Members of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) have received awards in recognition of their contribution to the landbased sector at an awards ceremony held at AGCO’s headquarters at Stoneleigh.

The award of Honorary Fellow was made to Dr Steve Parkin in recognition of the tremendous service he has given the Institution over a 25 year period of membership.


L-R: Steve Parkin, IAgrE President Mark Kibblewhite and IAgrE CEO Alastair Taylor

Presenting the award Alastair Taylor IAgrE CEO said, “Steve fully justifies the award of Honorary Fellow. He is an established agricultural engineer with a wide experience of research, development and training, particularly relating to agricultural chemical applications - a field in which he continues to be recognised as an international expert. Steve’s contribution is massive. As well as being a proven engineer his contribution to the Institution includes managing editor of our journal Biosystems Engineering and Chair of our Membership Committee.”

An Award of Merit was presented to Roger Lane-Nott, IAgrE Fellow and recently retired CEO of the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA). Roger has been the machine equipment sector's global industry champion for the past 8 years which involved intense lobbying with the European manufacturer’s organisations and the EU commission.

An award for Contribution to the landbased industries, made to a member who has made sustained contributions to the landbased sector throughout their career, went to Richard Trevarthen, a retired lecturer from Brooksby-Melton College. Presenting the award Alastair Taylor said, “Richard has contributed greatly to agricultural engineering education with endless enthusiasm. He instilled this enthusiasm into the many hundreds of young engineers and apprentices he supported during his working life.”

Jeremy Burgess, managing director of Sparex Group received the Michael Dwyer memorial prize. This prize is awarded to a mid-career engineer who has made outstanding progress in the agricultural engineering industry. “Under Jeremy’s leadership the Sparex Group now has 18 companies in 17 countries and an annual turnover of £120 million. And is interest in agricultural engineering doesn’t stop when his work ends as in his spare time he can often be spotted working on or driving his vintage tractor collection,” said Alastair.

This year’s branch meritorious award for a member who has delivered outstanding service to an IAgrE branch went to James Hunter and Bruce Hamilton. James has been a member of IAgrE since 1980 and Vice Chair since 2008. “His perspective as a farmer has been invaluable to the branch committee together with his practical knowledge and amusing observations and ability to create interesting and varied programme of meetings,” said Alastair. Bruce Hamilton is secretary to the Forestry Engineering Group and has proved to be invaluable in setting up the Group’s autumn symposium.