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Themes Presentation Introduction John Harvey GRDC General Manager
Hi. The Grains Research and Development Corporation exists for one purpose -- to invest the
levy we receive from growers, along with the government's contribution, in innovation
for the greatest benefit of Australian grain growers.
If you grow any of these 25 leviable crops, you contribute to the $150 million we invest
annually in research, development and extension.
We get that growers don't find the details of how we manage the day-to-day activities
of the research portfolio particularly interesting.
You want to see that RD&E investments are being
applied to things that will make your businesses more profitable.
But it's incumbent upon us at GRDC to ensure that your investment contributes to a balanced
portfolio to meet grower needs in the shorter and longer term. And to do that, we need feedback
from the graingrowers of Australia.
Critical to success is making sure that we are investing in things that are going to
deliver the greatest value. And so I've sought to adjust
GRDC's structure and focus to align with the pillars of
successful, profitable grain production.
We call those our research themes, and I'd like to share them with you.
Profitable grain production begins with a need not ours, but the world's grain consumers.
Needs create markets with different characteristics.
So our first theme is "Meeting Market Requirements" -- producing grain that matches what our
customers want. But we have a finite area to grow our grain, so we need to strive for
varieties with the greatest production potential.
So our second theme is "Improving Crop Yield" Of course, high yield potential is no guarantee
of high yields. Success requires that we win the
battle against those things, which reduce, damage or compete with our crops.
So our third theme is "Protecting Your Crop". We also need to make the growing medium soil,
water and air, as productive as possible in the
short and long term while minimising the potential impacts on and off farm.
Leading to our fourth theme -- "Improving Your Farm Resource".
In reality achieving higher profitability comes from correctly navigating complex trade-offs
and interactions in your farming system.
So our fifth theme -- "Profitable Farming Systems" recognises that no single aspect
of crop production exists in isolation.
With our final theme, we tackle our ability as an industry to grow our knowledge and adopt
new practices to become more profitable. "Building
Skills and Capacity" is about investing in change
itself.
There's an important reason for asking your feedback at this time. We're developing
our plan for the next five years
The five-year plan focuses our investment and provides the detail for us to be accountable
to the people that fund us, growers and government.
Out of the five-year plan flow annual operational plans, which specify how we're going to
invest all of our funds in that year. We report to government
and growers in our annual report but because that's a hefty read we also publish a concise
growers report sent to growers every year.
It's because we're drawing up our next five-year plan and the first of those annual
operational plans that we need your feedback now.
Are our research themes right, and if so, what are the specific research priorities
within those themes that you believe would deliver maximum
value to you, in your area, on your farm.
END
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