Sponsoring Agency: AgriFutures Australia
Type of Fund:
Deadline Available: Available
Deadline Date (mm/dd/yyyy): 05/07/2021
Size of the Fund: USD $50,000 to $500,000
AgriFutures Australia is seeking to invest in projects that deliver innovative approaches to the five themes outlined below, with high potential for practical benefits to not only AgriFutures levied, small and emerging industries, but relevant rural industries more broadly.
AgriFutures Australia recently completed a consultation process with AgriFutures’ levied, small and emerging industries to identify and prioritise cross-industry challenges, threats, opportunities and risks. A number of priority issues were identified through that process.
RD&E Objectives
AgriFutures Australia welcomes research proposals for the following five investment themes that support and enable action that directly benefits primary producers and their industries in one or more of the following work areas:
1. Impact of water policy and future water availability on regional viability and on competition between current agricultural industries.
AgriFutures Australia is seeking proposals that will benefit agricultural industries that have water availability as a key future constraint. Consideration should be given to specific opportunities and challenges for AgriFutures’ levied, small and emerging industries.
Potential deliverables under this objective include:
• Further develop water availability models and scenarios for agricultural industries both separately and integrated that allow industries to identify future state requirements both within current and future production areas.
• Identify forms of agricultural production that allow for variable water availability that sustain capacity within industries
• Identify future state impacts of competitive alternatives based on water availability
• Opportunities for greater agricultural resilience, by agricultural region
• Opportunities for complementarity between industries with the potential to lead to greater long-term business viability.
Proposals sought for up to $200,000 and 9 months in duration.
2. Impact of innovative sensor technology for the purpose of industry preparedness (biosecurity) in pest, disease and weed incursions.
The potential for such technologies to increase industry preparedness and speed of response, however, requires a systematic evaluation by agricultural industries within Australia.
Use of automated and remote sensing options for industries will provide the earliest possible warning of an incursion or support other established detection systems. This project is likely to benefit most plant and livestock industries.
An example of deliverables under this theme include:
• A global scan of emerging automated and remote sensing technologies that have application for detection of novel pest, disease and weed incursions at paddock, farm, and regional level
• An evaluation of the likely triple bottom line benefits of investment in technologies and likely commercialisation and uptake barriers of such technologies.
Proposals sought for up to $200,000 and 9 months in duration.
3. Human capital – challenges and changing workforce demands.
Under this investment theme, AgriFutures Australia will consider the implications for our levied, small and emerging industries. The challenges for smaller, less well-known agricultural industries often differ to those of larger, more established business operations. The objective is to identify the future skills required by these industries that need to be maintained independently or as a collective with other agricultural industries.
Projects submitted under this theme could include:
• The evolving skill sets required by employees in levied, small and emerging industries and the increasing technical aspect including the use of agtech and precision farming methods. A key question is “will rural industries need to generate agriculturalists with different skills or generate the translation of skills into the agricultural ecosystem”?
• The challenges of levied and emerging industries to maintain research and advisory capacity and capability through both public and private R&D providers.
• Evaluation of the changing global agri-food tech ecosystem and the potential impact on access to innovation that is customised to Australian agriculture and specifically the levied and emerging industries.
• Identification of where the future workforce will come from to service the different sectors of the value chain if global workforces continue to be impacted.
• Evaluation of opportunities for labour-saving strategies through mechanisation in harvesting and processing.
Proposals sought for up to $200,000 and 12 months in duration.
4. Improving the efficiency in the implementation of blockchain technology.
AgriFutures Australia is seeking projects under this proposal to address the issues of multiple blockchain platforms for multicommodity producers as well as viable traceability methods that could be applied to AgriFutures’ levied, small and emerging industries, particularly those commodities at high risk of product fraud.
Potential projects include:
• An evaluation of Australian agricultural industries that would benefit from the availability of a single blockchain platform and their common requirements.
• An evaluation of existing blockchain solutions that are currently under development that would benefit Australian agricultural industries. Report on the stages of development, the similarities, the differences, flexibility, adaptability, setup costs, ongoing costs, ownership and payment management
• Evaluation of current opportunities and issues of reducing duplication by sharing one Australian blockchain platform – cost sharing, platform, privacy issues, payment along the supply chain, recall of product
• Global examples of traceability in a single commodity along the entire supply chain i.e where the commodity is broken down into smaller pieces or becomes an ingredient of another product, and an analysis of how this could be applied to AgriFutures’ levied, small and emerging industries, e.g Tea Tree Oil.
Proposals sought for up to $200,000 and 9 months in duration.
5. Preparedness for, and recovery from, extreme disruptions: management of boom and bust business and production cycles in agriculture.
AgriFutures Australia’s levied, small and emerging industries are unique to the more established industries. While a generalization across these industries, in many cases they have less mature markets, smaller production runs, less access to established R&D and well-tested production systems and knowledge. On the flip side, they can be nimble, take advantage of new market opportunities quickly, respond to consumer needs, more readily explore new ways of doing things.
Proposals sought for up to $300,000 and 12 months in duration.
Response Criteria
Respondents will be evaluated against the following criteria:
• Organisational capability/technical skills
• Impact/methodology/project plan
• Value for money
• Extension impact and likely scale of change to be achieved.
More information at: https://www.agrifutures.com.au/researchers/agrifutures-national-rural-issues-program-open-call/
