FFI Activities - Future Farm Industries

FFI Activities

The FFI CRC’s end-users are 72,000 SMEs (small to medium enterprises) – broadacre primary producers who manage 60 million hectares of Australia’s landmass. It will seek to increase the adoption of innovative perennial plant-based farming systems on 7.4 mha of agricultural land, establish new regional industries on 100,000 hectares and under conservative estimates delay or prevent salinity impacts on 1.6 mha in the
crop-livestock and high rainfall zones. In addition, the CRC will provide decision support tools and technologies for catchment management organisations and regional groups to target and implement land use change at multi-enterprise scale.

The powerful collaboration of FFI CRC participants, particularly in agribusiness and agricultural innovation, has allowed identification and targeting of three business opportunities in which Profitable Perennials™ will add value to outcomes:

deliver innovative farming systems and new perennial cultivars on-farm that boost productivity and mitigate risk
develop enabling technologies and supply-chain enhancements to create new woody crop-based regional industries
provide decision support tools and capacity for catchment-scale NRM to mitigate risk and enhance sustainability of enterprise and catchment level land use changes.

An Adoption and Commercialisation strategy for the FFI CRC is under development by John Powell Adoption Manager, advised by an Adoption and Commercialisation panel comprising Participant and client representatives.

FFI Projects

The activities of the CRC are predominantly under project management, and contribute to products and outputs that are the responsibility of Programs. FFI CRC is a three-tiered structure:

CRC governance
Programs
Projects.

The Annual Operating Plan 2007-08 comprises 48 projects; 30 continuing from CRC Salinity and 18 transitional projects covering new activities in 2007-08:

Project Number	Project Name	Project Leader	Continuing or Transitional
Program 1 - Future Livestock Production
P1 01	Using native perennial species in agriculture	Megan Ryan	C
P1 02	Improving lucerne performance for acid soils	Geoff Auricht	C
P1 03	Developing new and innovative perennial lotus species for grazing systems of southern Australia	Graeme Sandral	C
P1 04	Developing innovative seed production technologies to ensure the commercial success of new perennial lotus species targeted at reducing recharge in the mid-catchment regions of Australia	Graeme Sandral	C
P1 05	Perennial forage grass improvement for low-medium rainfall recharge environments to improve sustainability and profitability	Zhongnan Nie	C
P1 06	Agronomic practices for new perennials – Northern NSW component	Greg Lodge	C
P1 07	Reliable establishment of non-traditional perennial pasture species	Phil Nichols	C
P1 08	EverGraze Phase III – more meat from perennial$	Angela Avery	C
P1 09	Enrich	Dean Revell	C
P1 10	EverGraze - Phase IV	Angela Avery	C
P1 31	Enrich germplasm coordination	Steve Hughes	T
P1 32	Developing native perennial legumes for agriculture	Megan Ryan	T
P1 33	Improving lucerne performance for acid soils	Geoff Auricht	T
Program 2 - Future Cropping Systems
P2 11	Development of birdsfoot trefoil cultivars for permanent pastures in the northern recharge zone	John Ayres	C
P2 12	Development of perennial wheat for southern Australia	TBC	C
P2 13	Increasing the effectiveness of lucerne extension	Perry Dolling	C
P2 23	National field evaluation and selection of new pasture plants from CRC Salinity to improve hydrologic stability of farming systems	Brian Dear	C
P2 34	Development of salt and waterlogging-tolerant wheat	Tim Colmer	T
P2 35	Development phase – EverCrop and EverCrop Decide	Alison Bowman & Mike Robertson	T
Program 3 - New Woody Crop Industries
P3 14	Field performance testing of new woody germplasm	Brendan George	C
P3 15	FloraSearch — selection and development of multipurpose species for large-scale revegetation in the wheat/sheep belt of southern Australia	Mike Bennell	C
P3 16	New industry and marketing	John Bartle	C
P3 17	Influence of site factors and stand management on growth and water-use of key woody and herbaceous perennials	Don White	C
P3 18	Integrating forestry into salt-source catchments	Nico Marcar	C
P3 20	Improved direct seeding establishment of commercial native plants through improved germination, moisture management and weed control	Geoff Woodall	C
P3 36	FloraSearch - Innovative native plants	Mike Bennell	T
P3 37	Business case for development of a woody crop harvest system	Daniel Huxtable	T
Program 4 - Farming Saline Landscapes
P4 19	Developing new forage options to stabilise and regenerate saline environments	Mary-Jane Rogers	C
P4 21	Sustainable grazing on saline lands	Nick Edwards	C
P4 22	Functional implications of high salt diets for grazing ruminants	Phil Vercoe	C
P4 38	Delivery of ‘National Saltland Service’	Nick Edwards	T
P4 39	New salt-tolerant pasture legume and grass cultivars	Andrew Craig	T
P4 40	HIGHPAK – Livestock production and pasture management on saltland: advancing methodology to predict in vivo digestibility of shrubs	Hayley Norman	T
P4 41	Tools for assessing saltland options and forecasting impact (SALTCAP and SALTDECIDE)	Richard George	T
Program 5 - Biodiversity and Water
P5 24	Improved water management through understanding plant responses and adaptation in native vegetation to water availability, evaporative demand and climatic and soil physico-chemical constraints	Hans Lambers	C
P5 25	Water use by plants in a landscape context	Brendan Christie	C
P5 26	Managing weed risk in perennial land-use systems	Margaret Byrne	C
P5 27	The biodiversity value of oil mallee farming systems	Patrick Smith	C
P5 28	Understanding the interactions between biodiversity and the management of native pastures in the Murray Darling Basin	Josh Dorrough	C
P5 42	Biorisk	Ryan Vogwill	T
Program 6 - Economic, Social and Policy Analysis
P6 29	Farm-level economic assessment of current and potential plant-based systems for salinity management	David Pannell	C
P6 30	Economic analysis of alternative plant-based salinity management practices at catchment level	Robyn Hean	C
P6 44	Farm-level economic modelling of future farming options	David Pannell	T
Program 7 - Education and Training
P7 45	Postgraduate student professional development program	Daryll Richardson	T
P7 46	EverTrain	Deb Slinger	T
P7 48	Salinity Training Project	Deb Slinger	C