홈

Tony Fischer

Photograph
Tony Fischer
Country: 
Australia
Artist's Statement: 

I am a semi-retired crop scientist and aware that

  1. almost all of man's food comes directly from seeds (exceptions tubers, sugar, leafy vegs etc)
  2. the seed contains the blueprint of the crop, hence with often tiny seeds whole crops can be grown across space and time, thus they were carried and collected by explorers and migrations of mankind, and that
  3. this blueprint comprises the genes of the particular strain of the crop, and that man, both early farmers and modern plant breeders, have modified the genetic content of the seeds of his crop plants to great advantage, a process which must continue if we are to feed the 9 billion.
Biography (condensed): 

Dr R.A. (Tony) Fischer FAIAST FTSE AM

Tony Fischer is a crop scientist, currently an Honorary Research Fellow at CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia, mentoring, reviewing and writing across diverse areas of agricultural science. He trained in agricultural science at the University of Melbourne and in plant physiology at the University of California, Davis. As an active researcher, he has worked largely at the NSW Department of Agriculture, CSIRO, and CIMMYT, studying wheat agronomy, crop physiology and genetic improvement, and publishing over 100 papers from these activities; he also did recognised research on stomatal physiology at UCDavis and the Australian National University. As a research manager he was Director of the CIMMYT Wheat Program (1988-2005) and a Research Program Manager at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR, 1995-2005), overseeing international projects in crop sciences and agricultural resource management. He has travelled very widely in the developing world and has a particular interest in agricultural development. As part of this he is currently ACT Coordinator for the Crawford Fund and a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Agriculture Science and Technology, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the American Society of Agronomy, and the American Crop Science Society. He received the C.M.Donald Medal for outstanding agronomists (2004), the William Farrer Memorial Medal for contributions to wheat (2007), when he also became a Member of the Order of Australia.