Director of Agriculture & Sustainability at Devenish Nutrition,  an innovative livestock nutrition company which creates complete solutions, improving animal, human and environmental health, simultaneously; and appointed an honorary Professor of Practice in Agriculture and Sustainability by Queens University Belfast.

He has been an award-winning farmer in Ireland, President of the Ulster Farmers Union; a Non Executive Director of the Scottish Rural College (SRUC), and an Energy Regulator in N. Ireland; while at the same time, he has been a policy adviser for Devolved, National and European Governments on Biotechnology, Climate Change and Sustainability.

In particular, for seven years, John chaired the UK’s Rural Climate Change Forum, reporting directly to the Secretary of State of DEFRA, London, and supporting the UK at COP15 in Copenhagen. While Director of SRUC in Edinburgh he helped set up their very successful Carbon Management Centre.

For the last six years John has been chairing the N. Ireland Expert Working Group on Sustainable Land Management, and on reducing Ammonia Emissions; and he currently is a member of the EU Commission’s Mission Board Assembly on Soil Health & Food in Brussels and presented the Devenish Lands at Dowth as one of three exemplar international Lighthouse farms at the recent EIP-Agri workshop on the Soil Health & Food Mission Board roadmap.

In 2020, John secured a farmer led, EIP Innovation grant support, to accelerate seven N. Irish livestock farmers to Net Zero, in a project called ARC Zero. This project was selected as an exemplar and was recently show cased at COP26. www.arczeroni.org