NSW Committee

In 1999, the Crawford Fund expanded its agricultural training scheme with the appointment of a New South Wales Committee chaired by Australia’s former Minister for Primary Industry and Energy, the Hon John Kerin. The Committee is identifying and expanding agricultural training opportunities, relevant to the NSW rural sector, that will bring together Australian experts and people from developing countries to improve food production and processing in developing countries. A brochure summarising our activities is available here.


Crawford Fund Student Awards – NSW

As part of our efforts to support and encourage the next generation in study, careers and volunteering in international agricultural research, the Crawford Fund proudly supports our Student Awards. These awards have been developed specifically to enable university students to gain valuable experience and expertise by bringing an international component to their studies and research.

In NSW, applications are invited from honours and postgraduate students interested in gaining international agricultural research experience in developing countries, with a maximum of $5,000 awarded.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2024 STUDENT AWARD RECIPIENTS!

Congratulations to the 18 successful applicants from around Australia who received our 2024 awards to experience international agricultural research and development first hand.

The NSW award winners are:

Hong Viet Duong, University of New England
Location/Focus: Vietnam
Research: Understanding free-range beef cattle grazing behaviour: Northern Mountainous region of Vietnam. ACIAR Project ID: AGB/2020/189.
Other collaborating institutions: National Institute of Animal Sciences, Vietnam; Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vietnam.

Kamana Rayamajhi, Western Sydney University
Location/Focus: Nepal
Research: Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Canola through Leveraging C-terminally Encoded Peptides (CEPs) to Regulate Nitrogen Demand Signalling.
Other collaborating institutions: Nepal Seed and Fertilizer Project, National Soil Science Research Center and Nepal Agricultural Research Council.

Sarah Fraser, Charles Sturt University
Location/Focus: Vietnam
Research: Biochar influence of the nitrogen fixation process in Cowpeas. ACIAR Project ID: SLAM/2018/144.
Other collaborating institutions: Can Tho University.

Troy Laidlaw, University of Sydney
Location/Focus: Philippines
Research: Japanese encephalitis virus epidemiology in Central Luzon: Assessing the risks to livestock.
Other collaborating institutions: The University of Glasgow.


Training Activities

The current emphasis of the New South Wales Committee’s training programs is in areas having high value to developing countries in the Asian region and in which competence and experience of a very high order resides amongst government agencies and universities within NSW. These include: plant and animal breeding, animal disease diagnosis and preparedness, weed management, social dimensions of agricultural research and extension, natural resource management – land, forestry, fisheries and water, and food safety and preservation.


NSW Crawford Fund Scholars: 2024 Annual Conference

Each year, the Crawford Fund Committees offer Conference Scholarships for students and young researchers to attend the annual conference. The Scholarship provides funds to cover expenses such as travel, accommodation and registration.

We’re excited to announce our bumper crop of 40 2024 Annual Conference scholarship winners from universities and organisations across Australia! This takes our conference scholar alumni to almost 500 young students and researchers and industry representatives with an interest in reshaping agriculture to better address food security, the nutritional needs of a growing population, and the environment.

The 2024 conference scholars from NSW are listed below:

Samantha Currie, Western Sydney University
Danielle Fordham, University of Newcastle
Dinesh Jamarkattel, Southern Cross University
Emma Kiup, University of Sydney
Amelia Ross, University of Sydney
Tom Swan, University of Sydney

Our 2023 New South Wales scholars (left to right) Jorge Ramos, Sang Le, Viet Duong, Marieke Hoelscher, Kayla Lochner, Matthew Roscher, Claudio Cortellazzi and Sally
Poole pictured with NSW Crawford Fund Committee Coordinator Dr Helen Scott Orr, Committee Member Dr Peter Wynn and Committee Chair Dr Richard Sheldrake.

NSW Committee in the News

Events