Allan Yeomans

Australian author, cultural critic and farmer (1931–2024)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Allan Yeomans" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (September 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

(Learn how and when to remove this message)

Allan James Yeomans (3 October 1931 – 15 February 2024) was an Australian agriculturist, design engineer, author, lecturer, and inventor. He argued that it is possible to bring global warming and climate under control and restore weather systems to normal at negligible cost while simultaneously improving our wealth and standard of living.[1][better source needed]

## Early life and education

[edit]

Yeomans was born in Sydney on 3 October 1931. He grew up in North Richmond, on his family's farm.[2] He attended primary schools in a series of gold mining towns throughout Eastern Australia, then attending Scots College (Sydney) for secondary school.

He attended Sydney University and studied engineering, and physics under Professor Harry Messel. He left university and manufactured water skis. However, subsequently he completed the first postgraduate course on computing using the SILLIAC computer.[citation needed] This was the Sydney University sister unit to the then new ILLIAC "supercomputer" developed at the University of Illinois. At Sydney University he also completed a postgraduate course in nuclear energy and radioisotopes.

Yeomans joined the family business, open-cut coal mining. Then with his father P.A. Yeomans, he set up operations in 1952 to manufacture the Graham Hoeme Chisel Plow from Amarillo, Texas.[3] Australia was only the second country in the world to produce this new type of cultivating implement.[citation needed]

He started his own business in 1957, initially manufacturing furniture. His Banana Chair[4] became a household word in Australia.[citation needed] He also set up and produced the chaise longue in Los Angeles in 1961.

## Keyline and plows

[edit]

Yeomans was involved with the development of his father's Keyline design system of agriculture and was instrumental in naming the system "Keyline".[5] His father P.A. Yeomans sold the chisel plough business in 1964 and restrictions were placed on both father and son to prevent their involvement in agricultural machinery for a stipulated period.[6]

In 1980, he purchased a semi-defunct agricultural manufacturing business in central NSW and moved to Forbes, where he met and married his second wife Chris.

The subsoiler plough concept, a second generation chisel plough being developed prior to the sale of the family business, had been placed on hold; its development was eventually restarted.[citation needed] The operation was moved to Queensland in 1990 and his company continues to manufacture and further develop this second generation chisel plough. Units have been delivered to organic and sustainable orientated farmers in South Africa, South East Asia, Europe and the Americas.

## Building

[edit]

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

In 1960, he became a builder and built several hundred houses, along with the first modern major high-rise residential building in Australia, in the early 1960s. The building is "Colebrook" in Double Bay, Sydney, and has one hundred and eighteen apartments and nineteen stories.

## Aircraft

[edit]

Yeomans produced aircraft tooling for Qantas and the Royal Australian Air Force, undertook classified research for the Royal Australian Navy, built small ship componentry and transport equipment for the Australian Army.

He has logged several thousand hours racing gliders, a sport where he held a senior instructor rating. In 1968, he became the first person to cross the Australian Blue Mountains in a sailplane.[7] He flies light aircraft, helicopters and gyrocopters and also ultralights where he held a Chief Flying Instructor rating. He is a competent meteorologist and has acted as advising meteorologist and task setter at State and National Gliding Competitions in Australia.[citation needed]

In 2012, at age 81, he took up aerobatics and purchased his own Pitts Special S2B competition aerobatic biplane. He competed in State aerobatic competition, the last being the 2016 New South Wales State Competition where he competed in Sportsman Class.[8] At age 85 he was considered as one of the oldest competition aerobatic pilots in the world.

## Global warming and climate change

[edit]

Yeomans started compiling information and warning people in talks and lectures about global warming in the mid to late 1980s. His book PRIORITY ONE - Together We Can Beat Global Warming resulted from those actions.[9] The book relies heavily on both his experience in soil fertility enhancement, and meteorology. In 1990, he was the only non-American invited to attend, and to participate in, a three-day, twenty-two person "think tank" to define the future of agriculture in the United States. It was held at the Esalen Institute in Big-Sur, California. It resulted in the Asilomar Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture.[6] At this conference he presented a paper "An Agricultural Solution to the Greenhouse Effect"[10] in which he proposed the then novel concept of absorbing atmospheric carbon into soil by the systematic enhancement of soil fertility levels. The concept is becoming internationally accepted and has become the basic tenets of the organization, Carbon Farmers of America.[11]

His concept of the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the enhancement of soil fertility was, as of 2010, adopted as policy by the Australian Federal Opposition parties.[12] Allan Yeomans also strongly supported the overall adoption of nuclear energy for industrial power.[1] He advocated for a switch to biofuels for all transport, and for these to be produced in what are currently tropical rain forests. He argued that we have no other safe practical alternatives. He criticized what he considered the predilection of the major world environmental movements to species survival, while effectively ignoring meaningful global warming prevention issues.[1]

## Personal life and death

[edit]

His sports and hobbies included skin diving, scuba diving, and competitive water skiing (one time national jump record holder.[13] 1953 Marathon Event 7 hours 55.5 minutes[14]). He was married in London in 1953 and was divorced in 1968. He had five daughters. His second wife Chris created the "Save The Farm Fund" charity in the drought ridden 1990s. In 1995 she was named Gold Coast Citizen of the Year. She was awarded Queenslander of the Year for Queensland Day in 1996 and a runner up for Australian of the Year, also in 1996. Chris was awarded an Order of Australia in 1997. A park on the Gold Coast was named the "Chris Yeomans Park" in her honour.

His father, P.A. Yeomans, and mother Rita Yeomans are both now dead.[citation needed]

Allan Yeomans died on 15 February 2024, at the age of 92.[15]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c "PRIORITY ONE - Together We Can Beat Global Warming by Allan J. Yeomans". Yeomansplow.com.au. Archived from the original on 29 July 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
2. ^ "Soil carbon advocate and keyline practitioner Allan Yeomans dies aged 92 | The Land – Australian Country Life". Retrieved 31 October 2024.
3. ^ "Homage to P.A. Yeomans". Soilandhealth.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
4. ^ Australian Patent Office. Trade Mark Registration 1957-8
5. ^ http://www.agmates.com/blog/2009/02/02/allan-yeomans-writes-global-warming-trees-or-soil/[permanent dead link‍]
6. ^ a b "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2010.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
7. ^ "Gliding Australia for soaring and sailplane pilots". Gfa.org.au. 2 March 2013. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
8. ^ "Registered Pilots for New South Wales 2016 Competition". aerobaticsaustralia.com.au. 10 February 2016. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
9. ^ "Yeomans Concepts". Yeomans Concepts. 6 May 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
10. ^ "An Agricultural Solution to the Greenhouse Effect". Archived from the original on 20 April 2021.
11. ^ "Carbonfarmersofamerica.com". Carbonfarmersofamerica.com. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
12. ^ [1][dead link‍]
13. ^ Sydney Morning Herald, February 1953
14. ^ "Parramatta River Sailing ClubParramatta River Sailing Club :: Parramatta River Sailing Club runs yacht races based from Gladesville in Sydney". Prsc.org.au. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
15. ^ "Progressive farmer and free-thinker dies aged 92". The Land. 28 February 2024. Retrieved 18 September 2024.