Derrick Thomas

Derrick Thomas (1944 – 13 May 2013) was a British agricultural researcher with special contributions to grassland and forage research in the tropics. Education and early professional life Derrick Thomas was educated at the Universities of Wales (BSc Honours Agriculture), Oxford (D.Phil. Agricultural Science) and Queensland, Australia (D.T.A. postgraduate diploma in Tropical Pasture Science). He initiated his professional career in 1971 in the first British Government research team in Malawi, where he developed new forage-based systems for small-scale beef production. After 4 years, he returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in Tropical Animal Production at the University of Edinburgh.