In conversation with… Dr Gabrielle Persley AM
November 4, 2026
The Crawford Fund for Food Security is proud to present a new video series featuring conversations with prominent Australian and international researchers exploring their careers, passion and drive to pursue a more food secure world.
The challenges facing global food security have never been more obvious or urgent. Disease outbreaks, climate change, natural disasters and geopolitical shocks all threaten supply chains, trade, and stability.
Australia’s food security cannot be considered in isolation. It is bound to the resilience
of regional and global systems. Hunger and malnutrition fuel instability, while food builds trust, prosperity, and cultural exchange. By investing in people and partnerships, and embedding research and evidence in policy, food security and resilience into the future is possible.
The challenges are significant, and seem increasingly overwhelming, but there are extremely dedicated people around the world focused on the science, the solutions, and the networks to make a difference.
Now, is the perfect time to present these voices and hear these stories.
From grade eight, our next guest in this series knew exactly what she wanted to do. Strongly influenced by her family, agricultural background, and the church with an international focus, she went on to devote her entire career to international agricultural research for development. For over five decades, she has played a foundational role in shaping global agricultural science systems – from her appointment to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in 1975, her early contribution to establishing ACIAR, to her leadership in advancing biosciences, biotechnology and demand-led breeding across Africa and beyond.
We present to you, In Conversation with…Dr Gabrielle Persley.
Watch the video, or read more below.
Introduction: I’m Gabrielle Persley. I’m from Brisbane, Queensland in Australia. I’m a scientist. I have spent most of my career working as a scientist in Africa, promoting the applications of science and technology to international development.
What is your work, and what drew you to it?
So, I became very interested in science when I was at school. Indeed, by the time I was in high school in Brisbane, I had decided that I wanted to be a scientist and that I wanted to work in international development in the developing world. And so, therefore, I finished my science degree majoring in microbiology at the University of Queensland. I then worked for the Australian sugar industry as a plant pathologist for five years.
And then I took an assignment in Nigeria as a plant pathologist and worked for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. And that was in 1975, and I have worked in the field of international development ever since.
What are the barriers to achieving the goal of food security?
I’ve seen the FAO data, which does show some promising downward trends from perhaps 800 million people being hungry to perhaps 625 million people in 2025. However, that’s probably 625 million people too many. So, yes, the data is encouraging, but it still means it’s a very big job.
I think in barriers. I think the barriers are well beyond science. And, although the 2025 figures might be encouraging, this last year has been very difficult, very challenging, including civil unrest within some countries; wars that nobody expected in the in the Middle East, which are having a very serious knock on effect, the difficulty of getting fertiliser into Africa, for example. And, I think some of those barriers then are essentially political policy economics. And in some ways, a really substantial improvement in food security actually requires governments to have an appropriate level of policy, appropriate levels of public investment, and the policies that support the development of the private sector, local entrepreneurs. Because at the end of the day, the delivery of innovations is dependent on the people on the ground and in a sustainable way that has to be built around businesses. And every small farmer is a small scale enterprise in his own or her own right. And, so looking at that whole value chain is extremely important.
Tell us a little bit about your role in the creation of ACIAR?
When I came first came to Canberra in 1980, I’d just come back from three years in Nigeria as a field based research scientist, and I was transitioning to be a Canberra bureaucrat. Well, that was quite a leap of faith. And I was very fortunate that I became involved at the very beginning, ACIAR was just a gleam in Sir John Crawford’s eye, and I started working with Sir John Crawford. And that was quite an education process in itself.
What I admired about Sir John was his ability to synthesise knowledge from economics and from science and into policy advice, which governments accepted. ACIAR was the initiative of Malcolm Fraser, the then Prime Minister. And there was a forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting coming up in Melbourne. And Sir John and a number of other people in Canberra had been thinking about an Australian initiative in agricultural research for some years.
But this was an opportunity when a good idea met a a political imperative, which meant that there was a window of opportunity. And one thing I learned from watching Sir John Crawford in action was he never missed seeing when the window of political opportunity was opened.
Why is it important for Australia to share its research internationally?
I think another key part of the initial founding principles of ACIAR was, I’ve mentioned the partnership between Australian scientists and the international scientific community and national researchers, but it was also set up on the concept of mutual benefit. And indeed, that the project’s been supported by ACIAR should also have demonstrable benefits to Australian agriculture.
And I think that was extremely important. There was a lot of discussion with the various farming organisations, the National Farmers Federation, etcetera. And also looking at areas where Australia had both expertise, but also common problems. After all, Australian farmers are extraordinarily used to dealing with drought, erratic climate, climate change before anybody called it climate change, etcetera. And so particularly in Africa, the climate in East Africa is actually extremely similar to Northern Australia. And so a lot of the work that had been done in Australia on water conservation and making the most efficient use of water conservation and use in agriculture in developing drought tolerant varieties, all of this expertise was very relevant to other countries, but also the results of the research could benefit Australia.
What should Australia’s role in international agricultural research be?
Perhaps I might be allowed two recommendations. The first is in relation to the overall level of the Australian aid program. Australia has maintained its level of investment and indeed kept pace with inflation in recent years. And I think that’s really to be commended because many other countries have not done that. In fact, there’s been a recent tendency to substantially reduce the aid programs to invest in defence. And I have a quite strong view that national security does not only mean defence. National security means food security, health security, economic security, climate security, and defence. And, I think it’s the challenge of governments to have this whole of government approach, cabinet level government, to actually look at investments in these various areas and how together that combines with national security.
Are we doing enough to advocate the case for international agricultural research?
A point I might say about investment in international agricultural research, sometimes that’s used as a shorthand for investment in international agricultural research centres. I think what I would strongly advocate that that international is a combination of international agricultural research and indeed international and regional programs. But, also, it’s really important to continue investments in national agricultural research systems because the delivery on the ground happens in a country, and every country is different.
I’m just reading a book which says Africa is not one country. Africa is fifty four different countries. I spent some time working in the Pacific, and the Pacific is not one country. It’s about twenty two countries. And you might think, oh, they’re all Pacific Islands with lots of coconut trees. I spent quite a lot of time trekking around the Pacific and indeed sponsoring work on coconuts during my time in ACIAR. And, I can tell you that there’s a great diversity of coconuts all across the Pacific.
One can say the same about bananas and fisheries. And if I’ve learned anything over time, is every country is different. And then even within one country, there are really substantial differences. They might be tribal differences, environmental differences, etcetera. So one really has to spend time in the ground and really understand the environment in which a team may be working, and then you might design a solution that works.
