Meeting the Government’s Priorities 

Government Priorities and Community Benefits

In addition to the seven priority areas identified by the Minister, the question of broader community benefits from RIRDC-funded programs is also discussed. We note that there is significant overlap between the seven priority areas identified by the Minister and the wider community benefits which are drawn from RIRDC’s broad mandate and have been identified in our Corporate Plan. Both are addressed separately here so that our stakeholders can clearly see how we are addressing each.

Meeting the Government’s Priorities

• Sustainable management and use of our soil, water, air, vegetation and fauna resources integrated into farming and land use systems
• Publication of report on Environmental Partnerships:  Combining Sustainability and Commercial Advantage in the Commercial Sector.
• Support for the second conference on accreditation of Environment Management Systems.
• Commercialisation of substances that bioremediate Pyrethroid contaminated wastes.
• Commercialisation of Distichlis for rehabilitation of highly saline areas for grain, turf and grazing.
• Publication of book ‘Farming Beyond 2000: Systems Theory for Sustainable Development and Food Security’. The book describes key emerging theories and principles that will underpin farming systems as they evolve in the 21st century.
• Production of reports such as: Trees, Water and Salt: An Australian guide to using trees for healthy catchments and productive farms and the Farm Forestry Site Selection Manual to facilitate capacity building at a regional level.
• Facilitate, coordinate and support research projects investigating potential new industries and environmental services from trees in low rainfall areas.
• Continue to support and facilitate R&D to investigate the impact of agroforestry and farm forestry systems on biophysical processes ? in particular biodiversity.
• Continue to support nationally coordinated R&D into the use of agroforestry and farm forestry systems for bioenergy production.
• Continue to collect, evaluate and disperse information that can be used by industry to enhance its environmental performance, particularly in the area of odour control from chicken grow-out farms and the management of farm and hatchery wastes.
• Update an evaluation of the economic importance to the Australian economy of the pollination services provided by honeybees.
• Increased emphasis on establishing a rigorous research base for bio-diversity and fauna assessment and management in rice producing areas.
• Development of a new effort to determine effective weed control in the white clover industry.
• Improved water use management for lucerne seed production by improved measurement of water balance information.

A whole of industry approach to production, processing and marketing to ensure the chain works to its best advantage
 

• An integrated activity linked with farmer organisations which aims to convert value chain information into producer-based actions.
• Report on improving the quality of Asian vegetables, including issues relating to post-harvest handling and packaging.
• Development of tourist markets for value added velvet antler and venison co-products.
• Expand the Deer industry Quality Assurance program via reaccredit and retrain industry QA facilitators and encourage the adoption of industry Quality Assurance Brand Marks.
• Further extend the range of essential oils and plant extracts for which information is available on markets, production, harvesting and post harvest handling.
• Study the value-chain of eggs and egg products.
• Assist in the identification and development of new value-added egg products including those with non-food applications.
• Increase emphasis on post-farmgate issues through investigation of novel rice based products, improved storage technologies and the consideration of the pharmaceutical/nutraceutical properties of rice.
• A major effort to expand the objective measurement system for fodder to silage and also to include new measures of palatability.
• Detailed investigation of the existence and consequences of market power in the food processing/food-retailing sector.
• An assessment of whether there has been a consistent error in world population predictions and if so what the implications are likely to be for Australian agriculture.

Development of biotechnology, along with sensitive handling to accommodate consumer’s concerns
 

• An analysis of the consequences for Australian exporters of biotechnology adoption and differences in government policy responses to this new innovation around the world.
• Review of the farm and resource management issues relating to genetically modified plants.
• Advance the next stage of biotechnology research using functional genomics to support the longer-term development of the rice industry in Australia, as these technologies become appropriate.
• Start new projects on wide hybridization in the Chamelaucium alliance; Australian cutflower "best bets"; and new varieties of Leucadendron.
• Continue a new phase for the rice breeding and quality evaluation program, which will place significant emphasis on improved quality using more advanced quality assessment and breeding technologies, for example, genetic markers.
• Green paper on new genetic technologies and the significance of these for the Australian horse industry.
• Completed tests on the efficacy of a newly developed recombinant vaccine against herpes virus infection in horses.

