Bringing the world home: Two Nuffield Scholars go the extra mile(s and miles) to learn

By Mel Luymes

What happens when you give curious minds the chance to ask big questions and the time to look around the world for answers? Well, you get the Nuffield agricultural scholarship program. 

Nuffield Canada was established in 1950 and is part of a global network of agricultural leaders. Every year, up to six applicants from across Canada are selected to participate in a two-year program to grow their connections and travel, valued at $20,000 and culminating in a research report available to the public. 

Over the years, there have been 150 Canadian Nuffield scholars joining the 1800 global alumni of the program. The Rural Voice caught up with both Matt McIntosh and Lauren Benoit, two of the six 2024 Scholars who recently completed their reports, now available at www.nuffield.ca. 

While they were old friends from university, Lauren and Matt’s paths overlapped in the program at Nuffield Canada’s meeting in Saskatchewan in January 2024 and again at an eight-day Contemporary Scholars Conference in Brazil that March. While they stayed connected with a group chat of the six scholars, they were off on their own, scouring the globe to answer their research questions. The program requires that scholars travel a minimum of 10 weeks over the two-year period, six of which must be consecutive.

No two Nuffield experiences are the same. While Matt completed his Nuffield work around farming, writing and a young family, Lauren was able to take a six-month sabbatical to dive into her Nuffield question. 

Balancing farms and nature
Matt McIntosh is a name many readers will recognize from other farm publications. He is a journalist based near Leamington and online at RuralPhilosoFer.com. He studied Political Science from the University of Guelph and worked in agricultural communications before moving back to near the family farm in Essex County to start a family of his own. He married Tayler in 2019, and they have a young daughter. 

Matt is also an avid outdoorsman and loves being outside in nature. So, for his Nuffield question, he was curious to know what types of programs, policies and initiatives would help farmers improve or restore natural features on agricultural landscapes without undermining farm productivity or business viability. His question took him across Europe, starting with a trip to the UK and Ireland in January and February 2024, to Brazil for the Nuffield Conference in March, to Ohio in July and Manitoba in August.  He finished up in April 2025, with a trip to Denmark, Estonia and Latvia.

“I just wanted to know what are some common themes of things that work and things that don’t,” Matt said.  While he is quite familiar with Ontario’s agri-environmental programming, he wanted to see what others looked like. Are farmers involved or is it top down? How do they troubleshoot programs, and where do they get their funding? What is the motivation for farmers to be involved?  

Matt had some connections through the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation, the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, from the Nuffield network, and some previous ties in Ireland, but the trips still involved a lot of cold-calling and planning. 

“As a journalist, I’m used to calling people out of the blue,” Matt laughs.  “Not everyone will respond to a phone call, but a lot of people do.”  

He toured several agri-environmental schemes in the UK and Ireland, including the Farming Rathcroghan program, which is a grassroots initiative designed by farmers that work near a historic site. Another highlight was Veksi Eco-Farm in Latvia, which highlighted multifunctionality, providing a deep floodplain for downstream flood control, pasturing cattle in the floodplain when it was dry, and using the farm for hikers and tourism as well. It was a mind-set shift, says Matt. It may not be a commodity, but instead it is an ecological good. “That’s also farming,” he argues.

Matt concluded that agri-environmental programs need to be simple and flexible, built locally from the grassroots, invest in extension support for farmers and set clear, long-term goals so farmers aren’t left guessing with shifting political priorities. 

Getting research into practice
Lauren Benoit caught up with the Rural Voice on a call from Saskatoon where she recently moved to begin doctoral studies in plant breeding at the University of Saskatchewan. She grew up near Kirkton, went to the University of Guelph for an agricultural degree (Aggie ’16) and then to Ridgetown for a master’s degree in weed science. After graduating, Lauren worked in Australia for a year and, for the last five years, she has been working as a research agronomist for Bayer Crop Science. 

Her Nuffield question centred on getting research into practice on farms, with a focus on public-private research partnerships. With her background in academic research, her work in the industry and farming alongside her dad (shout out to Bernie Benoit, who many readers will also know!) and on the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO)’s Research Committee, this question was at the heart of her work. 

