Dr Hinner Koster
Scinetic
hinnerkoster@telkomsa.net
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Dr Hinner Köster received his B.Sc. Agric. in 1986, his B.Sc. Agric. (Hons.) in 1987 and his M.Sc. Agric. (Animal Nutrition) in 1990 at the University of Pretoria. In 1995 he completed his Ph.D. in Ruminant Nutrition at Kansas State University, USA. He has 40 international and national scientific papers and abstracts and has published more than 200 popular scientific papers. He remains actively involved in numerous industry scientific research projects in South Africa, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA, South America and Australia and has presented 16 papers at international conferences and symposia. He also recently has been appointed as an adjunct faculty member (extraordinary Professor) at Kansas State University, USA where he serves on various post graduate research committees. Dr Köster still contributes to academic education of South African Animal Scientists by acting as co-supervisor for various M.Sc. and Ph.D. students at most of the major Animal Science faculties as well as Onderstepoort. He further is a member of the American Society of Animal Science, South African Society of Animal Science (Council member) and South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions.
He played a major role at the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association (AFMA) and acted in various capacities on the Board of Directors, Technical and Liaison Committee and Congress and Editorial Committees. In 2005, he was elected chairman of the AFMA board of directors, a position he held until 2007, and also served as chairman on all the different AFMA committees since 2000. During his term at AFMA he was instrumental in initiating and contributing to the drafting of various Codes of Practice and a Code of Conduct for the Animal Feed industry.
In 2001, Dr Köster was awarded with the Barney van Niekerk/AFMA Technical Person of the Year award. In July 2007 he was further honoured with the Silver Medal by the South African Society of Animal Science and more recently (September 2008), he was named Agriculturalist of the Year for the Gauteng region.
Until recently, Dr Köster was the Managing Director of Scinetic, the Centre for Excellence within Afgri Operation Ltd. where he was responsible for R&D activities and many of the innovation and international business development programmes within the company. In January 2009, he decided to exit the corporate environment to focus more independently on adding value to the South African as well as global animal production chain. He joined Animate Animal Health Pty Limited as a partner, a company that already focuses on value added animal health and nutritional products and strategies for all species.