WA Agricultural Research Collaboration to drive ag industry investment

The WA Agricultural Research Collaboration (WAARC) is an in principle agreement between the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), CSIRO, Curtin University, The University of Western Australia (UWA), Edith Cowan University and Murdoch University, to assist WA primary producers to adopt new agricultural technologies across grains, livestock and irrigated agriculture.

On the back of a $25m investment from the State government and a $10m investment from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), over three years the State government aims to secure more than $50m in additional funding from institutions within the collaboration, as well as industry-based research and development corporations.

Attended by a range of industry stakeholders at Frasers in Kings Park, the audience heard from Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan, GRDC chairman John Woods and were provided with an overview of some of the collaboration's initial programs by DPIRD chief scientist Ben Biddulph and members of the participating institutions.

Mr Biddulph said WAARC was the best opportunity he had witnessed for the department since starting his career as a research scientist about 20 years ago, and that it would enable the sector to plan and set its intentions for the next 5-10 and 10-20 years.

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"The objective of WAARC is to develop a successful framework for a longer-term research collaboration here in WA," Mr Biddulph said.

"We have about $5m from the State government for the next financial year, followed by $8m and $12m - and that will be matched by the institutions within the collaboration and then we will go and seek to get equal funding with the external RDCs, CRCs and ARCs to try and build that total potential funding pool to about $100m over the next three years.

"The challenge for us is to get this up and operational so we can go back to treasury in two years' time and say 'look this is working really well', we need to make this an ongoing fund to drive our productivity as well as our agricultural research and capacity in WA.

"Even if we only get to $75m - that would be a great success."

The collaboration, which isn't expected to be fully functional until early 2023, will also support opportunities for the next generation of early career agricultural scientists to develop larger programs through the provision of post graduate, industry supported positions linked to DPIRD.

"The programs and themes the collaboration will be working on are reasonable-sized initiatives that are enticing to attract that higher level of program funding of $5 to $10m and will run over a three to five-year time frame," Mr Biddulph said.

"At the end of the day, the research isn't finished until it is adopted and implemented in our growers' paddocks, fields, in the rangelands, in the intensive horticulture and broadacre areas."

Ms MacTiernan said it was significant that the collaboration would help provide an incubator for early career ag scientists and agronomists.

"We are about to reinstate our graduate recruitment program to join the organisation and we understand the importance that universities, CSIRO and the department have in creating that opportunity for those graduates to come forward, develop and get a sound grounding in the practicalities before they go out more broadly into industry," Ms MacTiernan said.

The minister said she was optimistic the government would be able to leverage $25m in funding from its university partners to establish an understanding that there was agricultural research and development capability within WA.

"Given that we make such an enormous contribution to those industry good bodies, we no longer need to accept that we don't get our fair share - we put money on the table and we are very optimistic that those bodies will now join us to ensure we can leverage up and do even more brilliant things for the sector," she said.

Mr Woods said while his organisation had already made significant investments with DPIRD, CSIRO and three of the university partners, GRDC was keen to be part of the WAARC collaboration.

"Having the best researchers and research institutions commit to working together to develop innovative solutions to the big issues facing agriculture is monumental," Mr Woods said.

"There is an opportunity for significant research efficiencies."

Mr Woods said input from GRDC's National Grower Network and WA Regional Panel would also be a valuable part of the initiative.

Six programs have already been identified as part of the collaboration, with the initial three WAARC programs introduced at the launch.

The first three programs focus on boosting agricultural productivity and profitability in the face of climate change, while the other three programs will focus on agricultural technologies, Aboriginal participation in agriculture and capacity building and extension.

Northern agriculture

The objective of the first program being undertaken by UWA is to "increase the gross value of production through intensification of agriculture by 2030 by focusing on the sustainable growth of irrigated agriculture of the northern beef industry".

Designed to invigorate the cotton industry as well as create flow-on benefits to cattle in the north, UWA Institute of Agriculture associate director, professor Philip Vercoe said the program also presented an opportunity to regenerate the northern rangelands by changing grazing intensity and improving native grasses.

The program will focus on East Kimberley cotton agronomics to optimise pest control, rotations and cover cropping for cotton cropping as well as cotton processing to achieve cotton meal production and gin economies of scale.

"We need to get east Kimberley cotton agronomics right by optimising pest control, legume crop rotations, summer 'cover cropping' and production cotton cropping," professor Vercoe said.

"Cotton and corn enabled cattle production is going to help us intensify cattle production and we have to be very clever about the genetics we start selecting up there.

"It also means we can use some of these crops and the microbes of the crops to help us develop systems that develop backgrounding and finishing systems based on that intensification."

Grains transformation

The objective of the grains transformation program is to "assist the WA grains industry to achieve an average of 25mt crop per annum by 2035, achieved with 50 per cent increase in fertiliser, crop protection and fuel input use efficiency".

DPIRD grains research and industry development director Kerry Regan said while it was an "ambitious and probably aspirational goal", the program had been designed to address some of the significant challenges for the future of a profitable and sustainable grains industry for WA.

"With the exception of last season, when we achieved an historic 24mt harvest, the five-year average growth production for WA was about 15mt - so it's a big stretch to meet an average growth production of 25mt of grain," Ms Regan said.

More than 25 preliminary research proposals for the program have been designed by a large group of scientists and industry contributors, with the department to prioritise one to three of those programs early next month.

"The research programs will be developed with working group collaborators, industry and GRDC... and we would hope to see some activities on the ground as early as January 2023," Ms Regan said.

Climate resilience program

Murdoch University will be working on a climate resilience program, designed to "address the impacts of climate change through technology to deliver future landscapes that maintain agricultural productivity while reducing carbon emissions by 50pc by 2035".

Murdoch University professor Richard Harper said while it was still in its early stages, some broadly defined priorities for the program included accounting for emissions across all agricultural systems, optimising the co-benefits of carbon mitigation and a focus on agricultural bioeconomic modelling and natural capital accounting.