Shaping the plan
GRDC prioritises engagement and consultation across industry through our Regional Panels and National Grower Network, at events and forums, and out in the paddock.
This plan is no exception – the result of both a dedicated consultation process and ongoing conversations between GRDC’s passionate team and growers, advisers, researchers and other grains industry stakeholders on the ground across Australia.
To capture the breadth and diversity of views, the consultation process to develop the RD&E Plan 2023-28 was the most extensive ever. A deliberative engagement strategy was implemented aligned to the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment Best Practice Guide to Stakeholder Consultation and in accordance with the PIRD Act. Key insight and feedback was collected and considered over 10 months, including over 120 hours of grower interviews, roundtable discussions, workshops, online surveys, social media campaigns and email feedback – enabling everyone the chance to be heard.
Starting with the current state of the industry, further in-depth analysis was undertaken to identify 12 trends and drivers expected to shape the industry’s future. Through conversation, feedback and discussion across industry, the consultation process informed what the plan should aspire to achieve, established strategic pillars and identified areas of research focus.
The result is a plan which is 100 per cent driven to address the opportunities and challenges facing Australian grain growers today and tomorrow.
It is evident in the plan that GRDC has taken on broad stakeholder input to get to this point… This speaks to GRDC’s achievement here in an inclusive and considered process.
What GRDC heard
Yield is king and GRDC’s core business.
We need to keep working on nutrition, weed, pest and disease controls.
Farming systems are complex, and decisions are not made in isolation.
Help us better understand and manage risk from costs, seasons, biosecurity, markets.
What GRDC will do
- Harness existing potential
How it will help
- Crops are adapted to our soils and environment to deliver high, stable yields across paddocks and seasons.
- Increased confidence and ability to make informed production decisions through use of data, improved forecasting and trusted information.
- Access to new knowledge and tools to protect crops from weeds, pests, and diseases.
- Our industry understands and is proactively prepared for biosecurity threats.
- Growers are equipped to optimise crop nutrition, manage and improve soils.
- Different innovations are integrated into farming systems matched to grower need to accelerate adoption.
- Better understand trade offs and risks to the farm business to appropriately manage.
The next agricultural revolution is within our grasp.
Business as usual won’t cut it as we move into a future of tighter margins and uncertain climate.
What GRDC will do
- Reach new frontiers
- Data and insights as enablers
How it will help
- Reduce water losses to evaporation, run-off and deep drainage to transform yield and utilise a finite resource.
- Plants utilise resources more efficiently than ever before to improve margins and protect the environment.
- Mitigate the devastating effects of drought, heat and frost. Increase grower returns.
- Mitigate risk through allocation of fixed and variable costs to production and profit potential.
- Accelerating the deployment of digital agriculture, automation and robotics to make better decisions, drive precision and efficiency.
- Data is captured and analysed to deliver insights that ensure RD&E is targeted where the value lies, and moves forward with efficiency and speed.
Support market access and help us better understand market, price and post-farm costs to grow and capture value.
Post-farmgate costs are an area where potential value could be clawed back.
What GRDC will do
- Grow markets and capture value
How it will help
- Strategic understanding of emerging markets and opportunities will inform and support market access and future growth.
- Knowing what end users want enables us to breed, classify, grow and supply grain that markets prefer.
- Market signals enable growers to understand what crops to grow, what quality to target, and how to manage and market them in order to capitalise on opportunities.
- New opportunities to add-value or differentiate Australian grain and grain products can provide competitive advantage or increase grower margins.
- Improved understanding of post-farm gate issues will help inform research and support industry to address supply-chain challenges.
Act now on climate and the sustainability challenge.
We need to secure our ability to farm into the future – from both a profit and social acceptance perspective.
What GRDC will do
- Thrive for future generations
How it will help
- Increased collaboration and understanding of sustainability and environmental performance across the entire Australian grain supply chain to profitably respond to challenges and opportunities.
- Build grower confidence and ability to baseline the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of their enterprise and understand the practical things that can be done to further reduce.
- Support growers’ transition to alternative energy on-farm.
- Securing growers’ ability to continue to farm into the future, through maintaining community trust and science-based policy frameworks.
- Understanding the risks and impacts of automation and other technologies to regional communities.
- Supporting sustainable and resilient grain growing communities through collaborative approaches to workforce, farm safety and skills development.
The extension and commercialisation landscape has changed – and so must the way we all approach it.
So many solutions already exist but they get lost in the noise of everything else we have to deal with as growers.
What GRDC will do
- Knowledge transfer and adoption as enablers
How it will help
- Tailor and deliver key messages to the needs of the next user and key influencers of adoption.
- Make the value proposition of new solutions clear, considering barriers and drivers to adoption or use.
- Ensure relevance and accelerate the scale and speed of RD&E impact through working together and embracing new approaches.
People and partnerships are critical to move us forward.
There is often a limited, and in many cases aging, pool of industry talent.
What GRDC will do
- Capacity and ability as enablers
- Innovative partnerships as enablers
How it will help
- Attract and nurture the talent required to conduct and deliver world-class grains RD&E.
- Support leadership and pathways to innovate, translate and adopt.
- Facilitate access to critical infrastructure and technologies required to deliver grains R&D.
- Develop novel and readily adoptable solutions to Australian growers first through collaborating and partnering in different ways.
- Facilitate opportunities for people to come together to encourage new thinking and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of RD&E.