Back in 2017, Kirt Hainzer was a Crawford Fund conference scholar from Central Queensland University. Kirt’s pathway to agriculture development is arguably not the norm. He started with a Bachelor of Finance in Leeds, years as a management consultant in Scotland before 10 years in Asia, Europe and the Americas in agriculture development, agriculture research and as a farmer. Through that he completed an MSc in Agroecology from Wageningen University and finds himself now as a Senior Researcher with CQU working on an ACIAR funded project to develop market chains for sweet potato farmers in Papua New Guinea.