducted research into commercial irrigation management in low rainfall situations for a variety of crops, including Eucalyptus plantations in South Australia and Indian Sandalwood plantations in northern Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Daniel was awarded a doctorate in Biological Sciences from Southern Cross University and University of Queensland in 2011 for his research on tropical tree plantations.

James received a PhD in electronics from Macquarie University in 2005. He then worked on an ARC linkage project, modelling and designing devices for millimetre-wave communications. He subsequently worked with several companies, including Broadcom for 5 years, where he designed radio frequency circuits for WiFi chips, some of which were used in high-end smartphones. In 2015, he moved into agricultural research, particularly focusing on wireless sensor networks and remote sensing for irrigation optimisation at Deakin University. He joined UNE in 2019, where he is engaged in applied analytics of remote sensing data for agricultural projects across multiple industries.

Dr Rohan Orford joined Macadamias Australia as Grower Technical Manager in 2020. Before that he was a technical advisor for a South African macadamia processing cooperative, Mayo Macs, where he was responsible for enhancing the performance and sustainability of 150 growers representing about 6000 ha of planted trees. During his years with Mayo Macs, Rohan especially enjoyed sharing new insights from modelling various facets of the industry, such as simulating farm budgets and pricing scenarios and using yield projection models to benchmark growers. Rohan has a special interest in agroecology and has a PhD in modelling water use in sustainable dryland agroecological systems.

Dr Russ Stephenson has been involved in horticulture and the macadamia industry for 34 years. In this time he has worked in research, academia and industry extension specialising in R&D and cultural management of macadamia and has published more than 50 scientific papers. For much of his career he worked at the Maroochy Horticultural Research Station, where he was a senior principal horticulturist. Russ has also been involved promoting macadamia production in countries such as Fiji, Hawaii, South Africa and Malawi. The aim of his research, which has included a focus on physiology, nutrition, water relations, flowering and fruit development, has always been to achieve higher yields of high quality macadamias.

Dr Theunis Smit is a professional macadamia consultant and researcher with extensive experience in production across several countries, including South Africa and Australia. He was a student lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Plant Production and Soil Science while he studied for his BSc
(Agriculture), MSc (Agronomy) and doctorate, where he focused on water use dynamics. He has become a world expert in water relations in macadamia . He has been both a technical grower liaison and private consultant in South Africa and is now employed by Macadamia Farm Management based in Bundaberg
working in macadamia ecophysiology.

Queensland Editor for Gourmet Traveller since 2006, Fiona Donnelly has covered the length and breadth of her home state in search of premium food and travel experiences for readers.

A former Food Editor at The Courier Mail, she has profiled everybody from niche producers and international celebrity chefs to local hospitality stalwarts, newcomers and industry innovators.

Her restaurant and hotel reviews, producer stories, profiles, interviews and travel features have appeared in national publications ranging from Gourmet Traveller and The Good Food Guide to Qantas Magazine, The Guardian, The Courier-Mail, Adelaide’s The Advertiser, Melbourne’s The Age, Sydney’s The Herald Sun and more.

She also edited popular weekly food supplements Good Life and Taste, and co-published and co-edited The Courier Mail Food & Wine Guide.

Jacqui is a passionate marketer specialising in food and tourism, with extensive experience in marketing, brand strategy, and new product commercialisation. Her experience covers multiple points along the value chain - from retail, foodservice, manufacturer, to grower and business to business, giving her a unique understanding of the complexities of the market. Jacqui has worked with household brand names like Birds Eye, Leggos, Edgell, Nestle, Buderim Ginger, and The Ginger Factory Tourism Attraction. She is a board member of the Sunshine Coast Food and Agribusiness Network (FAN) where she works with local companies to help them develop innovative ways of growing their business and creating positive connections with their customers.

