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Shaping the Future is the corporate newsletter of RIRDC. It is distributed quarterly by direct mail to over 4,000 researchers, industry, government, farmers, libraries and consultants. Contributions are welcome.
Phone (02) 6272 4539, Fax (02) 6272 5877, Editor: Martin Field, ph (02) 6272 4735.  email: murray.hansen@rirdc.gov.au



In this issue:

Rural Women of the Year
Using new technology to get RIRDC's information to you
A word from the Managing Director
Australian opportunities for health and industrial products
Agricultural cooperatives international trends
Olive oil processing in regional Australia
Equine research awards
Fish farming: re-using farmwater
Home study course for egg producers
Rural women's leadership semina
Trees, salt and water
Publications catalogue out now!
RIRDCBookshop

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Rural Women of the Year 

The RIRDC Rural Women of the Year Awards 2001 reached a successful climax with the presentation of $20,000 bursaries to each of the seven State and Territory winners during a formal dinner in Canberra on March 8.

Presented by Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator the Hon. Judith Troeth, the bursaries are to assist each winner in the fulfilment of their personal vision for agriculture.

Senator Troeth congratulated the winners on their efforts to date and wished them well in their future efforts in agriculture and in the broader community.

The winners come from a diverse range of backgrounds but have a common goal of promoting the positives about life and work in agriculture.
 

Recipients of RIRDC’s Rural Women’s Award 2000 with Parliamentary Secretary the Hon Judith Troeth.  Back row l to r: Carmel Wagstaff, Dianne Gresham, Sharyn Munnerley, Jeanette Gellard. Front row: Jon-Maree Baker, Frances Bender, Senator Judith Troeth and Rhonda Tonkin.

VICTORIA - Sharyn Munnerley

Sharyn’s objective is to establish the Australian Calf Rearing Research Centre. Her vision is for calf rearing to have a sustainable future by utilising all of its assets and resources.

NSW - Jon-Maree Baker

Jon-Maree is committed to ensuring women have access to the necessary skills and training to enable them to play a greater role and in turn ensure the cotton industry’s future sustainability.

Her plans include a pilot course that offers technical, business and leadership training to women across her industry.

QUEENSLAND - Dianne Gresham

Dianne’s vision for the dairy industry is to assist producers in developing the skills and knowledge to strategically position their businesses in a rapidly changing environment.

She believes it will be crucial for farmers to have access to the most reliable and up to date information.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA - Rhonda Tonkin

Rhonda’s vision is to enhance the wildflower industry’s sustainable production through better value adding and exports.

She plans to undertake a three week market research tour of the USA and Europe including Holland and Germany, to better understand the export demand and market requirements for value added wildflower products.

TASMANIA - Frances Bender

Frances has a vision to see aquaculture, particularly in Tasmania, continue to prosper and expand as a source of sustainable future employment for rural communities. She intends to study first hand the markets for salmon products in Japan and to articulate their customer needs including product specifications and packaging and presentation needs.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA - Jeanette Gellard

Jeanette’s vision is to lift the image of agriculture and to promote the diversity of opportunities it offers to young men and women.

She plans to develop a resource pack for secondary schools and tertiary institutions that outlines the range of employment and business opportunities available in the agricultural sector.

NORTHERN TERRITORY - Carmel Wagstaff

Carmel’s vision for the future of the pastoral industry is to arrest the exodus of youth from the bush and make the bush a place where people desire to live.

She proposes to galvanize the pastoral industry with this common purpose, by bringing together key employers and employment agencies, to workshop ideas and opportunities.

Further information: Edwina Clowes, Awards National Coordinator, phone 07 5476 1211, email clowesedwina@bigpond.com
 

A word from the Managing Director:
Using new technology to get RIRDC's information to you

RIRDC’s use of new technology to deliver information to its key customers continues to evolve and to grow in popularity.

The corporation has seen a rapid increase in "traffic" to the site, with many visitors downloading full reports and short reports.

Hits, or accesses to the RIRDC site have doubled over the past year from 60,000 in January 2000 to 120,000 at the end of November 2000 (the last month for which complete statistics are available).

Nearly 100,000 accesses were to the Publications area of the site. This included 29,000 requests for full reports and 16,000 requests for research in progress/completed reports documents.

The online bookshop received nearly 3,000 accesses and averaged about 20 transactions a month to a total value of about $1000 (this has been growing steadily since inception).

Based on detailed analysis of the behaviour of site traffic, we can safely infer that over 65 per cent of visitors to the site are from Australia.

Overseas visitors come mainly from New Zealand, the USA, Africa, Malaysia, the UK and France.

One important feature of the site is that while it has been designed attractively and with corporate colours, there are very few graphics or other unnecessary design elements.

This is largely to ensure faster accessibility and download speeds - particularly in regional and rural areas.

In addition, RIRDC also has a monthly email newsletter, which has grown in popularity to now have more than 1600 subscribers.

This newsletter contains links to reports and updates about many of RIRDC’s activities. It is hard to imagine a more efficient medium for communication.

The use of this technology is still very much in the early stages of development but there are clear signs that it will be a powerful force into the distant future.

Peter Core
Managing Director
 
 

Australian Opportunities for health and industrial products

Australian agriculture has the potential to play a major role in supplying materials for the revolution in health industry and new industrial product markets, according to a new RIRDC scoping study.

Growing interest in health and the role of nutrition in generating longer and better quality lives, and concern about dependency on carbon rich raw material, has led to increased sales of pharmaceutical, neutraceutical and industrial products world-wide.

Promising outlook

The outlook for continued growth in the use of natural materials in these markets is very promising.

Australia has an opportunity to cash in on the increased interest because of its ability to produce high quality agricultural material at low cost.

Already there has been substantial growth in markets for Australian medicinal herbs, organic and functional foods (those with beneficial effects on body functions beyond nutritional effects.) The study, New Pharmaceutical, Nutraceutical and Industrial Products – The Potential for Australian Agriculture, has been produced by Wondu Holdings for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.

The research team was made up of plant chemists and commercial analysts from Australia and the Phytochemical Research Group at Middlesex University in London. It provides insights into the role Australia can play in the production and supply of these products over the next decade.

Trend for improved health

Research leader David Michael said the new markets are being driven by fundamental shifts in demand for improved health and quality of life and renewed concern about the long-term availability of petroleum-based products.

Already, turnover by Australian manufacturers of medicinal and pharmaceutical products had grown from $4.6 billion in 1997/98 to more than $6 billion in 1999/2000 making it a leading growth sector in the Australian economy.

Best markets

"The largest and most immediate prospect in this market is for functional foods that can be produced most readily for a number of crops and animal products already produced in Australia," Mr Michael said.

"These include oats, soybean, canola, cruciferous vegetables, medicinal honey, omega-3 eggs and kangaroo meat. There is also significant development potential in sea plants.

"Medicinal herbs like echinacea, St John’s Wort and garlic are a growing industry but there are issues of harvesting costs, quality control and improved safety and labelling standards that need to be considered."

Commodity chemicals

There is also significant potential for agricultural materials to be used in the production of commodity chemicals and fuels to match a shift away from petroleum products although the volatile oil price will remain a key factor in competitiveness for some time.

Nevertheless, new processing technologies are closing the cost gap between oil and natural materials such as maize and potatoes which can be used to make biopolymers.

Major constraints

Mr Michael said despite the undoubted potential, there needed to be caution. Major constraints include high risk and an uncertain planning environment, economies of scale, lack of domestic processing in speciality chemicals, strict regulatory processes and low labour productivity.

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