Meet your Council Members: 2008-2010

Trevor Dugmore

Specialist researcher in Animal Science with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, specializing in ruminant nutrition and the feeding and management of dairy cattle.  Technical editor of the Agricultural Production Guidelines, Dairying in KwaZulu-Natal.  Lecturer and convener of the Cedara Dairy Short Course and lectured dairying to Cedara College students for many years.  Invited speaker at numerous farmers days all over Southern Africa, from the Tsitsikamma to Lusaka.

Research leader for Animal Science research in the KwaZulu-Natal DAEA, supervising research programmes covering the evaluation of the nutritive value of roughages, beef on veld, beef on pasture, sheep on pasture, sheep on veld, dairy on pasture, small-scale dairying, aquaculture and the genetic conservation and characterization of breeds indigenous to KwaZulu-Natal (Nguni sheep and cattle).   Presented 15 scientific papers at congresses and 14 at symposia.  Author and co-author, in both peer reviewed journals (15 papers), popular scientific journals (26) and scientific proceedings (8).  

Professional involvement includes serving on the South African Society of Animal Science Council for four 2 year terms and being chairman of the KZN branch of African Society of Animal Science.  Acted as sub-editor for the South African Journal of Animal Science on numerous occasions and a referee to numerous scientific papers submitted to the journal. External examiner for several M.Sc theses at the University of KZN and external examiner to several Animal Science courses for many years. Served as a judge for the nutrition section of the Master Dairyman of KZN competition and also at the Youth Show.  

Johannes Petrus Carl Greyling

was born in Port Elizabeth on 15 December 1950.   He obtained the B.Sc. degree in Agriculture (Animal Science) in 1974, the B.Sc. Agric Hons in 1977, M.Sc. Agric in 1978 and Ph.D. in 1988 at the University of Stellenbosch.
He started his career as technical officer at the Department of Human and Animal Physiology at the University of Stellenbosch in 1975.   From 1979 to 1989 he was employed by the Department of Agriculture at the then Animal and Dairy Science Research Institute at Irene as Agricultural Researcher (Reproductive Physiologist).   In 1989 he joined the Department of Animal Science at the University of the Orange Free State as senior lecturer and was promoted to professor and head of the Department Animal Science in 1997.
He is author and co-author of some 100 scientific and popular scientific publications in national and international journals, research reports and presentations.   He has also undertaken several overseas visits (congress presentations and research actions).   He is a member of several scientific societies and currently serves as associate editor (Animal Physiology and Reproduction) for the South African Journal of Animal Science and the American Journal of Small Ruminant Research.   He also served on the African Small Ruminant Research Network Steering Committee of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa for two years, where he was the representative for Southern Africa.   He is rated and a principal grantholder of the National Research Foundation (NRF).

Hinner Köster

Dr Hinner Köster studied at the University of Pretoria where he received his B. Sc. Agric. in 1986, his B. Sc. Agric. (Hons.) in 1987 and his M. Sc. Agric. (Animal Nutrition) in 1990.  In 1995 he completed his Ph.D. in Ruminant Nutrition at Kansas State University, USA. He has 40 international and national scientific papers and abstracts of which 13 are in peer reviewed journals (9 international and 4 national) and has published more than 200 popular scientific papers.  He remains actively involved in numerous industry scientific research projects in South Africa, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA and Australia and has presented 16 papers at international conferences and symposia. He also recently has been appointed as an adjunct faculty member (extraordinary Professor) at Kansas State University, USA where he serves on various post graduate research committees. Dr Köster still contributes to academic education of South African Animal Scientists by acting as co-supervisor for various M.Sc. and Ph.D. students at most of the major Animal Science faculties as well as Onderstepoort and has further acted as external examiner for pre-and post graduate students at the Universities of Pretoria, Free State and Stellenbosch. Dr Köster further is a member of the American Society of Animal Science, South African Society of Animal Science and South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions. He also was a committee member of the South African Association for Professional Animal Scientists until it was incorporated into the South African Society of Animal Science.  

