Nuffield Scholarship a ‘game-changer’

Apple and pear growers wanting to make positive changes in their businesses, communities and the industry are encouraged to apply for a 2025 Nuffield Scholarship.  

Key points 

• The Apple and Pear R&D levy is sponsoring a 2025 Nuffield Scholarship, valued at $35,000. 
• Applications for the 2025 Nuffield Scholarship open in March 2024. 
• Fiona Hall, APAL Board Director for NSW and owner and General Manager of BiteRiot! Operations in Orange was a 2015 Nuffield Australia Scholar and described the experience as a ‘game-changer’. 

Nuffield Australia offers Australian primary producers a chance to travel overseas and research a topic to add value to their industry. The $35,000 bursary, sponsored by the Apple and Pear levy through Hort Innovation, allows scholars to cover costs of travel, study and writing a comprehensive research report about their findings.  

Fiona Hall, APAL Board Director for NSW and owner and General Manager of BiteRiot! Operations in Orange in Central West NSW, was a 2015 Nuffield Australia Scholar, sponsored by Hort Innovation.  

Over six weeks, Fiona travelled to France for the Contemporary Scholars Conference (CSC) then embarked on a trip of a lifetime with six other scholars from Brazil, New Zealand and Australia for a six-week Global Focus Program (GFP) trip to Singapore, India, Qatar, Turkey, France and the United States. The GFP is a journey to developed and emerging countries. Fiona’s journey covered six continents, 28 flights, 47 days, 30 hotels, 38 meetings and 30 farm visits.   

“The purpose of the GFP it to get a broad perspective of challenges in agriculture in each country,” Fiona said. 

“This includes food safety and security, labour availability and ethics, succession planning, cost of entry in agriculture, public adoption of GMO and biotechnology, subsidies and subsidised crop insurance, corporate farming versus family farming, provenance, scale and consolidation, water security, sustainability, conservation, education, IP, and government policies.  

“There are high-end meetings with consulates and ambassadors in each country, and with organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.” 

Scholars then travel for a further eight weeks on their individual study trip to address their topic of choice, which requires a report at completion. 

Fiona travelled to New Zealand, Washington (US), South Tyrol (Italy), the Netherlands and Herefordshire (UK) in 2015 to study what was driving the success of the apple industry in those markets. Fiona’s research resulted in her report, The Australian Apple Industry: Can the family-owned farm survive?. (download here: https://www.nuffieldscholar.org/reports/au/2015/australian-apple-industry-can-family-owned-farm-survive). 

As part of the Nuffield Alumni, Fiona was chosen to host the 2020 and 2021 scholars through Italy for their GFP. 

Fiona, who was 46 when she undertook her Scholarship, described the experience as a game-changer. 

“It was fantastic and definitely gave me more of a global perspective on everything, not just in our industry but in agriculture globally,” Fiona said. “The scholarship enables you to get outside your backyard and be around like-minded people. 

“It really was a game-changer in our business, as well as for me personally. I absolutely got a lot out of it, and I think I did for the industry as well.  

“You also become part of the Nuffield alumni full of amazing people, and I’m still quite involved in Nuffield as part of the Regional Tours program. 

“I’d recommend applying for a Nuffield Scholarship to anyone who is happy to look beyond their own backyard and really invest the knowledge they gain back into the industry.” 

Fiona Hall, APAL Board Director for NSW and owner and General Manager of BiteRiot! Operations in Orange, was a 2015 Nuffield Australia Scholar.

Change underway

Fiona’s research report identified clear areas where change was needed in the Australian apple industry. They included consolidation or specialisation, renewal and succession planning, better marketing and increased investment, and the need for Australia to increase its share of the export market to break the supermarkets’ stranglehold on the distribution of the fresh produce dollar. 

Fiona saw first-hand how consolidation and specialisation of farms have been spectacularly successful in New Zealand, with apple growers there now being regarded as members of a new ‘millionaire’s club’.  

In South Tyrol the cooperative system is seen as a key part of the success of apple farming in that region, yet the demise of the formal cooperative in Washington showed that cooperatives are clearly not a silver bullet.  

Fiona said while there is more work to be done, there have been some improvements in those areas in Australia, particularly through growers working together and supporting each other in a more cooperative manner. 

“Speaking for our region, working more collaboratively with other growers has been beneficial for us all and getting more bang for our buck, and not just in the apple industry but the cherry industry as well,” Fiona said.  

“The Scholarship really helped us focus on working out where our place is in the market, looking at our strengths and weaknesses, and really capitalising on the strengths. We’re a long way from where we need to be yet, but the scholarship certainly started that process.” 

About Nuffield Scholarships

​To be considered for a 2025 scholarship, individuals apply in 2024, with research and travel to start in 2025. 

​Applications for 2025 open in March 2024.  

To be eligible, applicants are typically 28–45 years old, but exceptional candidates outside this age range will be considered. All scholarships are available to Australian citizens or permanent residents only.  

Applicants must select a research topic that will be of use to them, their business, community and industry. 

Benefits include: 

• 14 weeks of purposeful learning and unique access to Nuffield’s approachable, global agricultural network 
• connections to the global alumni – 500 scholars in Australia and 2,000 worldwide 
• access to international businesses and individuals not otherwise reachable. 

The bursary allows scholars to travel overseas both individually and in small groups with other scholars. 

Program components

The first scholarship component is the Nuffield Australia National Conference, where scholarships for the coming year are formally awarded. This year’s National Conference will be held in mid-September 2024 in Launceston, Tasmania, along with a 1.5 day regional tour. 

The National Conference is a chance to engage with the Nuffield network and agribusiness leaders, receive a program briefing and be announced as part of the latest intake. 

Other components of the scholarship are implemented in 2025. 

​Individual study enables scholars to travel to countries of choice to study their chosen topic. This travel component is 4–5 weeks, which don’t have to be concurrent. 

Written and verbal reporting is a requirement of the scholarship and these are completed following the research. ​ 

For more information visit: https://www.nuffield.com.au/how-to-apply. 

This article was first published in the Autumn 2024 edition of AFG.