SUFFOLK farmer and businessman Rob Wise has joined the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) eastern team as regional adviser. He will be handling environmental issues affecting landowners in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, including implementation of the Water Framework Directive and Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, rural grants, waste, fly-tipping and agri-environment schemes, coastal defence and access.
SUFFOLK farmer and businessman Rob Wise has joined the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) eastern team as regional adviser. He will be handling environmental issues affecting landowners in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, including implementation of the Water Framework Directive and Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, rural grants, waste, fly-tipping and agri-environment schemes, coastal defence and access. He will also be dealing with political matters from local and national government to the EU.
After gaining a BSc in agriculture from Newcastle University, Mr Wise went to Michigan State University where he took a masters degree in agricultural economics before working in the U.S. government in Washington D.C. There he developed farm budget policy in the presidential executive office and then joined Senator Tom Daschle as a legislative assistant on the Senate Agriculture Committee helping to write the 1990 Farm Bill.
Returning to the UK in 1991 he worked for almost five years as adviser to the director general of UKASTA, representing the agricultural supply industry. He moved back to his family's arable farm at Cavendish in Suffolk and set up a consultancy to advise on a range of agricultural and environmental policy issues as a consultant to the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) and other public and private sector clients.
Four years later the farm entered into a contract farming arrangement and he focused on developing diversification options. With the help of DEFRA RES grant aid he converted redundant 15th Century listed timber farm buildings into a health club and day spa, which opened in 2007 and now has over 600 members and employs 11 people.
He is married to Leslie, an American, and also an agricultural economist, and they have two children, Daniel, 15, and Jonathan, 12.
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