Stakeholder Engagement
Why is Engagement important to GRDC?
Engagement is important to GRDC because it enables us to develop with stakeholders the types of RD&E investments required to support a profitable and sustainable grains industry.
The 2 major stakeholders:
• Grain growers who pay the levy in the grain they produce
• The wider community through the Australian Government who provide a contribution from taxpayer funds.
The levy system provides for collective purchase of RD&E. Whilst each grower may have slightly different priorities for RD&E to suit their current operation, it is GRDC’s task through engagement to collect information to enable the building of a portfolio of investments that maximises benefit to a broad spectrum of grain growers.
As well, GRDC needs to deliver on Australian Government priorities. The main rationale for the Australian Government co-investment with the grain grower levy is that benefits from grains RD&E spill-over to benefit the wider community, not just growers. The GRDC is of the view that ‘public good’ outcomes are efficiently achieved through an ‘industry benefit’ pathway.
Therefore GRDC meets with numerous stakeholders so as to identify the outcomes required from RD&E to sustain a profitable and sustainable Australian grains industry. These outcomes must also be prioritised in a way that maximises the benefit to the growers (levy component) and/or to the community (Australian Government component).
Engagement also provides a process for GRDC to be accountable for the spending of stakeholders’ money (levy income from grower and Australian Government contributions). This also creates a feedback mechanism to GRDC for interested parties.
There is a second tier of stakeholders for GRDC, which is all the groups that GRDC interacts with to achieve research outcomes. In many cases, this involves leveraging GRDC funding with other sources of funds. These groups include organisations such as:
• CSIRO
• State Government Departments
• Breeding companies
• Universities
• Other RDCs
• Cooperative Research Centres
• Grower Groups.
Researchers engage though contact with GRDC program managers and through the reporting requirements of progress and final reports. The GRDC regional Panel members also have extensive contact with research organisations, agri-business and grower organisations.
A third tier of stakeholders for GRDC is the end point for grain after it has left the farm gate. This is a broad category that consists of groups such as:
• Bulk Handlers for domestic and export grain
• Marketers
• Millers
• Consumers of the end product.
There is a range of different mechanisms that the GRDC staff and GRDC regional Panel members use to gather information from sources, and some of these are:
• Consultation meetings with growers representative organisations.
• Adviser and Grower Updates in all regions
• Spring Tours in all regions and Autumn Tour in the North
• Research Advisory Committee (RAC) meetings in the North and the South
• Research organisation visits
• Workshops on themes such as crown rot, frost and other technical issues
• Regional and national agri-business reference groups (NARG)
• Panel members’ networks of growers, researchers and industry contacts
• Grower survey (every second year).
GRDC Western Panel Industry Engagement Forum
As one aspect of Western Panel’s engagement with industry to identify priorities for investment, an industry consultation forum was held in Perth, WA in March 2010. The report from this meeting is available through the link:
