April 18, 2002

The new joint venture, which formally came into being last week under the temporary title of the National Wheat Breeding Program (NWBP), is to unite the intellectual property, plant breeding technologies and germplasm of three states under a single strategy - focused on breeding better wheat
varieties across the country.

The chairman of NWBP, Murray Rogers, said today that the joint venture would unite the resources of three of Australia's long-standing, state-based wheat breeding programs - from the WA Department of Agriculture, NSW Agriculture and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. The fourth partner in the venture is the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).

"Graingrowers will be the beneficiaries of the new venture," Mr Rogers said.

"We will bring together Australia's richest collection of wheat germplasm, a strong team of breeders, world class breeding technologies and excellent international research linkages.

"We are starting our work with a talent base that, over a decade, has doubled the wheat production capacity of WA, enabled the Queensland industry to survive years of unrelenting drought and doubled the wheat production capacity of NSW.

"Our priority is to get access to the latest technologies to ensure development of the best varieties for growers, while combining the breeding forces of three states.

"We have the experience to produce the highest-quality, best-yielding wheat varieties more quickly, and with greater economy, than any other plant improvement group in Australia."

Mr Rogers said that within weeks he would announce the appointment of NWBP's first National Director. The joint venture would commence operations on 1 July 2002.

The NWBP is one of three new GRDC-supported wheat breeding programs which would replace the GRDC's support of Australia's eight current, mainly state-based, breeding programs.

The Managing Director of GRDC, John Lovett, said that combining the strength of the three state agencies was an achievement that would benefit growers.

"This venture is the largest of GRDC's wheat breeding investments, and together with the other two ventures, the partners will invest more than $100 million over five years. The GRDC is delighted to have reached this point after three years of planning and negotiations.

"As a long term investor in wheat breeding, the GRDC now wishes to gauge the performance of its investments over time against the objectives of maximising returns to growers."

For further information, please contact:
* John Lovett, Managing Director, GRDC on (02) 6272 5525
* Murray Rogers, Chairman, National Wheat Breeding Program, on 0419 534 005
* Graeme Robertson, Director-General, WA Dept of Agriculture, on 08 9368 3236
* Kevin Sheridan, Director-General, NSW Agriculture, on 02 6391 3333
* Warren Hoey, Director-General, Qld Dept of Primary Industries, on 07 3239 3021
* Ross Andrews, GRDC Corporate Communication Manager, on 0419 464 579