Stephanie Montogmery is an Australian agronomist with over 16 years experience across multiple sectors including private consulting, commercial agronomy and government research and extension. She has recently submitted her PhD investigating new farming systems for upland crops in Northwest Cambodia, from which two papers have already been published. This field research study investigated sustainable farming practices for farmers in the Samlout and Pailin regions which are located in the top of the Sangke River catchment. Soil degradation from a plough based system resulted in declining crop yields, conversion to monoculture cropping, declining soil fertility and downstream pollution of the catchment (>1 000 000 people) due to soil erosion. This research illustrated that through conversion to conservation agriculture including no-tillage and rotation cropping legumes and sunflower, sustainability of the farming system is improved through increased farm profitability and protection of the natural resource base. Further to this my research proved that a delay in sowing time by two months significantly reduced the risk of crop failure in the pre-monsoon season and greatly increased yield and profitability of the whole farm system. Stephanie has worked on upland farming system issues in Cambodia since 2003. In a country where the majority of research focus is on rice based systems, her knowledge of the upland is highly sought after.
She also has extensive experience working in Australian winter and summer based farming systems in NSW and Southern Queensland in both dryland and irrigated environments.Furthermore she was requested by UNOPS to assess irrigation schemes on the Aeyarwaddy River system throughout Myanmar in 2012. Her role was to give expert advice on the soils and agronomic potetial and land suitability of irrigation schemes in the Central Dry Zone.