Jim Godfrey

Elected to the National Institute of Agricultural Botany Trust in November 2022, and a former NIAB Board director from 2012 to 2022, Jim Godfrey OBE is a director of RJ & AE Godfrey, a family farming business in North Lincolnshire with 4,000 ha of arable crops, pig breeding and rearing and a feed mill.

A specialist in leading strategic change and corporate governance Jim is former Chair of the NIAB Board and Chairman of Ceres Investment Committee, a Trustee of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India and an advisory Board member of the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology.

His former board and committee positions include chair of The Potato Marketing Board, Scottish Crop Research Institute, Sentry Farming Group plc, the International Potato Centre (CIP), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Alliance of the 15 research centres of the CGIAR, Innovate UK’s Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform, President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE), Council Member of the Biological and Bio-Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Rural Payments Agency and a member of the UK Agri-Tech Strategy’s Leadership Council, Lincolnshire Rural Support Network, and the Nuffield Farming Scholarship Selection Panel.

Jim was awarded the OBE for services to agricultural research in Scotland in 2002.