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About the Authors
Erik Schmidt
Erik is Director of the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) at the University of
Southern Queensland and is responsible for leadership of research and commercialisation projects in
Agricultural Engineering. The NCEA specialises in developing collaborative teams of private and
public sector research individuals and organisations to provide industry focused solutions. Erik holds
key research leadership roles including overall responsibility for delivery of NCEA projects and
principal investigator on a number of national projects.
He has worked closely with the Australian Sugar Industry while employed as project engineer with
BSES Ltd and the CSIRO where work focused on harvesting systems and adoption of new
technologies. He was formerly Head of the Engineering at the South African Sugar Association
responsible for planning, coordination and management of research and development projects. A
component of this work included evaluation of cane supply systems and assessing the potential for
improving mill area profitability by managing cane supply and harvesting systems.
Rick Giles
Rick is a Senior Project Coordinator with the Department of Environment and Conservation of
Western Australia and he is principally involved in a project with the Future Farm Industries
Cooperative Research Centre, which is developing a new concept tree harvester for the mallee supply
chain. His work on the harvesting principle and the associated supply chain extends back to the late
1990s and the strategies employed in sugar industry supply chains have been a major influence upon
this work since 1999. With the engagement of the FFI CRC in the harvester development project in
2007, the funding of the project by the WA Low Emissions Energy Development Fund, and the
engagement in 2008 of Biosystems Engineering in Toowoomba, development of harvesting
technology is now well advanced.
Rick’s involvement in the mallee industry development began in 1993 as the first substantial mallee
resources were being planted in the WA wheat belt. Prior to that time he worked in forest silviculture
and plant water relations research.
Rod Davis
Rod is an Agricultural Engineer with over 20 years of experience in research and development
projects across various agricultural production systems. Rod is currently principal consultant and
Director of FSA Consulting. Rod’s role within FSA Consulting includes project management, water,
energy and GHG research in intensive livestock industries and water resource management. From
1995 to 2004, Rod was a research engineer with the Farming Systems group, BSES Ltd. His primary
role was to conduct research in the area of machine issues associated with the growing, harvesting and
transport of sugarcane including: the conceptualisation, development, trialling and commercialisation
of alternative component designs, measurement of machine loadings and environmental data through
the development of real-time data acquisition and monitoring systems and the development of industry
harvesting best practice guidelines.
Rod has extensive experience in project management, sugarcane production, harvesting and harvester
design, mechanical component design and power hydraulic system as well as data acquisition systems.
Craig Baillie
Craig is an Agricultural Engineer who grew up on a cotton farm in the Emerald Irrigation Area of
Central Queensland and is currently the Deputy Director of the NCEA. Craig’s responsibilities
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