Trade and market access negotiations
 

• A series of trade policy analyses and reports which consider: the implications of trade reforms on bank lending in developing countries; the costs and benefits of preferential trade access for developing countries; and the environmental effects of global agricultural subsidies.
• Assess the implications of domestic and international economic policy issues on the Australian egg industry.
• Investigation of a new approach to the control of varroa mites which a the major threat to the honeybee industry and pollinated crops.
• Australian poultry flocks are considered to be free from very virulent forms of infectious bursal disease virus. Research will be undertaken to confirm Australia’s status in this respect and to develop the tools that would be needed to identify any incursions of vvIBDV into the country and to differentiate such viruses from the genetically distinct Australian forms of the virus so that appropriate control measures can be implemented in a timely manner.

Maintenance and enhancement of our clean green image
 

• Documentation of organic crop and pasture systems for southeast Australia.
• National Organic Conference supported by organic industry and traditional agriculture.
• Documentation of organic practices with wider significance to science or agriculture.
• Further identification of sustainable weed management practices for organic herb and vegetable production.
• Review of Organic Polycultural Systems: design principles, risks and benefits.
• Develop new initiatives on the use of tea tree oil in agriculture.
• Continue to work with the poultry industry to provide the tools and programs necessary to re-establish Australia’s favourable status as free of Newcastle disease.
• Further enhance the use of rotational weed management practices to enhance management tools to avoid herbicide resistance and also increase understanding of the biology of major weeds to improve the chance that non-chemical controls can be developed in the future.
• Information on exotic diseases of relevance to the Australian horse industry, in a format showing relevance to all in the horse industry.

Addressing food safety concerns of consumers
 

• Significant investments in new animal product food safety R&D.
• Undertake research to determine the minimum residue limits for pesticides in essential oils.
• Undertake further work on tea tree oil-related efficacy and safety issues in human health.
• Develop and evaluate alternative approaches to antimicrobial substances for the control of necrotic enteritis and for the maintenance of optimal growth performance in meat chickens.
• Progress the development of nutritional strategies for optimising lean meat deposition in meat chickens by manipulating the fatty acid profile of their diets.
• Seek new approaches to minimising the levels of Campylobacter spp., which can be associated with food-borne illness in humans, on poultry meat products through an improved understanding of how flocks become colonised with this organism in the field and the development and evaluation of intervention strategies.
• Assess the long-term impact to the industry, consumers, the community and the environment of a move away from traditional cage systems and/or to decrease stocking densities in cages.
• Several research activities which will improve knowledge of the nutritional value of eggs and egg products.
• Research to improve the several aspects of the food safety of eggs and egg products.

Cultivating creativity and innovation among our human resources
 

• A farmers’ guide to the use of e-commerce in agriculture.
• A report on interactive internet support for farmers to work with scientists.
• Continued production of the Shaping the Future for the Internet and Information Technology newsletter.
• Projects with other R & D Corporations and agencies on innovating and developing human capacity in rural industries.
• A report on indigenous participation in rural learning for rangeland sustainability.
• Publication and communication of a series on Options for Change for Farming People:  Doing Things Differently that explores many of the key business development options available to farming families.
• A report which identifies the social needs of youth and strategies to encourage youth to remain in rural communities.
• A report which identifies strategies for enhancing the leadership role of schools in rural communities.
• A leadership training course for youth winners of ABC Heywire competition.
• Training resources for farm machinery safety.
• A report which reviews regulation of farm machinery safety.
• A report on the comparison between different approaches to farm injury prevention in Victoria and Queensland.
• A new Rural Women’s Award will be launched.
• Two Australian Rural Leadership Program scholarships will be awarded.
• Release of training curriculum developed to facilitate the adoption of organic systems.
• Assist the egg industry in developing and implementing training materials.

Broader Community Benefits

RIRDC has focused on research that:
 

• results in the sustainable management of resources, especially when there are external effects of their use.
• improves market access and development programs.
• determines the implications of changes in the environment, such as climate change and variability.
• has implications for human nutrition and health.
• determines implications of practices for occupational health and safety.
• supports the development of Australia’s rural  research and leadership capacity.

While many of these wider community benefits come from RIRDC’s core funded research programs they also result from research funded by RIRDC’s levy-based R&D programs. As was mentioned earlier, while some of these areas overlap with the priorities recently identified by the Government we feel that is still important to highlight how this Operational Plan focuses on these wider community oriented benefits, these are briefly discussed below.

New products and industries

Wider community benefits are an important potential component of RIRDC’s research into new and emerging industries. In many cases, identification of alternative production possibilities for farming groups can provide the diversity and scope for value-adding that can maintain the criticalmass necessary to maintain rural towns and improve their viability.

