Professor Anthony Whitbread - 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award
In recognition of his significant contributions to agricultural research and his work to improve sustainability and food security across the developing world.
When he enrolled to study Rural Science at UNE, the young Anthony Whitbread knew only that he wanted to be an agriculturalist – and possibly a farmer, like his aunties and uncles and grandparents. We will never know what kind of producer he might have become, for his sights were soon set on cultivating a global research career.
The UNE team Anthony joined during and after his PhD studies worked closely with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the young scientist, who hadn’t previously travelled overseas, was promptly embedded in an international research group in South-East Asia.
“I started travelling back and forth to Laos and Thailand, the Philippines and Tonga, leading a project around managing soil and organic matter in rice-based systems,” Anthony says. “I was working with Australian farmers in Australia and then applying what I was learning in the developing world with smallholder farmers.”
The 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, now Professor Anthony Whitbread, is based in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania these days with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), having earned an international reputation for helping to improve the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. A research scientist, research manager and leader in dryland agriculture, his skill is for assembling multi-disciplinary research groups to address food security issues in fragile and risky regions.
“Anthony has this ability to work across scales, systems, disciplines, and to connect with people of many backgrounds, cultures, religions and personalities,” said his former UNE mentor, Professor Graeme Blair. “Throughout his career, he has used his exceptional insight into the intricacies and difficulties of farming in difficult environments to tackle poverty and inequitable resource utilization.”
For while maintaining soil health, improving production, managing climate risk and developing new markets may not scream “humanitarian work”, it most definitely is.
“Improving nutrition and income generation has a profound impact on peoples’ lives,” Anthony says. “It promotes better health, and if farmers can afford school fees, they can get their kids educated. We work a lot with the national systems of agriculture, and United Nations partners such as the World Food Programme, to bring resilience, income opportunities and safety nets in. It’s not a silver bullet like a new crop variety; you are trying to find interventions for multi-dimensional challenges in resource-poor farming systems and working with governments to design better policy that might sustain and scale those interventions.”
For the past decade, Anthony has been employed by the CGIAR, a global agricultural development agency committed to research for development into food security. Before joining ILRI as Program Leader of the Livestock, Climate and Environment Program, he was a centre director with the International Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India.
By then, Anthony had had more than a decade with CSIRO and several years under his belt as Professor and Chair of Crop Production Systems in the Tropics at the top ranked German university Georg-August-Universität, where a focus on addressing sustainability and food security issues across the developing world saw him leading research teams in semi-arid Africa and Asia.
Each location, Anthony says, poses its own set of challenges. “You must learn to navigate the local languages and culture, and in many of the countries we work in there is instability and poor governance. Security is sometimes a problem. For example, in Sudan, Somalia and parts of the Sahel, development has to start with peace-building and improving governance, which remains one of Africa’s greatest challenges.”
Looking back, his Rural Science studies at UNE were a great preparation for managing fragile systems in resource-poor settings.
“We learnt about crop, soil and animal science but as part of farming systems, so it equipped you to think in a holistic way,” Anthony says. “I learnt from the cream of agriculturalists in the world, and it was a great foundation for my career. I still apply a lot of it today.
“Working with smallholder farmers, it’s a livelihood system. You have to think about the social sciences and economics as well as the agricultural science, and continue to find ways to de-risk fragile livelihood systems. It’s a lot about building partnerships – with existing agricultural and national systems and government officials – to build an enabling environment for agriculture to work.”
When asked what motivates him, Anthony doesn’t hesitate.
“It’s the potential impact that drives me and building the capacity of people to take over the work. I also enjoy developing functional teams, often from within the communities, plus the agricultural challenges themselves. I can see agriculture’s role in sustainable development, which starts with looking after the environment. It is the support of my wife and kids and parents that has enabled me to contribute to development in this way.”
As populations swell in regions like Africa and Asia, overlayed by the climate crisis, these environments will be under increasing pressure.
“Many, many times you are in the field and it’s overwhelming; there are so many constraints,” Anthony says. “But research for development is what we do and it’s very applied. There’s a big socio-cultural component and a lot of our work is participative.”
Still, he is “constantly chasing funding to keep the projects running, where they are needed”. That means a lot of travel, but also long weeks in the office attending meetings, working on proposals and budgets, managing staff and establishing new projects.
“Development work is not a linear process and not for impatient people,” Anthony says. “I think I learnt to be patient and a never-give-up attitude from my colleagues in India.”
And, when it all comes together, applied research can benefit millions by restoring their land and livelihoods – and safeguarding the next generation. Today, Anthony Whitbread’s passion for rigorous science and practical solutions, but also his empathy, is writ large on landscapes from Australia’s Mallee to Africa’s Malawi.
