OFC Council

JULIAN GAIRDNER Co-Chairman 2014, (London)
Julian Gairdner is a graduate of Wye College and is currently the Digital Director for Farmers Weekly having previously been a farm business consultant in the 90s. In 2006 he directed Farmers Weekly’s highly successful Local Food is Miles Better campaign and in 2007 became a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA). During his time as online editor he has won a number of awards including the first ever recipient of the Association of Online Publishers’ Digital Editorial Individual of the Year (2009). Away from work he enjoys spending time with his young family, is writing a musical, plays golf, and holidays in Cornwall.

DAVID TURNER - Honorary Treasurer (East Anglia)
David is a principal in David Turner & Co - a firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers which specialises in landed estates and agriculture. Prior to the formation of David Turner & Co, David was a director with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. In addition to the compliance services offered by David Turner & Co he has wide-ranging experience in handling one-off assignments – including work for the major banks, government institutions and PLC’s. David is a governor at Bishop Burton College in Beverley East Yorkshire, where he is also the chair of the audit committee. He has a small farm in East Anglia which he operates via a manager contractor agreement.

Dr Tina Barsby (Cambs)

Tina Barsby is Director and CEO of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), Cambridge. She studied Agricultural Botany at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, before taking her PhD at the University of Nottingham.  She spent a postdoctoral period at Kansas State University, and worked at Allelix Inc, Ontario, Canada for several years before returning to the UK in 1989.  Her experience spans academic and commercial research in the agricultural crop sector.  She joined Nickerson UK (now part of the LG Group) where she remained until joining NIAB in 2006.

Al is Farms’ Manager for the Waddesdon Estate in Buckinghamshire and several other associated businesses, which are centred around arable and livestock production systems.  Since joining, the farming operation has expanded significantly, with the addition of several alternative enterprises, including a farming operation in Cambridgeshire.  Al was named by the Farmers Weekly as ‘Farm Manager of the Year’ in 2010.  He is a Trustee of the Addington Fund, which is one of the three main farming help charities and he is very active in promoting educational access onto the Waddesdon Estate and surrounding area. Having spent the majority of his career in Farm Management, a period of time was spent as National Operations Manager for a large renewables and recycling operation. Al firmly believes that the British Agriculture has a lot to offer on a global scale.

ANDREW BROWN (Leicestershire)

Andrew Brown is a  Rutland farmer born and bred and his family have been farming in the area for over 300 years. The farm is 60% arable and 40% permanent pasture. He is currently NFU East Midlands Chairman, sits on their communications committee and writes a farming blog for their web site. He has won several local, regional and national awards for his conservation work whilst maintaining a viable and productive commercial farm. He hosts school trips on farm and goes into schools to promote British food and farming. He sits on the Farmers Club Committee, , the Commercial Farmers Group, a director of the Oxford Farming Conference and is a member of the Institute of Agricultural Management, the Worshipful Company of Farmers and has achieved the status of Chartered Environmentalist. Productive farming and good conservation practise go hand in hand on the farm and sharing this with the public is seen as paramount.

JOHN GILES (Berkshire)

John Giles is a Divisional Director of Promar International –the agri food value chain consulting subsidiary of Genus plc.  Educated at University College Swansea in the early 1980s, he has been with the company for over 18 years. In this time, he has carried out supply chain analyses, business planning, evaluation and feasibility assignments across a wide range of areas within the agri food sector.  John Giles has also worked extensively throughout the UK and on assignments in some 40 other countries, including other Continental EU markets, Russia, the FSU and Eastern Europe, Brazil, China, India, New Zealand, Australia, the Middle East, Chile, the Caribbean, East and South Africa, Mexico, the US and Canada. This includes work in the dairy, meat, fish, horticultural, cereals, soyabean, rice and processed foods and drink sectors. John Giles has in the past been appointed a Visiting Fellow at the School of Agriculture, Food and the Environment at Cranfield University, and is also Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Food, Drink and Agriculture Group.  He is a Member of the Institute of Agricultural Management – he is a member of the National Council.  He has recently been made an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. He is also a member of the Agricultural Economics Society.

Philip J Wilkinson OBE (Yorkshire)

Philip is Executive Director 2 Sisters Food Group. After studying agriculture at Askham Bryan, Philip chose the diary industry for his career.  Starting as a management trainee at the Milk Marketing Board of England and Wales, he progressed through a range of senior roles within the industry, culminating in that of commercial director of Arla Foods plc.  In parallel with this career, he studied Agribusiness at Harvard Business School. During his career Philip held several industry positions including Chairmanship of the Dairy Council and National Diary Farm Assured Ltd.  He was awarded an OBE for services to the dairy industry in 2003. Upon leaving the diary sector, Philip became Managing Director of Grampian Country Food Group’s integrated chicken business and more recently jointed 2 Sisters Food Group, a privately owned chicken business supplying a range of products across all industry sectors.  He is a Director of the Red Tractor Poultry Sector Board and the British Poultry Council. Philip is a non-executive Director of Paramount 21 a privately owned sea food company, a member of the Worshipful Company of Poulters and a Freeman of the City of London.  He is as a consultant to Alltech, one of the world’s largest animal health and nutrition companies.

RICHARD WHITLOCK (Bedfordshire)

Following a long career in agricultural merchanting, Richard now runs his own business advising and representing companies and trade bodies in the arable crop marketing sectors. He is Chairman of the UK post-farmgate grain assurance scheme, TASCC, operated by the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) and is shortly due to take on the role of UK grain representative at the EU grain association COCERAL. In recent years Richard has been involved in the emerging UK biofuels industry and sits on the DfT’s Expert Working Group on Biofuels.