RIRDC’s research covers areas such as investigating market prospects for newer industries and assessing the feasibility and methods for their competitive production.

Examples of these are:
 

• New work on: bushfoods; IPM in olives; timing the harvesting of olives; floral manipulation and canopy management in rambutan and longan; nutrition and irrigation in durian and mangosteen; nutrition in hazelnut; capers as a new crop for Australia; and guar as a source of food gums.
• Seek opportunities to establish research on prospective broad-acre crops.
• Increase investment in integrated silk R&D including sericulture, moriculture, processing and marketing opportunities.
• Increase funding in appraising effective future investment into breeding R&D for dairy sheep and goat enterprises.
• Maintain investment in crocodile management, breeding and nutrition R&D for at least three more years.
• Release of consolidated information on production, post harvest handling and markets for kabocha, bittermelon, Chinese broccoli, daikon, burdock and Chinese cabbage.
• Report on improving the quality of Asian vegetables, including issues relating to post-harvest handling and packaging.
• Report on lotus, providing information on production and marketing and focussing on the Japanese market.
• Report on improved management practices for culinary bamboo shoots.
• Development of tourist markets for value added velvet antler and venison co-products.
• National Organic Conference supported by organic industry and traditional agriculture.
• Foster field trials and licensing of promising new wildflowers and foliage.
• Assist in the identification and development of new value-added egg products including those with non-food applications.
• Development of new forage legume varieties suitable for fodder production in northern Australia.
• A concentrated effort to overcome seed production constraints for two new fodder legume species: sulla and purple clover.

Sustainable resource management

In many of RIRDC’s sub-programs there is a major focus on issues related to more effective use of Australia’s rural resource base so that production minimises its impact on the environment in the longer term. Some examples are highlighted below.
 

• Production of reports such as:  Trees, Water and Salt: An Australian guide to using trees for healthy catchments and productive farms and the Farm Forestry Site Selection Manual to facilitate capacity building at a regional level.
• Facilitate, coordinate and support research projects investigating potential new industries and environmental services from trees in low rainfall areas.
• Continue to support and facilitate R&D to investigate the impact of agroforestry and farm forestry systems on biophysical processes- in particular biodiversity.
• Continue to support nationally coordinated R&D into the use of agroforestry and farm forestry systems for bioenergy production.
• Continue to collect, evaluate and disperse information that can be used by industry to enhance its environmental performance, particularly in the area of odour control from chicken grow-out farms and the management of farm and hatchery wastes.
• Develop internationally accepted methods of assessing hen welfare.
• Develop an accepted code of practice for the environmental impact of egg production.
• Update an evaluation of the economic importance to the Australian economy of the pollination services provided by honeybees.
• Investigation of NIR technologies for predicting the productivity of honeybees from the nutritional value of pollen.
• Further enhance the use of rotational weed management practices to enhance management tools to avoid herbicide resistance and also increase understanding of the biology of major weeds to improve the chance that non-chemical controls can be developed in the future.
• Increased emphasis on establishing a rigorous research base for bio-diversity and fauna assessment and management in rice producing areas.
• Development of a new effort to determine effective weed control in the white clover industry.
• Improved water use management for lucerne seed production by improved measurement of water balance information.
• Publication of a report on Environmental Partnerships:  Combining Sustainability and Commercial Advantage in the Commercial Sector.
• Second conference on accreditation of Environment Management Systems.
• Commercialisation of  substances that bioremediate Pyrethroid contaminated wastes.
• Commercialisation of Distichlis for rehabilitation of highly saline areas for grain, turf and grazing.
• Publication of book ‘Farming Beyond 2000: Systems Theory for Sustainable Development and Food Security’.  The book describes key emerging theories and principles that will underpin farming systems as they evolve in the 21st century.

Food safety

Although RIRDC’s established industries programs focus primarily on research that benefits all members of the levy-paying industry, they also have potential to generate significant community wide benefits. Some of these focus specifically on improved food safety, which is an area receiving significant attention by the whole community.

