- assisted the Premium Grains for Livestock Program to move from discovery to commercialisation by sublicensing near-infrared calibrations, enabling a market place for feed grain that buys and sells on grain functional quality
- facilitated a national Climate Change Research Strategy for Primary Industries with other RDCs, CSIRO, and federal, state and territory governments. The collaborators worked to develop relevant performance indicators and timelines to implement the national strategy
- won the Ernst & Young Risk Management Award at the NAB Agribusiness Awards for Excellence 2007
- supported work to better understand the likely impact of global climate change on the Western Australian grains industry
- facilitated a study of greenhouse gases emitted in the production and delivery of wheat to port in south-western Australia
- distributed a magazine on spray application to over 40,000 growers, advisers and contractors to help the industry better understand the parameters of spray application and to highlight some examples of ways to reduce the risk of drift
- developed the 2008 GRDC Planning Guide for Low Risk Farming, summarising the key elements needed to manage the risks of cropping and distributed it to over 15,000 growers and agronomists in the Southern Region
- commissioned detailed impact studies of five project clusters, to assess their benefits to the Australian grains industry and the wider community
- developed in partnership with the University of Adelaide, CSIRO and Lancaster University a soil phosphorus test that better reflects how crops respond to phosphorus in the soil
Highlights of 2007-08
Successes
Through its involvement with the Primary Industries Standing Committee (PISC), the GRDC provided strong support for the development of a national strategy for grains research, development and extension (RD&E). The strategy, which will drive productivity and innovation within the grains industry, is expected to be finalised in 2009.
During 2007–08, the GRDC also successfully:
- facilitated the release of more than 40 improved crop varieties, including
- sixteen new wheat varieties, some of which have yields up to 15 percent higher than commonly grown varieties
- four new triticale varieties with wide adaptation and yields up to 30 percent higher than previous varieties
- one new oat variety, Yallara
,with yields 2 percent higher than its predecessor - fourteen new canola varieties, some of which have yields up to 10 percent higher than commonly grown varieties
- one new soybean variety, Fraser, which provides a valuable rotation option for cane growers and is suitable for
culinary purposes
- supported the National Variety Trials (NVT), which planted a total of 570 trials across Australia, giving growers independent information about how varieties perform in their regions
- facilitated a partnership between the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Australian Cereal Rust Control Program to screen Australian varieties for resistance against the exotic Ug99 stem rust pathogen, in Kenya
- completed contingency plans for potential incursions of dwarf bunt of wheat, fusarium wilt of canola, barley stripe rust, barley stripe mosaic virus and sunn pest
To add clarity to changing wheat-marketing arrangements and to maintain industry confidence, the GRDC facilitated transitional arrangements to ensure that the operations of the wheat classification process will continue during 2008. This will enable the supply of consistent products, increase the marketability of Australian wheat and help to maximise the return to growers.
As publicly funded research has come under pressure, plant breeders have increasingly relied on the GRDC and End Point Royalties (EPRs) to finance their activities. Commercial wheat-breeding companies depend on EPRs for their survival. To meet this challenge, the GRDC has been working with breeding companies, seed companies, bulk handlers and marketers to simplify EPR collection systems and build a whole-of-industry ‘culture of compliance’.
Challenges
The GRDC operates in an ever-changing grains industry. Following the severe drought of 2006–07, the grains industry faced significant challenges in 2007–08. Grain growers faced the impacts of high fuel and fertiliser prices, climate change, changing wheat-marketing arrangements, and changing farm demographics.
The GRDC, in collaboration with the other rural R&D corporations (RDCs), CSIRO, federal, state and territory governments, grain growers and research partners, continued to provide leadership in meeting the industry’s challenges. The GRDC collaborated in areas where there was a strategic advantage in doing so and where it could add value. The GRDC worked with other RDCs to identify and respond to major issues that impact on all rural industries, such as climate change, productivity growth and capacity building.
| Table 1 Five years at a glance | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007–08 | 2006–07 | 2005–06 | 2004–05 | 2003–04 | ||
| GRDC | ||||||
| Revenue | $127.2m |  |
$98.6m | $116.9m | $111.2m | $124.2m |
| Expenditure | $102.5m |  |
$118.2m | $127.5m | $120.2m | $125.8m |
| Operating surplus/(deficit) | $24.1m | |
($19.8m) | ($10.6m) | ($9.0m) | ($1.6m) |
| Total assets | $117.5m | |
$106.0m | $127.7m | $135.7m | $141.0m |
| Total equity | $89.7m | |
$65.6m | $84.1m | $94.7m | $102.6m |
| Industry contributions | $76.6m | |
$50.9m | $60.9m | $64.2m | $68.8m |
| Commonwealth contributions | $37.6m | |
$35.8m | $43.1m | $35.7m | $42.3m |
| R&D expenses | $89.1m | |
$105.6m | $116.1m | $107.1m | $114.3m |
| Employee benefits | $5.8m | |
$5.6m | $5.2m | $4.9m | $4.6m |
| Suppliers | $5.1m | - | $5.1m | $5.6m | $5.8m | $6.4m |
| Number of full-time GRDC staffa | 47 | |
44 | 50 | 46 | 43 |
| Grains industry | ||||||
| Estimated number of grain farmsb | 35,725 | |
36, 417 | 37,122 | 37,841 | 38,574 |
| Number of grain crops covered by R&D levies | 25 | - | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Estimated gross value of production | $7,524m | |
$7,154m | $8,613m | $7,000m | $9,800m |
| Total grain production-summer and winter crops | 25,752,000t | |
19,204,000t | 43,396,000t | 37,288,000t | 45,966,000t |
| Note: Figures for previous reporting periods have been restated in accordance with a new accounting policy regarding grant income. a Number of full-time GRDC staff as at 30 June each year. b Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) estimates for the total number of broadacre farms planting more than 30 hectares per year for grain production. |
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