Carlo Leifert

Biography

Carlo Leifert, apart from being a part-time farmer in Crete, Greece, I am currently an Adjunct Professor at Southern Cross University, a visiting professor at the Oslo University and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science and a member of the academic advisory board of the Thünen Institute (the German Federal Research Institute for Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisherie).

Until the beginning of 2020, I was the Professor and Director of Australia’s first Centre for Organics Research at Southern Cross University.

Before moving to SCU, I worked as Research Development Professor of Ecological Agriculture at Newcastle University for 17 years, and was part-time Dean for Business Development (2014-2016) at the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering.

Carlo's work contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals

My research and teaching over the last 20 years has focused on: • Applied agronomic R&D and technology transfer to improve quality and safety and reduce costs in sustainable and organic food production systems; • Strategic R&D in interactions between food production methods and food quality (especially nutritional and sensory quality) and safety characteristics; • Selection/breeding of crop and livestock varieties suitable for “low-input” and organic production systems.

Between 1999 and 2009, I was a member of TESCO’s Food Quality and Safety expert panel and advisory board of Nature’s Choice, which is TESCO’s quality assurance auditing system for its global produce supplier base.