Examples in the current Plan include:
 

• Significant investments in new animal product food safety R&D.
• Undertake research to determine the minimum residue limits for pesticides in essential oils.
• Undertake further work on tea tree oil-related efficacy and safety issues in human health.
• Develop and evaluate alternative approaches to antimicrobial substances for the control of necrotic enteritis and for the maintenance of optimal growth performance in meat chickens.
• Progress the development of nutritional strategies for optimising lean meat deposition in meat chickens by manipulating the fatty acid profile of their diets.
• Seek new approaches to minimising the levels of Campylobacter spp., which can be associated with food-borne illness in humans, on poultry meat products through an improved understanding of how flocks become colonised with this organism in the field and the development and evaluation of intervention strategies.
• Assess the long-term impact to the industry, consumers, the community and the environment of a move away from traditional cage systems and/or to decrease stocking densities in cages.
• Several research activities which will improve knowledge of the nutritional value of eggs and egg products.

Cross-sectoral impacts

RIRDC supports a major research effort in areas that have cross-sectoral impacts. The global competitive­ness program provides assessments of impediments to Australian trade and of market prospects for all agricultural production. The impact of this type of research will have ramifications throughout the broader Australian community. Examples include projects that have provided, and will continue to provide, R&D support for negotiators during the next round of WTO trade policy negotiations. Changes in these policies, if they further liberalise world trade, will enhance Australia’s trading potential and, therefore, benefit agriculture and the wider community.

Research on a range of domestic policy impediments to efficient agricultural production will have potential to influence policy changes that will benefit all members of rural communities, not just farmers. An example is the analysis of the provision and pricing of regional infrastructure and detailed analysis of recent trends in rural credit provision.

Many research activities in the resilient agricultural systems program will have potential community-wide benefits. These include research on bioremediation and waste-water management, reduced pesticide risk, implications of climate change for agricultural production and regional resource use and a detailed review of agriculture’s potential to provide pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and industrial products.

In the rice program, research emphasises improved water use, recharge and quality, and the sustainable use of farm chemicals. Better understanding of these areas via this research has the potential to benefit communities along Australia’s major river systems. The Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Rice Production, of which RIRDC is a partner,is significantly expanding our research support in this important area.

Other examples of cross-sectoral impacts include:
 

• Reports on:

–         Clinical efficacy of tea tree oil for treating coldsores
–         Anti inflammatory and anti-itch properties of tea tree oil
–         Anti microbial activity of tea tree oil against oral microorganisms
–         Multi centre randomised clinical trials for tea tree oil products for vaginal infections
–         The anti inflammatory activity of tea tree oil
• Update of an evaluation of the economic importance to the Australian economy of the pollination services provided by honeybees.
• Increase emphasis on post-farmgate issues through investigation of novel rice based products, improved storage technologies and the consideration of the pharmaceutical/nutraceutical properties of rice.
• An assessment of whether there has been a consistent error in world population predictions and if so what the implications are likely to be for Australian agriculture.
• A report which proposes concrete ways to encourage creativity in agricultural research institutions.

Community safety, training, communications

Under its Human Capital, Communications and Information Systems Program, RIRDC manages and supports a major collaborative research effort that considers many aspects of rural community occupational health and safety. Projects range from development of effective farm safety courses to investigating the causes of traumatic deaths in rural areas.

In addition, RIRDC supports a program of rural leadership training and university scholarships, which focus on building the stock of human capital available to address problems facing the rural sector. This also contains some specific focus on leadership development activities for rural women and youth.

Projects on information technology continue to look at the importance and implications of developments in communications services for rural communities and their effective links with urban areas and the global economy.

More specific examples include:
 

• Release of training curriculum developed to facilitate the adoption of organic systems.
• Assist the egg industry in developing and implementing training materials.
• An integrated activity linked with farmer organisations which aims to convert value chain information into producer-based actions.
• A farmers’ guide to the use of e-commerce in agriculture.
• A report on interactive internet support for farmers to work with scientists.
• Continued production of the Shaping the Future for the Internet and Information Technology newsletter.
• Projects with other R & D Corporations and agencies on innovating and developing human capacity in rural industries.
• A report on indigenous participation in rural learning for rangeland sustainability.
• Publication and communication of a series on Options for Change for Farming People:  Doing Things Differently that explores many of the key business development options available to farming families.
• A report which identifies the social needs of youth and strategies to encourage youth to remain in rural communities.
• A report which identifies strategies for enhancing the leadership role of schools in rural communities.
• A leadership training course for youth winners of ABC Heywire competition.
• Training resources for farm machinery safety.
• A report which reviews regulation of farm machinery safety.
• A report on the comparison between different approaches to farm injury prevention in Victoria and Queensland.
• A new Rural Women’s Award launched.
• Two Australian Rural Leadership Program scholarships awarded.

The impacts of all of these research activities have significant implications and benefits for the wider Australian community.
 

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