January 2, 2019
Members of the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s Northern Region Panel will be visiting Kingaroy on February 5 as part of a larger tour of the Wide Bay area.
The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is a statutory corporation which invests grower levies into research projects.
The 11 members of the Northern Region Panel provide advice to the GRDC on projects in the main cropping areas of Queensland and NSW.
From February 5-7, the panel will be visiting Kingaroy, Bundaberg and Maryborough to see key GRDC research investment sites.
These are focused on peanut breeding and evaluation, legume crops in rotation with sugarcane, and the national soybean breeding program.
They will inspect trials and speak to growers, grower groups and researchers.
During their visit to Kingaroy, the panel will tour PCA’s complex in town, inspect the GRDC plant-breeding program site at DAF’s Kingaroy Research Station, and meet with local growers at a shed lunch at Peter Howlett’s property at Benair.
GRDC Northern Region Panel chairman John Minogue said the Panel had the critical role of relaying information back to the GRDC about the challenges facing growers in different regions, along with feedback on their current research needs and priorities.
“As a Panel it is vital that we create these opportunities to engage directly with growers in a two-way conversation that helps us to develop an in-depth understanding of the regional constraints to farm profitability and productivity,” he said.
“Understanding the concerns and challenges facing growers in different regions is vital so we can fulfil our responsibility of ensuring that levy investments deliver paddock-ready solutions to production constraints, help reduce production costs and importantly increase farm profitability.
“We also use these opportunities to see firsthand how partner agricultural organisations, like the sugar industry, operate and to investigate potential opportunities for future collaboration.”
The Panel visits different parts of the Queensland and NSW cropping regions twice a year to liaise directly with industry.
