The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is on track to continue its substantial investment into northern grains research following last week’s release of the GRDC External Investment Plan 2015-16.
Key areas that will attract GRDC funding include short-term Grower Solution Group (GSG) investments targeting important localised research, development and extension (RD&E) issues; agribusiness trial extension networks; research and farm business updates; and an extensive range of agronomic and farming systems management projects.
As one of the world’s leading grain research organisations, the GRDC is responsible for planning, investing in and overseeing research, development and extension to deliver improvements in production, sustainability and profitability across the Australian grains industry.
The plan outlines investment priorities for the northern, southern and western cropping regions and has been developed in response to extensive industry consultation.
Applications for project funding are being sought under six key theme areas – meeting market requirements, improving crop yields, protecting your crop, advancing profitable farming systems, improving your farm resource base and building skills and capacity.
GRDC’s northern panel chairman James Clark (pictured) said the release of the
GRDC External Investment Plan 2015-16 offered an opportunity to address some of the industry’s critical production and profitability challenges.
“The
GRDC External Investment Plan outlines both short and longer term research investment priorities that will directly affect the sustainability and viability of the northern grains industry,” Mr Clark said.
“We will continue to invest in areas that can help drive profitability improvements for northern growers like soil and crop nutrition, weed seed and herbicide resistance management, break crops, crop rotations, pests, disease, nematodes, frost management and regional research capacity.
“Importantly, these research investment priorities have been developed in close consultation with the research community, GSG representatives, agronomist and advisor networks and growers so essentially they are a reflection of the industry’s own `needs analysis’.
“Calls for new projects compliment the nearly $144 million that the GRDC already has invested in continuing projects for 2015-16.”
All submissions need to be received by GRDC by midnight (Canberra time) Thursday 23 October 2014.
To obtain a copy of the
GRDC External Investment Plan 2015-16 and/or register for an online application form visit
www.grdc.com.au/Investment-Plan.
Topics
Species