“The research space was always something I enjoyed and having those aspects [farm groups, industry, public and academia], it surprised me sometimes how little we talk to each other,” says Lauren. “How could we be better connected and move in the same direction?” Ontario could have the smartest researchers, she says, but if we don’t have an extension network, the research doesn’t go anywhere. Or we could have networks of farmers, but if they don’t get any new information, then what is the real value of that network?

While she enjoyed the Contemporary Scholars Conference in Brazil, she was having difficulties deciding how to fit in the Nuffield travel while working full-time, but eventually she was able to take a six-month sabbatical from Bayer that allowed her to dive into a trip around the globe. Her scholarship was funded by GFO, and she received additional support from Bayer and CropLife Canada to complete her travels. 

She started across the U.S. in February 2025, then to Mexico, and off to Australia, China, East Timor, Rwanda, Kenya, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. She even stopped for a month in Montenegro halfway through for a writing retreat. By the time she arrived back in Canada for her friend’s wedding in August, her report was nearly complete. In all, she travelled about 100,000 kilometres, arranging all her logistics, and lived just out of a backpack. 

Like Matt, she used Nuffield connections, but also used connections through Bayer, which is a global company. She knew roughly what countries she wanted to see and found it valuable to attend conferences to make the connections. 

She was especially impressed by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) founded in the 1990s in Australia, which is funded from a check-off fee that is matched (by 50 percent) with public funds. With such a large pot of grower-driven funding, it means that researchers start at the farm level, consulting with growers before applying for research funding. She hopes that one day Canadian agricultural research could move in this direction, with growers investing in research so that they can drive it to be more practical.

She also sees that collaborations are usually built on personal relationships, the result of just a handful of people at times. Getting research into practices takes systems and networks working on many levels, with research, sustainable funding, trusted extension systems and grower networks.

Highlights and challenges
As part of the Nuffield network, both Matt and Lauren were hosted at the homes of their peers around the world. In turn, they hosted their peers as well. This was a highlight for both; they enjoyed showing people this part of the world and making new international friendships. 

There were challenging parts as well, especially travelling in places where English was not the first language. For Matt, he says the eight-day conference in Brazil was one of the most intense conferences of his life.  By that time, he’d already been travelling for weeks with only a few days of seeing his family before he was off into a heat wave, navigating a foreign country alone to get to the conference. They were full, hot days and many people got COVID at the conference.

There were many other times that Matt had to force himself well beyond his comfort zone. He admits he struggled with anxiety with all the travel and meeting new people, but that it paid off in the end. Still, he was very glad to be back to his family when it was over. 

For Lauren, she says that the most challenging part of her trip was also the most rewarding. She stayed in Rwanda for three weeks and struggled to confront the genocide that the country went through in 1994, the same year she was born. However, she says Rwandans were the friendliest people she has ever met and she felt completely safe. She says it was fascinating to see Rwanda, East Timor and even China, with such different cultures and governments. 

Both Matt and Lauren finished up their scholarship this past January in Victoria, B.C., and they welcomed the incoming 2026 scholars, including Ontario’s Kristen Kelderman, with the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing, who will be exploring how farmers navigate grief.

Nuffield’s history
Nuffield Canada’s mission is “inspiring people to make a difference in the world of agriculture and primary production.” It is part of Nuffield International, a global community which includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zimbabwe.

The Nuffield Foundation was founded in 1943 by William Morris (1877-1963), a British philanthropist who made his fortune in bicycles and in the motor industry (hence the logo) and later became Lord Nuffield. He often sought out other leaders in the industry and founded agricultural scholarships to bring young leaders from around the commonwealth to Britain. The program evolved over the years to a self-funded global organization. 

Nuffield International runs a Contemporary Scholars Conference (CSC) conference in a different country of the world every year, along with a Global Focus Program (GFP), which consists of eight weeks travelling with a smaller group of Nuffield scholars across several countries. The Nuffield Triennial brings together global alumni to rekindle their connections, while a Canadian annual meeting brings together scholars across the country, hearing reports from the latest scholars returning from their Individual Research Travels and welcoming the newest scholars. 

It's April, so applications for 2027 Nuffield Scholarships are now open, and will be accepted until June 30. If you’re inspired and have your own burning question you’d like to explore (and you’re under 50-ish), consider applying. Find out more at www.nuffield.ca.◊