Calum is currently Head of Agriculture and Food at Innovate UK. He has led substantial publicly funded programmes for applied research in the AgriFood sector and sat on the X Whitehall Group that secured the £160m AgriTech Strategy in 2013 and that went on to deliver the AgriTech Catalyst programme and establish the four AgriTech Centers. He was an Interim Challenge Director during 2018 jointly responsible for establishing the £90m Industrial Strategy Transforming Food Production Challenge. Calum currently sits on Defra’s external R&D panel, and the Agricultural Productivity Task Force within the Food and Drink Sector Council structure, the Agri-TechE Stakeholder Panel the Animal and Plant Health Partnership and the LEAF network Advisory Board.
Calum studied agriculture at Aberdeen University, started his career with the Ministry of Agriculture in 1982 (ADAS) in East Anglia before joining David Anderson & Co as a Farm Business consultant in 1986. He then moved back his native Scotland to work with Scottish Agricultural College (now SRUC) in 1989 as a farm adviser. In 1995 he was appointed by Bank of Scotland as national agricultural specialist and became their regional director of NFU Mutual Finance joint venture in 2006.
Calum joined Innovate UK in Feb 2010.
