David Roget Award
Mallee Sustainable Farming Award for Excellence
Hall of fame.
This award has been created to remember and celebrate the significant contributions made by the late David Roget. The award acknowledges his enduring legacy and contribution to sustainable agriculture.
2019
Fred Maynard.
Fred is a highly regarded farmer who has always been known as an innovator, keen to adopt new methods to increase production on the farm such as trying new pulses and grains and continually making and modifying machinery.
Fred has done a huge amount of work growing break crops as early as the late 70’s and early 80’s. Fred was a pioneer of this in the Mallee and worked with the district agronomist to help promote good rotations.
Fred has been granted many awards and was always very keen to be involved in trials and a member of a variety of associations.
Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. believed that he was an excellent candidate for the David Roget Award in that he is the sort of farmer that David Roget would have had the robust discussions with about how to best understand what is driving the systems, what needed to be measured and understood, and how we keep everything practical and useable for the farmers.
2018
Allen Buckley.
Allen is a well know farmer and has championed the integration of livestock into the cropping system.
Allen has been involved with Mallee Sustainable Farming since 1997 when, with GRDC support, a tri-state foundation meeting was held to establish a conservation farming project in the Mallee.
Allen’s property Glenrae near Waikerie was the first MSF South Australian core trial site. The popular dryland farming annual Waikerie Field Day was held at Glenrae for many years and saw many visitors through the gates. This is also where farmers would gather annually to learn and be challenged and where the ground swell would begin to change farming systems across the Mallee for the better.
Allen has actively encouraged research into the best management practices for Mallee dryland farmers and in addition to MSF, many organisations have benefitted from Allen’s generosity with his property for conducting trials and demonstrations.
Allen was MSF Chairman from 2004 to 2005 and was bestowed with Life Membership in 2008 for his outstanding contribution to Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc.
2017
Dr. Kath Cooper
Dr. Cooper had a research career at the University of Adelaide for over twenty years and she has continued her research since becoming a full-time farmer.
She manages a grain growing farm business where they specialise in the production and supply of triticale seed. The property is operated using sustainable farming methods, including no-till and minimum-till, minimal burning, using triticale cover on sand hills to prevent wind erosion, and growing break crops of legumes when season allows.
Dr Cooper has ensured the continuous availability of affordable, pure seed, in order to diversify cropping regimes, and improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of farming systems within this region.
Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. granted the David Roget Award to Dr Cooper for her huge contribution to the development, adoption, research and marketing support of triticale, and cereal Rye as these two crops are mostly overlooked and are nevertheless extremely valuable for dryland farming systems.
2016
Danny Conlan.
After growing up on a farm at Nandaly, Danny spent years developing his agronomist skills and has been instrumental in the development of cropping systems in the region. Danny is a trusted agricultural advisor in the Victorian and South Australian Mallee specialising in crop and pasture agronomy and has extensive broad acre cropping expertise and experience.
Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc. granted Danny the David Roget award as he has played a significant role in supporting Mallee Farmers to concentrate on getting the important things right to make enormous gains in production and sustainability including; adoption of minimum and no-till systems to reduce soil erosion, introduction of variable rate technology to ensure fertiliser and other farming inputs are targeted to crop requirements.
2015
Michael Moodie
Michael Moodie was the inaugural winner of the David Roget award in 2015. Michael was recognised for his ability to summarise R&D outcomes into messages that are easily digested by advisers and farmers which is vital for the rapid uptake of relevant R&D by farm businesses.
He has had a major impact on the development of more profitable and productive farm businesses in the Mallee region as well as other low rainfall regions in southern Australia by identifying the underlying causes to the problem and developing strategies or research activities to tackle them.
His breadth of knowledge and ability to look beyond the day to day problems of farming and focus energies on the bigger picture, in the pursuit of major gains has been a real asset. Michael’s sound background in commercial farming, consulting and extension principles has had a major and positive impact on the translation of research activities into messages farmers can use and adopt.
Michael has been involved on a number of significant projects in recent times to inform improved farming in the Mallee, most notably the Low Rainfall Crop Sequencing work, demonstrating the advantage and influencing the increased use of break crops in the Mallee.
