A $30 million project, looking into helping Australian grain growers manage risks as diverse as climate variability through to market volatility, has been launched at the AgQuip field days at Gunnedah in northern NSW.
Federal agriculture minister Murray Watt said the Grains Research and Development Corporation's RiskWise program would be one of the largest ever projects run by the GRDC.
The project will focus on five key priority areas nitrogen (N) decisions, sowing decisions, enterprise agronomic decisions, enterprise financial decisions and managing natural resource capital.
"This groundbreaking initiative will help the industry be better prepared for the risks of the future," he said.
The program will be led by CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, in partnership with more than 25 grower-based groups from across the country, along with the South Australia Research and Development Institute (SARDI), University of Melbourne, University of Queensland and University of Western Australia.
GRDC board chair and Queensland grain grower John Woods said RiskWise had been developed to support growers to make informed, often highly complex decisions at both agronomic and farm management levels.
"Seasonal conditions, paddock considerations, cash flow, labour availability, market opportunities and business goals all come into play when you're deciding what to grow each year," Mr Woods said.
"Farming is an increasingly complex operation and GRDC recognises this and has been working with industry to understand how we can better support growers to manage risk and build enduring, sustainable enterprises."
Mr Woods said the investment had been developed in response to growers in various forums, including GRDC's National Grower Network, highlighting concerns that the risks associated with farming had escalated in the past decade.
"RiskWise aims to give growers and their advisers the tools to evaluate potential risks and rewards, and develop an holistic and integrated approach to risk management," he said.
CSIRO's Rick Llewellyn and Lindsay Bell will co-lead CSIRO's coordination of grower group activities, analytics, behavioural science and farming systems research across Australia.
Each will focus on the risks and decisions that are identified by growers as being most challenging.
"Australian grain growers deal with exceptionally high levels of volatility and uncertainty in their production environment and ongoing profitability depends on how well decision making is handled under these conditions," said Dr Llewellyn.
"RiskWise goes beyond just analysing risk. It is based around engaging with the most important farm-level decision-making challenges raised by growers and advisers, and then jointly coming up with practical ways to inform and boost confidence when tackling those decisions."
CSIRO will co-ordinate the action research groups, which include more than 25 grower-based organisations and are led by:
- NSW: Charles Sturt University (CSU),
- Queensland: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF),
- South Australia - Central: Hart Field-Site Group Inc,
- South Australia - Western: Agricultural Innovation and Research Eyre Peninsula Inc (AIR EP),
- Victoria and South-East South Australia: Birchip Cropping Group (BCG), and
- Western Australia: Grower Group Alliance (GGA).
