The national risk management project RiskWise, overseen by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) will have another member, with researchers from the University of Western Australia joining the initiative.
Risk Wise, launched last year, is a five year project designed to help understand the risks associated with cropping in notoriously volatile Australian conditions.
It was set up in response to increasingly unpredictable weather and highly variable world prices.
The end aim is to provide better risk-reward outcomes for Aussie grain growers by supporting their decision making with more information about the potential upside and pitfalls lying ahead.
As part of the project team leaders will liaise with growers via the establishment of Action Research Groups (ARGs).
UWA's Centre for Agricultural Economics and Development (CAED) has partnered with national project lead and Australia's national science agency CSIRO to better understand grower behaviour changes and support adoption.
CAED Deputy Director Associate Professor Fay Rola-Rubzen will lead a team of highly qualified agricultural economists.
They will collaborate with the ARGs and their stakeholders to track and enhance understanding of learnings and change management opportunities.
As part of the work they plan to interview more than 100 grain farmers and develop tools, communications and strategies
for improved risk-reward decision making and adoption.
"Building greater awareness and consideration of behavioural insights is important to ensure delivery of research, communication and activities to different audiences," Dr Rola-Rubzen said.
David Pannell is one of the economists working on the project.
He said the types of risk farmers were facing could be grouped into five categories: production, price or market, financial, institutional and human/personal risk.
"Risk is a pervasive issue in agriculture, arising from many sources and affecting every farm-related decision farmers make," Professor Pannell said.
"Most research on risk focuses on production risk and price risk but the other categories can also cause serious problems."
"I expect the cause for this imbalance of research effort is that fluctuations in production and prices are ever-present and obvious, while the others are more occasional and perhaps harder to anticipate."