A “brave new world” for the Australian grains industry – where producers will provide the materials for a host of industrial and medical purposes – will be outlined in a series of “Single Vision” forums around the country, beginning in South Australia next Tuesday, July 27th.

The forums will be hosted by State members of the Grains Council of Australia in South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria between next week and early September. They will also be held in Western Australia in late September.

GCA President Keith Perrett said the forums were designed to seek feedback and practical solutions to the implications of projections that demand for Australian marketed grain could realistically double by 2025.

“Our South Australian forums will be held on consecutive days in Cummins, Balaklava and Karoonda. The ‘Single Vision’ research we’ll present to producers, launched at this year’s Grains Week, will present new challenges to the way we view our industry. We’ll be telling producers that their basic products have the potential to be used in astounding ways over the next 20 years”, Mr Perrett said.

“They include:

• neutraceuticals, which have a current global market value of $US150 billion a year and will continue to grow as more products are developed to allow consumers to eat their way back to good health
   

• agbiotech production, which involves the production of specialised crops for conversion to fuel, polymers and biodegradable plastics, a more nutritious and reliable food supply, and the potential for delivery of vaccines via transgenic plants
   

• biopharming, which involves transgenic crops producing therapeutic proteins and industrial enzymes, with the capacity to replace traditional chemical production methods, and
   

• bio-materials and bio-processes – industrial processes which harness naturally occurring enzymes and microbes to produce fuels, biodegradable plastics, textiles and bio-materials for constructive surgery”.

“All of these new uses for grains can be and should be met by Australians. However, some big changes will need to be made to the way we view ourselves from producers of commodities to producers of grains, as well as to our market intelligence networks and infrastructure needs”, Mr Perrett said.

“The ‘Single Vision’ Grains Industry Strategy foresees that 35,000 producers today will reduce to only 10,000 by 2025. For the projections in the Strategy to be realised, those 10,000 producers will have to increase their production levels by 200%. Given Australia’s climactic and environmental limitations, it seems likely that some of the production of grains with higher intrinsic customer value will need to be undertaken off-shore”.

“The ‘Single Vision’ strategy aims to grow the value of the industry, capture a large proportion of extraordinary growth in demand, and ensure that the added value is making rural communities stronger and more sustainable”, Mr Perrett said.

“The Strategy aims to increase producers’ share of the ‘grain dollar’ from the current 19 per cent to 25 per cent by developing new markets driven by producer influence in R and D, the creation of demand for new products, capturing new markets before our competitors, and meeting consumer demand with novel products and processes”, he said.

“The forums provide a ‘hands-on’ opportunity for producers to actively contribute to the growth of their own industry through attending the free forums. There’s a huge body of expertise, skill and enthusiasm in our industry and we want to tap into it”.