![The Beef CRC is disappointed to have been overlooked for funding. The Beef CRC is disappointed to have been overlooked for funding.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-agfeed/1415178.jpg/r0_0_420_280_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Cuts to the Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) funding pool mean agricultural research cornerstones, beef and cotton CRCs, miss out on the latest round of funding.
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Beef CRC chief executive officer, Dr Heather Burrow, is “very disappointed” with the organisation’s failure to attract funding in the latest round, but the result was “not unexpected”.
The CRC program was established by the Federal Government in 1990 to improve the effectiveness of Australia’s research effort by bringing together the best researchers in the public and private sectors to take a collaborative approach to delivering solutions to “big picture” problems.
Funded since 1993, and a world leader in genetic research into beef cattle, developing DNA markers for traits such as marbling, it joins the Cotton CRC among those to miss out on the latest round of funding.
“What we (the Beef CRC and its international partners) can do in the next five years will take the industry 20 years to achieve,” Dr Burrow said.
Dr Burrow estimated the Beef CRC had delivered about $2 billion in net benefits to both the industry and consumers since starting its work in 1993 (from total federal funding of $66m).
The application’s failure was in part a side effect of the live cattle export controversy.
She said the application had been due on July 1, but on June 29 they had discovered a major “glitch” and in the heat of the live cattle export issue had found it hard to access key industry figures in northern Australia.
“We had to pull out $4.5 million in cash and in kind from the industry,” she said.
Its current work has been heavily focused on the beef genome (the entirety of an animal’s DNA-encoded hereditary information) which was first sequenced in 2006, but the dramatic breeding and selection advances it promised have been difficult to achieve because hundreds, even thousands, of interacting genes control important production traits like growth rate, feed efficiency and meat quality – not the handful that researchers had originally believed.
However, even if the CRC had made it through to the final selection round the interview process would still have been difficult.
The government was expected to support only about three to five of the applications.
Dr Burrow said the organisation had wanted another five-year extension to to identify all the genes in the beef genome, however, it will now, during the next few months, look at alternatives, including international collaboration and continued industry funding to ensure the research continued.
Chief executive officer of the Cotton Catchment Communities CRC, Philip Armytage, said the latest funding bid had included 98 partners who were willing to contribute about $78 million across the seven years.
The Cotton CRC had been asking the Government for a further $25m.
Mr Armytage said the Cotton CRC’s achievements included research that had helped growers increase water use efficiency by 28 per cent as well as important research on the interaction of surface and ground water.
The water savings had allowed farmers to grow about $250m worth more cotton with the same amount of water.
Its research had also halved the amount of contamination in Australian cotton fibre.
He said the CRC was investigating alternatives to see if research could continue without government support.
While the CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork (Pork CRC) did not apply for funding this year, the organisation did present a successful application last year.
This resulted in $20 million in funding which will assure projects until 2019.
During this period Pork CRC aims to transform pork production systems to produce high quality pork for the same financial cost, while improving animal welfare by eliminating the need for confinement of sows.