Our vision

CUPGRA will continue to strengthen its membership and bring together stakeholders in the UK potato industry to identify and support potato research that members are keen to see performed but unable to do by themselves.
CUPGRA will help fund short and long-term independent potato research, which has robust deliverables that will provide members with information to inform management practices.
CUPGRA will provide its members many diverse opportunities to gain experience of the most up-to-date potato research.

MEET THE DIRECTORS

CUPGRA Chair of Directors

Sophie Bambridge

Graduating with a degree in French and Spanish, Sophie joined the MDS GraduateTrainee Scheme, working in the fresh produce industry. She then spent seven years working for Barfoots before returning to Norfolk to join B&C Farming. A steep learning curve (which continues) later, Sophie runs the side of the business focusing on potato production, storage and sales along with haulage.

CUPGRA Director, Honorary Treasurer and R&D sub-committee member

David Almond

David has a life long interest in innovation and the application of science.
He had a 39 year career with Greens of Soham Ltd, which included MD roles with Greenseed International Ltd and Spearhead Marketing Ltd, producing and supplying annually 40,000 t of seed & salad potatoes and 150,000 t of processing potatoes to packers, processors and growers.

In 2016 he started his own consultancy, providing services in the evaluation and development of potato and specialist cropping business, mentoring and project management.

CUPGRA Director and Honorary Secretary, Chair of Conference sub-committee

James Lee

Business Manager at Produce Solutions James is a fourth generation “potato man” being brought up on the family farm in the West Midlands. He spent 12 years as a broad-acre agronomist before joining Greenvale as a Senior Potato Agronomist in 2001. James has subsequently had 20 years of potato supply chain experience across fresh retail and processing sectors and manages the “Produce Solutions” potato agronomy and trials business – part of the Greenvale and Produce Investments family of companies.

CUPGRA Director and Chair of R&D sub-committee

Debbie Winstanley

Debbie Winstanley has a BSc in Agriculture from the University of Wales. She is a Governor of Harper Adams University and was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Agricultural Society in 2022. She was a commercial farm agronomist in northwest England for 20 years before working on potato agronomy at Cambridge University Farm. Debbie has worked for both Co-op Retail and Sainsbury’s in technical management for fresh produce and was the UK agronomist for PepsiCo. She sits on the steering group of the Allerton Project, a charity that champions biodiversity, and PRIF, the UK Government’s Expert Committee for Pesticide Residues in Food.

CUPGRA Director

Jack Smith

Having graduated from Newcastle University in 2010 after studying Agriculture with agronomy I joined The Co-operative Farms as a graduate trainee. I then climbed the farm management ladder on cereal and root crop farms around the country before becoming Farms Director at AG Wright & Son (Farms) Ltd in 2019. In 2025 I joined Waldersey Farms Ltd as Farms Technical Director overseeing the farming operations on a wide range of Fenland soil types including c.450ha of potatoes. We are constantly looking to learn and evolve as a business to provide our customers with the product they need, to minimise our impact on the environment we grow in and to optimise our long term financial margins.

MEET THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

CUPGRA President and Chair of Advisory Board Members

Professor Tina Barsby OBE

Tina is Honorary Professor of Agricultural Botany at the University of Cambridge. She retired from her position as Chief Executive at NIAB in September 2021, being appointed in 2008 as the first female CEO in the Institute’s 90-year history. Tina has extensive experience in plant biotechnology and applied plant science, spanning both academic and commercial research in the agricultural crop sector, including 18 years with the plant breeder Groupe Limagrain.

NIAB Head of Farming Systems - CUPGRA Head of Agronomy Research Group - Admin Lead

Dr Elizabeth Stockdale

Elizabeth has over 25 years applied soil and nutrient management research experience and has engaged with a wide range of research projects connected with the study of nutrient cycling in soils and with the environmental impact of farming systems. At the smallest scale she has applied isotope dilution techniques to investigate mineralisation, immobilisation and nitrification processes. Most recently she has been very active in developing farmer-focussed approaches to measurement of soil health and developing on-farm toolkits for improved soil management. She joined NIAB in 2017 as Head of the integrative interdisciplinary farming systems research team, including the potato department.

