You can contact us via secretary@organicindustries.com.au

Dalene Wray (Chair)

Dalene is the Managing Director of OBE Beef Pty Ltd, a successful farmer-owned organic beef business, where she is driving change, innovation and digital adoption in the Australian beef industry.

To progress OBE’s Asian and Middle East expansion, Dalene relocated to Beijing and then Hong Kong between 2009 and 2015, building strong relationships and markets for OBE, while helping to further enhance the profile and reputation of the Australian beef industry offshore.

Dalene is the recipient of awards which recognise her commitment to innovation and the agriculture industry, including:

• Chief Executive Women—Austrade ‘Women in Export Scholarship’ to Harvard Business School
• Queensland Country Life ‘Beef Achiever of the Year’ Award (the first woman in the award’s history)
• Advance Award—Food & Agribusiness

She has been recognised as a global leader in her field by being invited by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to visit Mongolia in 2017 and advise on the development of a Mongolian organic beef industry.

Dalene also invests her time as:

• Telstra Queensland Regional Advisory Committee member
• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—Deputy Chair of the Council for Australian-Arab Relations
• Australian Meat Industry Council—Chair of the Communications & Advocacy Industry Reference Committee
• Australian Meat Industry Council—Meat Business Women Committee member
• Department of Agriculture—Halal Consultative Committee member

Dalene is an effective communicator and shares her ideas and views openly on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Mark Gower

Mark is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a qualified Chartered Accountant. He has over 30 years commercial experience in management and strategy, together with a life-long interest in sustainable farming and land care.

Mark has extensive local and international experience in the food industry, in senior management and operations roles with businesses ranging in size from large multi-nationals through to family run operations. For the past 18 years, he has also been a small-scale beef producer using sustainable farming practices.

In his role as General Manager for NASAA Organic, he aims to collaboratively increase the size and skill base of sustainable and organic sector by working to strengthen networks and share know-how. His desire to be involved in an industry that offers environmental, financial and social returns has long been a driver for Mark.
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Lynton Greenwood

Lynton Greenwood is Director and Owner of Greenwood Orchards & Enterprises P/L, established in 1906. Greenwood Orchards (website) is located at Merrigum in the Goulburn Valley, and is a certified Australian Demeter Bio-Dynamic Apple and Pear orchard, selling whole fruit and fruit juices. The orchard has been managed under Australian Demeter Biodynamic methods since 1966.

Lynton is Chairman of the Board for the Bio Dynamic Research Institute, a non-profit Australian government accredited Organic Certifying Organisation.

The Bio-Dynamic Research Institute itself is a non-profit company engaging ethical practices. It is not a certification business in the current sense of this term. Rather it demands highest quality application of the bio-dynamic method, strongly supports family farms and businesses, and encourages community based, sustainable, ecological activities. Under Lynton’s guidance, the Research Institute has stood firm and committed to its charter notwithstanding the current corporatisation that is occurring within the organic industry.
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Janie McClure

Janie McClure is the Director and Owner of Organics for Rural Australia (ORA), a company she founded in 2001 stemming from her passion for organics in the rural industry. She gained strong support with a grant for ORA in its infancy from Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal and the ANZ Bank.

Janie’s first experience with organic farming was when “McClure & Daughters” (Trevallyn Station) successfully farmed the Darling River flood plains with organic canola for a Japanese oil seed merchant company in the early 1990’s. It was then that she realised how much potential there could be with organic farming in the Western Division of NSW.

Rural Organics Pty Ltd, her marketing/wholesaling company has certification with Demeter/Bio–dynamic and NASAA and trades certified organic lamb, beef, grain and wool for its dedicated growers into organic markets within Australia.
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Susan Shelton

Susan Shelton is the Organic Certification Facilitator at Bellamy's Organic, Australia’s most valuable organic food brand, specializing in certified organic formula and first foods for children. Susan has a background in soil science and spatial information that aligned with an introduction to the organic industry from a neighbouring cherry grower 10 year ago. This introduction led to technical, training, auditing, and consultancy roles within a large range of industries—rangeland, aquaculture, dairy, horticulture, viticulture, meat, cropping, international growers, wineries, bottlers, canning, grain processors, abattoirs, bakeries, composters and importers.

Bellamy’s Organic is a listed Australian company founded by a Tasmanian Family in 2004 wanting to provide a convenient nutritious organic choice for their children. It’s organic food range is certified by NASAA and their product are made and packed in Australia, maintaining some of the highest food safety requirements within the world.
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Sam Statham

Sam Statham is an organic farmer and winemaker, father of three, and has been an active member of the organic industry for over 20 years. Sam's family moved to Canowindra, in the NSW Central West, in 1996, became certified organic in 1998, and today they grow wine grapes (20ha), olives (10ha) and figs (½ha) for domestic and export markets. The farm, “Rosnay”, is part of a group of organic growers called Rivers Road Organic Farms, set up in 1998.

Sam's industry experience includes:

• Training and working worked as an Independent auditor for NASAA in the 1990's and early 2000's
• Board member and representative of the Organic Federation of Australia on the Gene Technology Grains Committee from 2000 to 2006
• Chair of the BFA Vignerons Committee and a member of the BFA Standards Committee of BFA from 2008 to 2011
• Member of the National Standards sub-Committee from 2014 to 2019
• Sam was awarded the Inaugural NSW Organic Pioneers Award in 2012
• Rosnay won the NSW Landcare Award in 2015

Sam is an outspoken proponent of organic farming and winemaking, and also of good corporate governance, transparency, consultation and democratic processes, especially with regards to maintaining Australia's organic standards, the corporatisation of organics and the responsible regulation of GMOs.
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Carissa Wolfe

Carissa Wolfe is co-owner of Benmar Farm Pty Ltd, an organic 120-cow dairy on the Mid North Coast of NSW, established in 2013. She has been involved in organics, both in Australia and in Oregon, USA since 2004, including specialising in alternative ruminant health.

In Oregon, Carissa co-owned a farm support business, providing:

• financial management services
  • small business management accounting, training and support
  • accounting systems implementation
  • professional bookkeeping
  • internal audit
  • governance, policy and human resources
• ruminant health training for new farmers
• herd recording, livestock reproduction support, and other support services.

Carissa's prior professional background includes:

• financial systems development
• database administrator for the management accounting group at one of the top 3 banks in the USA
• payroll, benefit client support and policy audit with a human resources outsourcing firm

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