Arthur Staniforth worked for many years with the Advisory Services of the Ministry of Agriculture and is now with Reading Agricultural Consultants, specialising in straw utilization. A farmer's son, he studied agriculture at Wye College and Reading University and at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad.
He formerly worked for the Sudan Government and lectured in agriculture at Khartoum University. He has worked as a consultant for FAO - the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations - and for the OECD and UNESCO.
He has travelled extensively in Europe and North America to study the uses of straw and has published articles and papers on straw utilization in a number of journals. He has had two books published: Cereal Straw and Straw for Fuel, Feed or Fertiliser?.