04 August 2022 Lincoln horticulture degree leads to international career

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Date4th August 2022Lincoln University

Lincoln alumnus Peter Batt’s (BHortSc, 1979) varied career has amply demonstrated how versatile and relevant a Lincoln degree is in an international context. Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Horticultural Science in 1979 and went on to work all over the world.
On his career, Peter affirms that “The rewards are immense, but not necessarily financial. It is about knowing that you can make a difference in people’s lives and livelihoods. By encouraging farmers to come together in collaborative marketing groups, we have been able to link them to institutional markets which improves the quality of their product offer, and the prices that they receive for their product, and through facilitating improved on-farm management practices, reducing the negative impacts of agriculture on the environment. This in turn enhances food safety and contributes to a more food secure future.”

As a MAF scholar, Peter’s career began in Christchurch on the completion of his degree as a Horticultural Advisory Officer for Ornamental Crops, where he facilitated the development of cut flower exports to Queensland. He was also the recipient of a Rotary Scholarship to Japan in 1982 to investigate market opportunities for cut flowers. Peter was soon lured away to the commercial sector in Auckland, where he developed an export market for cut flowers into Hong Kong and Sapporo, before becoming a sales rep for sports turf care equipment and irrigation systems.

When the Western Australian Institute of Technology, now Curtin University, launched a Bachelor of Business Horticulture degree in 1985, they wanted someone with practical business experience, rather than a pure academic to lead the development of the course. Peter was recruited to this position where he stayed for almost 30 years, working his way through the ranks to earn a personal chair as Professor, Food and Agribusiness Marketing. In 1989, the Commonwealth Government of Australia launched the DPIE (Department of Primary Industries and Energy) Agribusiness Marketing Programme to assist producer groups to develop export markets. Peter secured seven contracts - taking a producer group to Japan; developing export markets for citrus and table grapes in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia; seed potatoes to the Philippines and Vietnam; seafood; stone fruit; and the establishment of the National Resource Centre in Floriculture Marketing, which later became the Flower Export Council of Australia. In parallel to this, several AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) programs saw him working with the CIP (International Potato Centre) to improve the quality of seed potatoes in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and in South Vietnam, to enhance and improve the marketing of mangoes in the Mekong River Delta. Participation in these rural development programmes led to over a decade of work with ACIAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) with projects in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.

Recognising the need to promote their work in the region and to capture the work of other NGOs and international aid agencies, Peter initiated several international symposia through the ISHS (International Society of Horticultural Science) to improve the performance of supply chains in transitional economies. Peter says, “It was these activities that first attracted the attention of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) office in Bangkok, for I was subsequently engaged to run a variety of workshops and symposia on the marketing of fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the region. And this initial work was to pay dividends, for in 2014, quite unexpectedly, my position at Curtin was terminated through an involuntary redundancy.”

On re-establishing his consultancy business, Peter was promptly engaged by both the World Bank, to undertake a review of the world market for pyrethrum, and FAO, to review the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in the Philippines. Subsequently, and in parallel, he was contracted as a project formulation consultant in Bangladesh, and as project leader for NADHALI - a twelve-month project under the Food for Cities program – to facilitate the development of food plans for the cities of Nairobi [Kenya], Dhaka [Bangladesh] and Lima [Peru].

Today, Peter continues to work part-time with FAO and Perth NRM (Natural Resources Management), where, with financial support from the Commonwealth Government, he is facilitating the development of a food security plan for the State of Western Australia. He also works for the IESEG School of Management at Catholic Lille University, with campuses in both Paris and Lille, where he teaches Relationship Management in the Emerging Economies and supervises up to eight master’s student projects per year - primarily in food and agribusiness - including wine - with a big focus on sustainability. In addition to this work, Peter is a volunteer with the Crawford Fund where as mentor for Cambodia, he continues to offer courses in agribusiness marketing to farmer groups, NGOs and government. Amazingly, with all this work going on, he still finds enough time to be on the water as part of the crew for a Farr 30 keelboat, or chasing the waves on a 6m surf ski, which confirms that Perth has a great climate, especially for water sports.

Peter reiterates that “For current [Lincoln] students and graduates, it is about taking opportunities. Yes, there are risks but it is also about remembering that people have to eat - and thus whatever career path one takes, there are abundant opportunities in agriculture and the associated leisure industries (eg. parks and recreation). The key value of a Lincoln degree has always been the integration of science with business. Science, while it might come up with great innovations and improved technologies, goes nowhere unless the innovation has a positive impact on the farming system, and that invariably is driven by the market.”

“Similarly, while everyone wants to reduce our environmental impact and lower greenhouse gas emissions, long-term sustainability will only arise where it's profitable, and that will ultimately require governments to recognise the role that farmers play in managing natural capital and biodiversity – and indeed to pay farmers for the community service that they provide.”

PHOTO: Agribusiness training in Cambodia

TOP PHOTO: Peter Batt inspecting coffee quality in PNG

A huge thank you to Peter for sharing your career story. It is so great to hear how our Lincoln alumni are doing once they embark on their careers, and we welcome all our valued alumni to contact our office at alumni@lincoln.ac.nz to let us know how you are doing and to tell your story too.

04 August 2022
Lincoln horticulture degree leads to international career

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04 August 2022 Lincoln horticulture degree leads to international career