WHILE much has been made of the Australian grain industry's competitiveness on a global scale in recent times, a Nuffield Fellow is calling on the industry to look within to deal with challenges that it faces now and into the future.
Grain market inefficiency and industry advocacy are two key elements of a report compiled by grain marketer Jerome Critch, who believes political and social challenges could be big barriers to the Australian grain industry if changes are not made in the way these challenges are addressed.
In his report he said the delivery of industry good functions in Australia would be more efficient and effective if the many and various providers specialised on certain functions rather than duplicating roles, as is occurring.
Mr Critch said this would require more co-ordination between providers and may involve the consolidation of industry organisations.
He believes there are some "icebergs" on the horizon and they could have the ability to sink farm businesses.
"These icebergs are political and social and include things such as restrictions or bans on farm chemicals such as 24D, glyphosate, paraquat and diquat," Mr Critch said.
"GM technology is still being called into question and we are yet to really embrace its successor - gene editing - for the agricultural sector.
"Then you have the carbon tax, which could restrict burning on farms, while a fuel tax could see the cost of putting a crop in go through the roof.
"It is almost like they have looked at minimum till farming and said 'How can we sink this?' because broadacre minimum till farming relies on most of the things mentioned above.
"No one wants to give up on this and without doubt it highlights the benefits of having a unified voice fighting to retain these important elements of our farming practices.
"Progressive farmers are going to get hit the most because if you throw in something like autonomous technology, it is going to require government approval and a lot of data to run these things and that will require better connectivity, which will only come with government support.
"I don't want to sound like a doomsday theorist, but the ducks are lining up against us at the moment and we need to look at the big picture."
Mr Critch said, unfortunately, the rural vote was getting smaller and the urban vote was getting bigger and it was going to become increasingly important that rural communities had a united voice.
He said while it was imperative that the Australian grain market was aware of its competitors, it was just as important that resources were directed at what can be controlled here in Australia.
"We can't control our competitors and how cheaply they can produce grain," he said.
"They are going to get grain into our markets cheaper than we can and we can't control that.
"We have Russian and Black Sea grain going into Indonesia now, they are doing it cheaply and knocking us out - we can't control that.
"You can spend a lot of money arguing quality benefits and you might get a few bucks a tonne more.
"What we can control is the cost of production and our ability to get grain to that market as cheaply and efficiently as possible and ensuring it is the right quality of grain.
"That is what my report comes back to - let's look internally at what we can control and protect.
"We need to have some presence in terms of market access and promotion and an organisation that can handle things such as the maximum residue limit issue and the barley anti-dumping scenario but we also need to look at where our biggest return on investment will come from."
Mr Critch said a large amount of money went into research and technology in Australia's grain industry.
"The issue is that if you can't socially or politically use the results of that research and technology, then what is the point of investing $200 million a year on it?" he said.
"We are struggling to use some of the existing technology and practices we have access to now.
"Growers are also up against groups that are opposed to some of this technology and research that are well funded and highly organised.
"They are good at getting their message out there through social media and they use the media to their advantage."
In his report, Mr Critch said growers and grower representative groups needed to improve their engagement with the wider community if they were to meet the agronomical, political and economic challenges of the future.
"The industry needs to be well researched and informed and present a united front with a consistent message," he said.
"Improved funding structures may need to be considered for grower representative groups to ensure sufficient resources are available to meet these challenges and to minimise the free-rider affect.
"To maintain competitiveness, the industry would benefit from continued investment in market access and market support activities, such as facilitating trade agreements, promoting Australian grain and after sales support.
"However, this investment needs to be more co-ordinated and strategic than it is currently."
Through his study, Mr Critch travelled to the United States and Canada to explore how these countries deliver industry good functions.
"The United States and Canadian grain industries are dealing with similar challenges as Australia," he said.
"Of the three countries, the US appears to provide the most complete delivery of industry good functions.
"The Canadian and Australian industries are much less mature, more fragmented and have less access to funding compared to the US.
"This may be due to the US market having been deregulated for much longer than the Australian and Canadian markets allowing more time for their system to develop and mature.
"US organisations also have access to greater amounts of funding through their government due to the size of their grain industry and associated check off system."
