Farmer groups have been the single biggest force for successful grains research and development in Australia, according to Professor Tim Reeves.

And the industry/government collaboration of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is the envy of grains industries around the world.

Professor Reeves should know, because he is an internationally recognised consultant in the fields of agricultural research, science policy and sustainability. He was Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico from 1995 to 2002.

This week the professor was keynote speaker at an orientation day in Toowoomba, organised by the Grains Research Foundation for members of the four committees that advise the GRDC on research priorities in Queensland.  

He told his audience grains industry research and development in Australia had worked so well because it was farmer owned and driven, with independent grower groups providing impartial and reliable information and advice relevant to industry and community needs.

But he warned Research Advisory Committee members the Australian industry had its weaknesses too, including a lack of global connectivity, particularly to countries like China, India and Brazil, which were now at the cutting edge of grains research and development.   

The public sector in Australia was in the process of reinventing itself and the industry still had to decide which things the public and private sectors did best in the R&D process. 

Short-term thinking was another worry because, while issues like climate change and salinity did call for urgency, answers to them were not to be found in the short term.

Professor Reeves said global connectivity was the only way to progress in modern research; the days of an individual scientist making a significant breakthrough working alone were gone.

There was a strong need to build further alliances and partnerships; organisations which might be competitors in one field could be partners in research.

While the ongoing challenge was to get the economic and environmental balance right, Australia did have the great advantage of the fastest growing economies in the world being its next-door neighbours.

And the biggest challenge of all was to stay competitive in the area of costs and returns. The rest of the world was moving ahead fast, and the three countries investing well in agricultural research were China, India and Brazil.