Jeremy Bright has 31 years’ experience in a variety of horticultural industries across Australia under a range of climates and challenges. He has broad experience with subtropical/tropical fruit tree crop industries (macadamia, blueberry, bananas, mangoes, papaya, citrus and cashew), temperate fruit tree crops (pome and stone fruit, and viticulture) and vegetables (asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, capsicum, rockmelon and watermelon). Jeremy’s expertise covers a broad range of horticultural issues from production to marketing. He has been involved in developing and conducting both extension projects and research trials, giving him good insight into the interface between research results and application on-farm and an understanding of effective extension methodologies to support adoption of new technologies. Jeremy’s recent work with the macadamia industry includes author of the popular Integrated Orchard Management Practice Guide 2016, Integrated Orchard Management Case Study 2016 and the third in the IOM series Integrated Orchard Management Drainage Toolkits 2017. Jeremy is also the author of the Macadamia Plant Protection Guide. He is the NSW team member of the Benchmarking project MC18002

Jillian Laing is an experienced international marketer with over three decades of marketing and business development experience in the global food industry. Jillian has worked in a broad range of roles across the industry, from Fast Moving Consumer Goods (predominately snack food and biscuits) to science and technology (with a focus on food processing equipment) and most recently in the dairy industry at Fonterra, New Zealand. At Fonterra, Jillian was focussed on marketing ingredients to global food manufacturers, which included new product development, pricing, service offers and branding. Jillian has also worked across the food service and consumer business with a focus on South East Asia and China.

Leoni Kojetin is tasked with delivering the Australian macadamia industry’s innovation and adoption program which aims to raise productivity through the implementation of research and development. She is passionate about providing practical resources which build the capacity of our growers as well as finding innovative and sustainable ways to add value along the macadamia supply chain. Leoni’s involvement in the industry started years before joining the AMS when she established and managed a macadamia nursery in the Northern Rivers.

Michael has an extensive background in agriculture and horticulture, from growing cattle and broadacre crops to successfully running blueberry and citrus enterprises that grew, packed and marketing the fruit globally. In 2020, he began planting macadamias on his 240 ha farm near Bundaberg, where is applying innovative approaches to establishing and managing the orchard. He is trialling techniques such as block planting of single varieties as a way of making orchard operations such as fertilising and irrigation more efficient and specific to those varieties. Michael was elected to the AMS Board in 2021.

Michael Russo is a fourth generation farmer and, with his family, operates a cane and macadamia farm at Farnsfield, near Childers in Queensland. The Russo family diversified into macadamias in 2015 and have now planted close to 200 ha of trees. They are well known for their innovation and ability to combine trial work with the latest in yield monitoring technology to determine the optimum inputs for their farm. Michael is passionate about the need to build pathways for young people to enter the macadamia industry and is an advocate for providing guidance for growers so they can take advantage of current great prices through higher yields and reduced production losses. Michael was elected to the AMS Board in 2019.

Myles holds a B. Com Hons in Finance from the University of Natal. Myles started his career at Goldman Sachs in London where he held a number of roles over 5 years, including as a Currency Trader for a team managing over $15 billion in assets. He then joined South African Sugar Association in 2008 as the Export Trading Manager, responsible for the hedge book, physical marketing and logistics of the entire South African bulk sugar exports. In 2012, Myles joined the family farming business which he has continued to develop extensively whilst ensuring that the business partakes in the whole value chain in all their agricultural products, by forming multiple marketing companies. Myles sits on numerous boards and in 2018 Myles was voted onto the South African Macadamia Association Board as the Commercial director.

Professor Andrew Robson’s agricultural science career extends over 20 years in which time he has developed a thorough understanding of remote sensing technologies and analytics and engaged with industry to ensure the research and development adheres to specific needs. In 2012, Andrew joined the University of New England and, with his team, undertakes applied remote sensing research in agriculture and horticulture. In 2013, he brought together a multidisciplinary team that mapped all commercial avocado, mango and macadamia orchards across Australia to assist with biosecurity response and natural disaster monitoring. The project also evaluated remote sensing and robotic platforms to identify those best suited for improving on-farm management. Andrew has just established the Applied Agricultural Remote Sensing Centre, which will build on the national collaborative network and provide industries with a trusted gateway to remote sensing technologies and analytics, offer education and training in applied agricultural remote sensing and continue to bridge the gap between industry, research and commercialisation. 

