IT has more cattle than the entire Northern Territory, yet central Queensland has continually been overlooked when it comes to agriculture and research funding.
That's according to CQ University vice-chancellor Professor Scott Bowman, who hopes to reverse the trend after unveiling a new agricultural degree at the Rockhampton campus last Friday.
"We have more cattle in central Queensland than the whole of the Northern Territory and yet when people think about the cattle industry, they don't think about central Queensland - they think about the Northern Territory," he said.
Professor Bowman signed a memorandum of understanding with Queensland Agricultural Training Colleges that will make the new degree one of the more practical agriculture degrees in the country.
Students will carry out their first year at either Longreach or Emerald pastoral colleges, and "this grows our ability for hand-on, practical experience across all our education and research", Professor Bowman said.
The latest offering builds on CQ University's Bachelor of Agribusiness and Food Security, launched two years ago and now ranking top in national Excellence in Research results in the fields of agriculture and farm management.
"This university is now Queensland's top university for agricultural research," Professor Bowman said.
He said everything the university had done in agriculture it had done itself.
"We bought this facility from CSIRO with our own money and we built all the facilities here. We've got to work with federal and state government to get more support here."
Professor Bowman said the region had to be made more visible, and it was working with Grow Central Queensland to do that.
Minister for Agriculture Bill Byrne, who witnessed the signing, said the partnership and the new degree were great news for the state, and especially for central Queensland.
"It's pretty obvious, when I look at the various sectors in agriculture, those that are populated by well-educated, informed and tech-savvy operators are those that are leading innovation and farm productivity," he said.
Mr Byrne said increasing the level of knowledge, business acumen and broader research capacity all complimented an educated and informed sector.
"That is what we are trying to build with this MOU today."
He rejected the idea of central Queensland being overlooked in research funding. The university was at an embryonic stage, he said.
"There are well-developed relationships with other research facilities in Australia and in Queensland, and it is a competitive environment," he said.
"The Department of Agriculture does not drive the agenda with R and D - we complement it and we try and shape it, but we are increasingly saying that industry and peak bodies - they are the entities that determine the priorities, emphasis, direction."
Also signing the MOU was QTAC principal executive officer Brent Kinnane, who said it provided a pathway for students to become future industry leaders.
"Current and past students who have graduated from Emerald Agricultural College or Longreach Pastoral College now have a direct route to study a Bachelor of Agriculture, while CQ University students now have options to complement their academic qualification with practical hands-on training at Emerald or Longreach Colleges."
