DR. KATHLEEN MARY HURLY

Dr Kathy Hurly (PhD) is a director and co-Founder of Gene-Smart.

Dr Kathy Hurly has focused on industrial agricultural production for more than 35 years, twenty-seven of these years in the sugar industry. During this time, she managed the sugar industry agronomic and economic extension service and later as Corporate Executive sat on the sugar industry committees responsible for oversight of research and development, land reform and grower development, training on behalf of SA Canegrowers Association. She was a member of the SA Sugar Association Council.

Currently, she sits on the Board of the AgriSA NPC, the national body representing organised agriculture and is the Chair of the AgriSA SETCOM, the Board of Future Farming NPC (part of AGDA) aimed at providing training and development solutions in Africa, and Kwanalu Board of Governors, the KZN provincial organised agriculture body. She was also a Board member of the recently deregistered AgriSA Enterprises (Pty) Ltd.

In November 2025 she started her five-year term as a Board member of the AgriSETA accounting authority representing the agricultural employers.

She manages the KZN Women and Youth in Rural Entrepreneurship (Wyre) Programme aimed at supporting rural entrepreneurship (producers, traders, and service providers) and has successfully trained and mentored 1500 women and youth since November 2021. The programme provides a foundation for participants in leadership, basic business administration, and agricultural technical support.

Through all her activities, Dr Kathy Hurly is actively building relationships with young communal farmers, farmers who will feed their communities and towns, assisting them to increase their scale of production to become significant contributors to the market and the rural economy.