FORMER Cattle Council of Australia CEO Jed Matz says he’s looking forward to getting his teeth into more than just beef business in his latest agricultural sector role.
Today is Mr Matz’s first day on the job as the new CEO of the Townsville based Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (Northern CRC).
The new CRC facility was initiated via the federal Coalition government’s White Paper for Northern Australia released in 2015 and given $75 million over 10 years.
The Northern CRC’s seven-member board was also unveiled in February and is chaired by Managing Director of the Cairns based Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Sheriden Morris while outgoing Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association executive director Tracey Hayes is also a board member as is City of Karratha mayor Peter Long.
The new CRC will aim to partner with the public and private sectors and universities to conduct projects focussed on agriculture and food and tropical health, specific to the northern region, with a commercial bent.
Mr Matz said he was holding meetings this week in Canberra and would be relocating to Townsville at the end of this week.
And while the CRC’s main office is located in Townsville he said he anticipates its staffing structure would also include a presence in WA and the NT.
“It’s crazy that we’re not exporting more horticultural product from northern Australia but I think the focus will need to be on what technologies can be developed to build these industries,” he said.
“I don’t want to count anything in or out at this stage but it’s about finding appropriate markets and making sure it’s a viable business and then growing an industry around that.
“We’ve seen a number of projects in the past, especially in the north, that can be regarded as being unsuccessful because maybe they didn’t think hard enough about the end market, before they tried it out.
“We’re looking at partnering with industry and supply chains and finding out what they’re looking for and we can then use research to deliver it for them.
“It will be industry led and commercially focussed.”
Mr Matz was Cattle Council CEO for about four years and decided not to renew his contract at the end of 2016 after 10 years with the Canberra-based peak industry body.
“It’s a really exciting for me to branch out of just cattle and into all of agriculture and also to have a real focus across all of northern Australia,” he said.
“There’s a lot of interesting and exciting opportunities in the north.
“Some of the barriers to growing the north have been well document and part of this new CRC’s role will be finding out more about those barriers and what we can do in terms of projects and research to remove or limit those barriers and encourage investment and growth.”
Mr Matz said some of the barriers to developing northern Australian agriculture included; land tenure; access to water; a skilled workforce; tropical health issues; lack of foreign investment and investment in general; and infrastructure capabilities.
“They are some of the limiting factors but there are also so many opportunities and competitive advantages in northern Australia like access to markets but access to markets is also another limiting factor,” he said.
“So how can we grow those positive agricultural attributes in the north like having great access to a lot land and good sunshine to grow produce while removing some of those barriers?”
Mr Matz said the federal government had already made a call out for initial projects and ideas to be submitted for the Northern CRC.
He said he needed to hold a meeting with the board and understand what their future vision was and then they’d put together a plan to articulate the type of projects they’re looking to conduct, on the $7.5m per year budget.
“Until I can get my feet under the desk and do that it’s really difficult to say what the projects will look like, but what I can say is we’re really keen to get moving and don’t think it will take long for us to build momentum,” he said.
“What I can also say is, this will be industry led, so it’s about bringing together industry and businesses with government and researchers to come up with new solutions.
“My real focus is going to be around bringing a collaborative approach to this so we’re not inventing the wheel and doing work that’s already being done by others or could be done by others.
“It’s going to be new work and industry led.
“Hopefully we’ll have a very small flat (staffing structure).
“The idea is to use as much of the money as possible to get research and projects funded so the smaller the team the better but I’d like to maintain a presence in Queensland and also WA and the NT.”