Home › Overview › Key achievements
Key achievements
The Grower Annual Indicator Survey 2006 showed that the corporation's overall performance rating (of 'very high' and 'fairly high') was unchanged in 2006, remaining at 74 percent. The proportion of growers rating GRDC performance as 'very high', however, rose for the first time since 2002.
The survey also showed that awareness of regional panels rose from 50 percent in 2005 to 58 percent in 2006, and that a higher proportion of growers interacted with panel members (up from 20 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2006).
Other noteworthy achievements for 2005-06 included:
- establishing the National Variety Trials (NVT), to provide nationally coordinated, independent and cost-effective information to Australian graingrowers on the performance of new crop varieties
- facilitating the formation of a single national barley-breeding program, Barley Breeding Australia
- facilitating the formation of a single national pulse-breeding program, made up of the GRDC, Pulse Australia and state government pulse-breeding agencies
- making substantial progress towards commercially sustainable, world-leading wheatbreeding programs as well as working with industry to improve End Point Royalty collection
- entering into a joint venture with Philom Bios Inc. of Canada to commercially develop new soil inoculant products and to make these available to cereal and canola growers in Australia as quickly and as cost effectively as possible
- improving the alignment between GRDC activities and the objectives of our key customer groups-the Australian Government and Australian graingrowers-as well as other stakeholders, including grower organisations and research partners
- collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico to speed up the introduction of genetic material through all stages, from quarantine to evaluation to incorporation into Australian breeding programs, and maximise the adoption of superior traits
- cooperating with other RDCs and providing information to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry regarding the Australian Government's Uhrig-based review of the governance arrangements of all statutory authorities
- receiving a silver award for our 2004-05 annual report, at the Australasian Reporting Awards Fifty-sixth Annual Awards in June 2006.