MALLEE agronomist Michael Moodie was humbled after being named the first David Roget Mallee Sustainable Farming Excellence Award winner at the recent MSF tri-state research forum at Pinnaroo.
"When I started out in the sandy soils of the Mallee in 2005, David was just winding down his career, but I looked up to him very much as I had come from a very different background - a family of rice farmers in the NSW Riverina," he said.
"I learnt so much over those few years, particularly David's approach to go beyond the science. He wasn't just reaching out to farmers, he was also delivering the message to the whole system, including young extension people like myself.
"Without his drive to do that, I don't think MSF and Mallee farmers would quite be where they are today.
"If I can continue doing what I am doing for another 20 years and deliver at least half of what David did in changing farming systems, I will finish my career relatively happy."
The MSF award was created to celebrate the contribution to sustainable agriculture by the late Mr Roget.
He was a principal research scientist with CSIRO at the Waite campus, Adelaide, before he retired in 2005 and will be remembered for taking research out of the laboratory and into the paddock.
He was also heavily involved in setting up MSF in 1997.
Mr Moodie was recognised for his equal ability to summarise research and development outcomes in "messages that were easily digested by advisers and farmers".
In his past decade in the Mallee, he has played major roles in the low-rainfall crop sequencing project, the use of break crops, and conducting profit-risk workshops for farmers.
Mr Roget's wife Robyn and son Warren attended the Pinnaroo forum to present the award, with Warren saying Mr Moodie's achievements would have resonated with his father, and "he would have held him in the highest esteem".
They are pictured with Mr Moodie and MSF chairman Ian Hastings.
- ALISHA FOGDEN.
Alisha Fogden
Cropping editor of Stock Journal.
Cropping editor of Stock Journal.
