Australia’s Search for Greener Pastures – Dr Derek Byerlee

March 27, 2025

Download your free copy here.

The Crawford Fund is proud to publish Australia’s Search for Greener Pastures: The Foundations of the Global Genetic Resources Movement, 1926-1980. It provides an opportunity to highlight the critical impact of Australia’s scientific leadership in pioneering the global movement for plant genetic resource conservation.

The book was written by internationally recognised agricultural economist Dr Derek Byerlee AO, who has dedicated his career to agriculture in developing countries as a teacher, researcher, administrator and policy advisory. Like Sir John Crawford, he was also chair of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The e-book was launched at a special event “Crop Diversity – A Lifeline for Resilience, Peace, Nutrition and Food Security,” at the Discovery Centre in Canberra on 27 March. The event was facilitated by our board member, Rosemary Deininger and included Executive Director of the Crop Trust, Dr Stefan Schmitz; Leader of the Australian Grains Genebank, Dr Sally Norton, and Dr Tony Fischer, a stalwart of the Crawford Fund like his brother The Hon Tim Fischer, who was chair of both the Fund and Crop Trust.

The book explains the role of great Australians including Sir John Crawford, Sir Otto Frankel as well as the those who mounted internationally significant collection expeditions around the world.

“Australia has significantly improved its pasture systems and contributed to global food security by advocating for sustainable management of plant genetic diversity,” said Shaun Coffey, the Crawford Fund’s CEO, who provided a summary of the book in verse which is below.

“There’s no doubt that the partnerships established during the period in Derek’s book facilitated the exchange of knowledge and genetic materials, strengthening global agricultural resilience,” said Shaun.

“I think we would all agree that one of the enduring legacies of this period is the recognition of genetic resources as a global public good and the laying of the groundwork for international genebanks and conservation strategies.”

“However, as concluded in the book, the long-term sustainability of genetic resource collections remains a challenge. Today, the responsibility falls upon its institutions and scientists to reinvigorate international cooperation and ensure the preservation of these invaluable resources for future generations.”

“Over the years, the Fund has played its part by supporting master classes and training to build capacity in genebank management, and by raising appreciation of the importance of the conservation and use of crop diversity,” said Shaun.

Derek explains his motivation in writing the book in this video and below:

“Like most of us I knew of the leadership role of Frankel and FAO’s Erna Bennett in launching the global effort to conserve genetic resources in the 1967 FAO technical conference. However, only when I was researching the early efforts to transfer Australian technology to West Asia and North Africa did I recognize that the Frankel-Bennett initiative built on nearly two decades of collaboration by FAO with Australian scientists in collecting pasture species from the region that had established FAO and Australia as global leaders in international cooperation on genetic resources. The extraordinary group of pioneers who led these efforts after WWII in turn had all started out in the 1920s at the Aberystwyth pasture research station and Cambridge University. After the 1967 conference at FAO, Frankel working with Sir John Crawford then spear headed the creation of IBPGR, albeit with many twists and turns. Given its global leadership of both Mediterranean and tropical pastures, Australian scientists went on to lead the design of the three CGIAR centers with livestock-forage programs, CIAT, ILCA (now part of ILRI), and ICARDA that now have the world’s largest collections of forages. Combined these interlinked developments made a fascinating story that to my knowledge had not yet been told.”

We thank Derek for enabling this story to be told!

Australia’s Search for Greener Pastures
A Summary in Verse

Shaun Coffey, CEO, Crawford Fund

For fifty years, Australia took its stand,
Preserving seeds with care and steady hand.
Through science, toil, and global partnership,
It shaped the fields where future yields expand.

The legume’s root, a model well refined,
Enriched the pastures, strengthened soil and land.
Yet efforts met with limits ill-aligned,
As climates changed beyond what plans had spanned.

When voices turned to ownership and trade,
The call for conservation lost its might.
The funding waned, priorities were swayed,
As staple crops and biotech took light.

Yet echoes of that work still shape today,
A lesson clear for those who would defend:
To guard diversity in seed and clay,
Lest all we built shall falter in the end.