Agriculture director has had rapid rise

Press, 11 April 1977, Page 16

Agriculture director has had rapid rise

A former Canterbury man, Mr Malcolm Cameron will next month succeed Dr A. T. Johns, who is also Canterbun-born, as Director-General of Agriculture. has had a meteoric rise to one of the top posts m New Zealand agriculture. In 1965 he was a farm then Department of Agriculture in South Canterbun. before he moved north to become fields superintendent for the department in the important Auckland district. At the time he went to Auckland Mr O. G. Williams. a senior officer in the British Ministry of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Advisory Service was in New Zealand advising on the reorganisation of the department and m particular its advisory services. It is widely believed that Mr Cameron was one of those singled out by Mr Williams and the then Director-General of Agriculture. Mr D. N. R Webb. for greater things. In 1968 he became an assistant director of the farm-advisory division of rhe department and in the next vear director. When as a result of a reorganisation the advisory-

services division was formed in 1971 he became director of that. Since 1975 he has peen assistant director-general of at is now the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. In that capacity he has been responsible for the research division, the advisory-services division. dairy division, and the two fisheries divisions ol the Ministry. He represents the Ministry on the Fishing Industry Board and also on the Water Resources Council. Born in Timaru, where hi- father was a wellknown traffic inspector for many years — he is st il living in retirement there — Mr Cameron attended Timaru Boys’ High School and then Lincoln College, where he graduated bachelor of agricultural science in

1951. the year that he joined the Department of Agriculture in Timaru. A married man with three daughters and a son. ranging in age from 13 to 19 years, he will take over from Dr Johns who will retire on May 20 to become chairman of the University Grants Committee. Mr Cameron said yesterday that the Ministry existed to promote the development of the farming and fishing industries. T do not think that there is any dout that getting agriculture moving again is the biggest single task that the Ministry has got to help in. “In the fishing field I think that we are on the verge of a very significant development of that industry. and I think the Ministry has got an important part to play in that process also.”