Tom Kirk

Tom Kirk BCom

Consultant

Tom’s background in finance, economics, and statistics provide a unique perspective on which clients can tap to understand insights about the trade-offs and economic issues facing the agricultural and food systems industries.

Tom joined AbacusBio in 2014, firstly as an intern and then later as a consultant based in Edinburgh. His commerce background and ability to innovate offer a strong pillar of success for international clients across the value chain from on-farm production to marketing.

Tom’s career highlights include:

  • Carrying out economic impact assessment for emerging genetic technologies to advise industry body investment decisions
  • Developing new survey methods to evaluate consumer attitudes towards the application of science in food production, with the aim to increase consumers’ understanding of emerging biotechnologies that could help improve food sustainability
His focus within AbacusBio is:
  • Statistical and economic analysis of genetic improvement for sheep, beef, and dairy sectors.
  • Development of multi-trait economic selection indexes
  • Breeding value prediction
  • Production system modelling
Projects involved in:
  • British Texel sheep genetics
  • Genetic Evaluation of Irish Sheep Flock