GRAINS Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) managing director Steve Jefferies said he received a shock when liaising with growers about their perceptions of his organisation.
“I had a good chance to consult with stakeholders when I started in this role earlier in the year and there were some messages coming through loud and clear.”
“Farmers said they were sick of the bureaucracy and the lack of transparency in the organisation.”
To combat this, Dr Jefferies said a key priority would be to make the investment process much more open and publicly visible.
“We want to be able to demonstrate what projects we have funded and why and also provide explanations on why we haven’t invested in others rather simply giving a list of what we are funding with no explanation as to why.”
Dr Jefferies said the challenge for the organisation was to provide a suite of projects for all stakeholders and to not be swayed by vocal minorities.
But he said growers needed to understand relevant research did not necessarily mean it would be conducted in their paddock.
“You can centralise a number of the key research functions and that does not lessen the value.
“Of course there will be specific trials that need to be done at a local level, but a farmer in western Victoria for example can rest assured that just because there is work coming out of Wagga Wagga it does not mean it is not going to be relevant.”
In terms of reducing the bureaucratic burden, Dr Jefferies said he hoped his time at the helm of grain breeder AGT would aid in the creation of an organisation that was both agile and run in line with business lines rather than being mired down in endless red tape.
“One of the criticisms I have taken on board was that the GRDC has historically been slow to react because of the amount of processes it requires to make decisions.
“Hopefully we can speed that up and create greater value for the growers by acting in a more timely manner to key research priorities.”
Dr Jefferies also said he thought GRDC needed to inform growers of what they were doing and how it is benefiting the production sector.
“I had a grower say they did not think the GRDC had done anything useful for them out of their levy payment for years.
“I then asked them what wheat variety he grew and he said Kord CL.”
“Within the development of Kord there were three GRDC projects that helped it be developed, our work in rust research, our work in molecular breeding research and our work in innovative statistical methodology.”
“All of these projects help contribute to commercial varieties, yet I am not sure if the growers are aware of this.
“Our challenge is to better sell our message and to better demonstrate to growers that we are contributing even though it might not be in that front line paddock-based trial work.”
Dr Jefferies also said GRDC was behind a large part of the learning undertaken by agronomists that provide growers with so much of their advice.
“A lot of their data comes from GRDC funded projects, but we need to show growers the benefits of this type of work to their own businesses.”
Dr Jefferies said the sheer size of the GRDC gave it an advantage over smaller scale research organisations.
“We can leverage our size and invest in projects on a scale not manageable by smaller organisations.
“It is a big responsibility and we need to make sure we get it right.
“I want to get our organisation to a point where all growers regard it as their asset in the R,D&E space.”