Northern Ireland farmer and professor John Gilliland has been appointed to the Climate Change Advisory Council.

Prof Gilliand is professor of practice for agriculture and sustainability at Queens University Belfast and is a special adviser to the UK’s Agriculture Horticulture Development Board.

As an alumni of the US International Visitor Leadership Program, he is highly respected and recognised as an excellent leader and communicator across the breadth of the agri-food and sustainable land management sectors.

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He is an award-winning farmer and one of the world’s leading voices in agricultural sustainability.

He recently received the international award for distinguished service on the international and national stage in the field of food and agribusiness. He is a former president of the Ulster Farmers Union and a non-executive director of the Scottish Rural College (SRUC).

He also chaired the UK’s Rural Climate Change Forum for a period of seven years, reporting directly to the Secretary of State of DEFRA, London, and supporting the UK at COP15 in Copenhagen.

He held the role of director of agriculture and sustainability of the Irish livestock nutrition company Devenish, which he held for seven years.

He led the development of its research farm, the lands at Dowth, transforming it into both a lighthouse farm for Wageningen University and Research Global Network of Lighthouse Farms, and a living lab, in a project called Heartland, with five PhD students, in partnership with WUR and UCD, and funded by the EU’s Marie Curie Programme.

Other appointments

The Government has appointed three other ordinary members to council. Dr Matthew Kennedy, Luke O’Callaghan White and Dr Muireann Lynch have also been appointed to the board.

Dr Kennedy is global head of client transformation at IDA Ireland, where he leads transformational initiatives for international business across research and development, digitalisation, sustainability, talent development and climate action.

Luke O’Callaghan-White leads the EU transition programme at E3G, an independent international climate change think tank with the goal of translating climate politics, economics and policies into action.

Dr Lynch is a senior research officer and research area co-ordinator for energy and environment at the Economic and Social Research Institute, where she leads and conducts policy-relevant research in energy economics, climate policy evaluation and energy-systems modelling.