Tech team gets a boost
Nufarm has recently appointed Celese Smit and Justin France as technical specialists, based in southern Waikato and Hawke’s Bay respectively.
Celese Smit.
Smit is responsible for kiwifruit, vegetables, pasture and maize, and France horticulture and viticulture.
“We’re excited about these moves,” Nufarm NZ portfolio solutions lead Duncan Ibbotson says.
“Both Celese and Justin bring wide ranging skills and experience to their new roles, and will be valuable assets to drive our future pipeline development and technical transfer to our own team, as well as our customers.”
Smit is no stranger to the Nufarm business, having joined in 2022 as territory manager for east Waikato, Hauraki Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne.
Coming from an R&D background, she’s always planned to advance to a more technical role and is excited to be taking the next step in her career with Nufarm.
Almost three years’ commercial experience, however, on top of her hands-on involvement in the primary sector, has been great exposure to real-world realities that sometimes trump the pure ideals of straight research.
And she’s keen to maintain this focus on practicalities as well as science going forward.
She and her husband have been dairy farming for six years.
“It’s our industry, we live and breathe it, and that helps give me a broader understanding of what works on-farm, and why.
“Certainly, whenever I’m looking at different products, I look at them from a farmers’ perspective and often question practicality or best fit because of that.”
From a sheep and beef background in the Manawatu, Smit holds a B.Ag.Sci majoring in agriculture from Massey University and has always wanted to work in the primary sector.
“I knew it would be a career that would never disappear – there would always be a need for agronomy and primary production. By the same token, it’s always changing.
“It’s one of those industries where you can never say you know it all, because there is always something you don’t know, and I really like that.”
Justin France’s pathway into the NZ primary sector has been different, but he is likewise happy to have had the opportunity to join it, initially in a technical role conducting horticultural field trials for AgFirst consultants in Hawke’s Bay.
Most recently he spent 18 months in a national role with MPI as specialist horticultural advisor.
France was raised in a small town in upstate New York, surrounded by agriculture and horticulture, and spent time working on local farms and orchards before doing his first degree, in landscape design and construction.
When it became apparent that type of work didn’t set him alight, he re-oriented himself to horticulture instead, by way of overseas travel that led him to the olive groves and vineyards of Tuscany, and co-incidentally to his now-wife, who is a Kiwi.
“That’s where I fell in love with horticulture and growing food, so when we came to NZ together I went to Massey and did my under-grad and honours degree in horticultural science.”
A master’s degree in viticulture and winemaking from Cornell University followed, and he’s currently about half way through a PhD on a type of technology that is currently re-shaping many aspects of NZ primary production, in this case remote sensing in apples.
“I’ve been quite interested in remote sensing for about 10 years. When I was doing my master’s, I helped out on a project evaluating drone imagery to measure grape canopy health and estimate yield, and that made me want to learn more.”
Naturally drawn to maths, numbers and analytics, he says working for MPI was a valuable eye-opener into the complexities, challenges and long timeframes required to bring new science to the market in NZ as well as a great way to build good relationships with industry bodies.
“But I missed the applied science part of it – being out in the field doing trials. I wanted to use my science background to add value to NZ horticulture that way.”
Both Smit and France took over their new roles late last year.
Justin France.