CUPGRA Administrator and Finance member

Kate Pottle

Kate is the first point of contact for CUPGRA on administration and membership services, alongside being part of the NIAB Potatoes team at Cambridge.

Niab Research Associate and CUPGRA R&D sub-committee member

Sarah Roberts

Sarah is a research associate focusing on crop development and physiology at NIAB. She was awarded her PhD funded by CUPGRA from the University of Cambridge in 2020 on capturing variation in canopy development and understanding how agronomic practices affect canopy growth. Since then, Sarah has worked on a range of AHDB storage projects examining the effects of storage regimes on agronomy, optimising MH tuber residue levels, and comparing inherent dormancy between varieties. She now leads the long-term CUPGRA Reference Crop project, quantifying nitrogen use efficiency in determinate and indeterminate potato varieties under different nitrogen application regimes. This work aims to help growers understand how nitrogen inputs affect crop development and answer the perennial question of “how much nitrogen does this crop need this year?”. Overall, Sarah’s work aims to equip UK potato growers to reduce resource waste and improve crop quality through a better understanding of potato crop growth.

CUPGRA Advisory Board Member

James Wrinch

James is a farmer’s son from Suffolk who studied agriculture at Wye College. After graduating he joined G’s and then moved to MBM, gaining BASIS and FACTS, specialising in potato production and then moved onto Greenvale AP. He is now Managing Director and agronomist at East Suffolk Produce, a grower group based in East Suffolk and North Essex. The Group produces 65,000 t of ware potatoes and ca 5,000 t of seed.

CUPGRA Advisory Board member

Graeme Skinner

Graeme is an independent potato agronomist and director of Provenance Potatoes. He began his career in potatoes while studying for an H.N.D in Agricultural Business. This led to a placement within the potato field team at Fenmarc Produce Ltd in 1988. After qualifying, he joined Saphir Produce Ltd in 1991 becoming technical manager and also at the same time his involvement with CUPGRA started. He continued working within the potato agronomy sector, currently a CUPGRA exec. council member and is co-owner and a director of Provenance Potatoes ltd. based in the South East.

CUPGRA Advisory Board and R&D sub-committee member

Mark Stalham

Mark Stalham started his own consulting company, Mark Stalham Potato Consultancy Ltd, in November 2020. He was formerly Head of the NIAB CUF Potato Research Group and guided the overall scientific direction, development and management of NIAB CUF’s activities, including the communication of science into practice. With a PhD in crisping potatoes supervised by Eric Allen from the University of Cambridge in 1989, Mark has over 35 years of extensive experience at Cambridge University Farm and NIAB CUF and success in the areas of potato research and knowledge exchange, particularly with the various guises of AHDB. He now has a mixed portfolio, working on strategic research for large multi-nationals through to training courses for farm operators. He is currently an expert consultant on five Innovate UK projects.

CUPGRA Conference & KE Committee

Tom Astill

Tom is a market development representative for Bayer CropScience, responsible for co-ordinating trials and knowledge transfer for Bayer’s plant protection products in potato and horticultural crops. A growing focus of his role is technical support for bio-pesticides.
After graduating with a BSc Agriculture from Newcastle University in 2019, Tom joined Bayer as trainee later that year, becoming a commercial technical manager for the North West and then the East Midlands. He is BASIS and FACTS qualified.
Tom is also a member of the CUPGRA knowledge exchange team.

CUPGRA R&D sub-committee member

Bill Watts

Bill Watts – Trials Manager (Greenvale – Produce Solutions)

Bill was brought up on a small beef and sheep farm in South Shropshire. He read and researched in crop sciences at Harper Adams University for 10 years. He is known for his PhD research on factors affecting biofumigation success against PCN, and more recently for his role in refining PCN trap crop agronomy. Bill worked at AHDB Potatoes for two years as Knowledge Exchange Manager for the West and Wales and has now been Trials Manager at Produce Solutions for nearly five years. He primarily focusses on development of new varieties, crop protection products and cropping techniques for the potatoes sector. He is a member of CUPGRA’s Research and Development Committee.

CUPGRA Student Network

Anika Damm

Anika is a PhD Student at the University of Cambridge Crop Science Centre for the Department of Plant Sciences