Allan Callaghan follows his South Australian government role with vital contributions to agriculture nationally

Allan Callaghan in 1980 with Dr Bruce Eastick, president of the Roseworthy Agricultural College council, for the opening of the Callaghan Building at the college where he was principal from 1932 to 1949. At right: Callaghan was a senior author of The Wheat Industry in Australia (1956) that became a the definitive text book on its topic.

Allan Callaghan went on to prominent national roles after his highly influential decade using his vision and talents to totally transform the South Australian government agriculture department from 1949 to 1959.

Callaghan served with distinction as Australian commercial counsellor in Washington, DC (1959–65) and as an outstanding chairman of the Australian Wheat Board (1965-71). He was knighted in 1972 for his performance in the chairman role.

Callaghan again served the South Australian government in 1973 when he researched and prepared a major report entitled “A review of the department of agriculture in the light of changed and changing needs”. This document was accepted by the government and it gave reference points to develop the department over the next decade. Callaghan was asenior author of The Wheat Industry in Australia (1956) 

While South Australian agriculture department director, Callaghan was also extremely influential nationally. For most of the 1950s, Callagan was a key member of the national standing committee on agriculture. The committee’s two commonwealth government representatives – John Crawford of commerce and agriculture department and Ian Clunies Ross of CSIRO (commonwealth industrial and scientic research organisation) – were towering public figures, with Callaghan joining other effective state representatives: Arthur Bell (Queensland), George Baron-Hay (Western Australia), Robert Noble (New South Wale) and Hubert Mullett (Victoria).

Among this high-powered group, Callaghan was a key member with fresh ideas across a whole range of agricultural issues. In particular, he strongly supported moves that led to the highly significant commonwealth agricultural industries schemes with greatly increased funding for the applied research and extension services in all states. Callaghan was crucial to the states and the commonwealth agreeing to jointly fund the Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture and Animal Husbandry to independently publish refereed scientific papers on applied research.

Callaghan also was national president of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science. In 1956, he strongly supported a move by its Victorian branch to set up a permanent central office, employing a full-time executive officer with support staff, to enable the institute to voice the views of professional agricultural scientists. He was able to convince John Crawford that was in the national agricultural interest to support this move with funding.

With Dr A.J. Millington, reader in agronomy at Western Australia University, Callaghan was senior author of the 480-page The Wheat Industry in Australia (Angus and Robertson, 1956) that quickly became and remained for many years the definitive text book on its topic.

Callaghan also developed a keen interest in major change in marketing Australian wheat that was still based on the FAQ system. In 1956, on a study tour as a Carnegie Travelling Fellow to Canada, he saw well established marketing schemes based on separating wheats of into qualities. This reinforced his belief that the Australian wheat marketing system needed modifying to separate high baking-quality grain. These changes didn’t come until 1967 during his term as chairman of the Australian Wheat Board.

During his South Australian directorship, he received two honours for outstanding contributions to Australian agriculture: the 1954 Farrer Medal, from the William Farrer Memorial Trust, and, in 1958, being elected as one of the first fellows of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science.

Having resigned as South Australian director in 1959 because of ill health intensified by his feud with agriculture minister Glen Pearson, Callaghan remained in good health for the rest of his life, dying in 1993 aged 90.