Professor Helen Wallace has been a macadamia researcher since the “dark ages” (before there was email, internet and mobile phones). She is an international expert on fruit and nut crops and has published extensively on pollination and post-harvest issues in macadamia. She has established new nut industries in three countries and currently leads a funding portfolio of around $6 million in international projects on fruit and nuts crops, post-harvest processing and bees. She has written almost 100 scientific articles, mostly on nuts and bees, and has served on numerous government advisory committees (including Australian Research Council panels), in recognition of her expertise in tree crops.

Professor Stephen Trueman has over 30 years’ experience in pollination biology and plant propagation. He completed his PhD on macadamia pollination in 1993 and later worked on ethephon sprays and mechanical shakers for accelerating the harvest of late-dropping varieties. Stephen currently leads $8 million of research projects on pollination and crop nutrition of macadamia, almond, avocado and mango trees. He uses DNA paternity tests to identify the pollen parent of fruit and nuts in orchards. His team has recently demonstrated that, as with almonds, many macadamia varieties are self-sterile.

Richard’s company BioResources Pty Ltd specialises in the development and supply of beneficial insects for crop pests and researching ways to make farms more sustainable by using local biological resources. Richard’s expertise in beneficial insects and insect pest management is the result of years of research and trial. This lifetime commitment was recognised in 2012 when he was awarded the Horticultural Australia Graham Gregory Award. Most macadamia growers would be aware of his work in finding ways to mass rear and supply a beneficial wasp, Trichogramma, to control macadamia nut borer. Since this discovery, BioResources has succeeded in mass rearing the MacTrix wasps which now are widely used in macadamia orchards. The impressive achievement was recognised by a wider audience when it was featured on Professor Brian Cox's Wonders of Life, a documentary series made by the BBC.

In the early 2000s, Ross decided to give up his career as an educational technologist to take up a new one as a macadamia grower on what was the family cattle farm on the Alstonville Plateau. Since then, he has established a macadamia orchard of 2000 trees using regenerative agriculture principles. Committed to both being a good land steward and managing a profitable and sustainable macadamia enterprise, Ross believes the key to achieving this is biodiversity maintained through cover crops and being “kinder” to the land. His farm is a New South Wales DPI IPM case study farm and is a trial site for the BioResources inter-row project.

Rhodesian-born Scott Allcott migrated to Australia in 1997 to continue his studies in agriculture, receiving his Bachelor in Crop Science from The University of Queensland in 2001. After managing a large vegetable seedling nursery in Bowen, North Queensland, he moved to Bundaberg to establish a large macadamia nursery, MACQ. During his three years there he became familiar with the macadamia industry, supplying grafted macadamia trees to major stakeholders in the industry. In 2010 he bought Macadamia Farm Management (MFM), which currently manages more than 600,000 trees of various ages and varieties in the Bundaberg region. He has put much effort into increasing nut quality and production by improving and modifying his post-harvest handling of NIS and completely overhauling his nutritional program.

Stephanie Alt is an environmental scientist who works in science communication and extension. She is a co-author of the NSW DPI's Macadamia Integrated Orchard Management and Fruitspotting bug management guides and lead author of the Saving Soil guide on preventing and repairing soil erosion. Stephanie was the lead writer for the GRDC's national grains crop nutrition community of practice 2014-2019, where she worked with leading research scientists to prepare topical, timely. plain-English web publications for agronomists and growers. Stephanie was involved in the development of that project's website and its migration through three different web platforms during the life of the project. Stephanie is currently working on an overhaul of the information in the NSW DPI Weedwise database, to improve readability and streamline the content to function better in the Weedwise app for mobile devices. She also a small-scale farmer, producing beef cattle, mushrooms and vegetables