Professor John Lovett, Chairman

John Lovett is foundation Chairman of the Board of the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity Ltd (CRCNPB), Chairman of the Board of Agrifood Awareness Australia Ltd, and former Chairman of the Board of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting. He is the nominee of AusBiotech Ltd to the Australian Capital Territory Gene Technology Advisory Committee and a member of the Board of the Primary Industries Education Foundation.

In 1990 John Lovett was appointed to the foundation Board of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), becoming Managing Director in 1994 and serving in that capacity until December 2003. During that period the GRDC grew to become the largest single investor in grains R&D in Australia. 

Since leaving the Corporation, John has assisted a number of industries with various aspects of strategy and planning – wool, meat and grains in Australia, and dairy in New Zealand - and assisted Land and Water Australia in developing a National Climate Change Strategy for Primary Industries.

In 2006 he was appointed to the Executive Board of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, established to protect the world’s crop genetic resources – a major contributor to ensuring food security - in perpetuity. The opening of the so-called ‘Doomsday Vault’ in Svalbard (February 2008) captured world-wide attention for this very important endeavour, in which Australia has played a key role.

In June 2008, under the auspices of The Crawford Fund and with the assistance of CABI (SEAsia) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industries, Malaysia, John and other members of the CRCNPB offered an International Master Class in Plant Biosecurity to 17 participants from 10 countries, in Kuala Lumpur.

An Emeritus Professor at the University of New England, where he held the Chair in Agronomy, John Lovett was formerly Professor of Agricultural Science at the University of Tasmania, and has had research associations in Indonesia, Finland and the United Kingdom. He was invited to accept academic status as an Adjunct Professor in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in August 2009.