He played a major role at the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association (AFMA) and acted in various capacities on the Board of Directors, Technical and Liaison Committee and Congress and Editorial Committees.  In 2005, he was elected chairman of the AFMA board of directors, a position he held until 2007, and also served as chairman on all the different AFMA committees since 2000. During his term at AFMA he was instrumental in initiating and contributing to the drafting of various Codes of Practice and a Code of Conduct for the Animal Feed industry. He was Vice President of the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society and serves since 1996 as director of the SA Hereford Breeders’ Society where he acts as chairman of the World Hereford Conference Committee.  He also is a senior judge of various cattle breeds and represented South Africa in Argentina (2000), Australia (2004) and Denmark (2008) at World Hereford Conferences.
During 1999, Dr Köster was awarded the OTK Ltd. (now Afgri) Technical person of the year award and received the prestigious Barney van Niekerk/AFMA Technical Person of the Year award in 2001 for his numerous contributions in the field of Animal Nutrition in South Africa.  In July 2007 he was further honoured with the Silver Medal by the South African Society of Animal Science in acknowledgement of his exceptional contributions and involvement that significantly influenced and directed the development and improvement of production in the livestock industry. More recently (September 2008), he was named Agriculturist of the Year for the Gauteng region.
Currently, Dr Köster is the Technical Director at Animate Animal Health (Pty) Ltd. 

Azwihangwisi Maiwashe

Dr Maiwashe earned his bachelor degree in animal science from the University of Venda. He went further to obtain his BSc (Agric) Honours and MSc degrees with Cum Laude from the University of Free State. He did his PhD in Animal Breeding and Genetics under the supervision of Prof Dorian Garrick at Colorado State University in the USA. Upon completion of his PhD in 2004, Dr Maiwashe joined the Agricultural Research Council as a Senior Researcher in the department of Animal Breeding and Genetics.  

His current research focuses on (1) national and international genetic evaluation of livestock, (2) design of breeding programs and development of breeding objectives, and (3) conservation of farm animal genetic resources. Dr Maiwashe is actively involved in training of masters and doctoral students and has extensive research collaboration with local and international scientists. Dr Maiwashe is a member of South African Society of Animal Science and a registered professional animal scientist. He currently serves an executive member of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production.

C.J.C. Muller

Carel Muller has been involved with dairy cattle research at Elsenburg since 1980 after completing his B.Sc (Agric) degree at the University of Pretoria. He obtained his M.Sc. (Agric) in 1991 at the University of Stellenbosch. This was on the effect of shade during summer on the milk production, milk composition, physiological responses and behaviour of Holstein-Friesian cows. He has developed a wide range of interest fields in dairy cattle research. This include the evaluation of different forages produced in the Western Cape for lactating cows, rearing of replacement heifers, intensive housing of dairy cows, breeding of dairy cows, pasture management, reproduction management and the breeding of dairy goats. He is also involved with the training of post graduate students and has been a co-promoter for 3 M.Sc-students at the University of Stellenbosch. At present 5 students (3 M.Tech- and 2 M.Sc-degrees) are working under his supervision. He has written 21 scientific and 158 popular articles, and has presented 51 congress papers and posters both here in South Africa and overseas. He is also the editor of a newsletter on dairy research funded by the Animal Production Research Trust.  He has completed a PhD study at the University of Stellenbosch in 2005 on the estimation of genetic parameters and the development of a breeding plan for the South African dairy goat herd. He initiated practical short (2 day) courses in the Western Cape for dairy farmers on the feeding and management of dairy cows as well as on reproduction and breeding in dairy herds. He has compiled these lectures together with notes concerning dairying practises in the milking parlour. This set of lectures is available to all dairy farmers.  He is currently working on 2 crossbreeding projects using Fleckvieh (a Simmentaler derived breed) on Holsteins and Jerseys comparing crossbreds to purebreds in veal, beff and milk production studies.

Marlien Neuhoff

Marlien Neuhoff (de Jager) completed BSc (Agric) Animal Science in 1995 and received her BSc (Agric) Honours in Production Physiology at the beginning of 1997.
After trying her hand at consultation work and commodity trading Marlien joined Elanco Animal Health as an Animal Product Specialist in February 1998.  Marlien held several different positions within Elanco and was the Brand Manager for all Elanco products at the time that she left in April 2007.
She joined Larrem (Pty) Ltd at the beginning of May 2007 as Marketing Director with specific responsibility in developing natural (organic and Ayurvedic) product applications within the poultry market.  Marlien is currently enrolled as a MSc (Agric) Student at the University of Stellenbosch where she further investigates the effect of Avurvedics and other natural products for their immune potentiating properties in broiler chicks.
Marlien has been involved with the Northern Branch of SASAS since 2004 .  She took over as Chairperson in 2007, hosted the Mini Congress for SASAS at Klein Kariba in Bela-Bela in August 2007.  She has been elected as Chairperson: SASAS Northern Branch for 2008.  As Chairperson for the Northern Branch she has attended various SASAS Council meetings where she has assumed responsibility for various projects including designing and printing of member certificates, design of SASAS banners for WCAP etc.   Marlien also holds position for Marketing on the Executive Committee for WCAP