Seeing an opportunity to challenge and evolve the very foundations farms were built on, Pacific Seeds' latest investment sets out to support growers at all levels of their operations.
On Friday, the company launched Foundation Farm at Allora where they will look at the foundations and fundamentals of what a farm is and how to operate it, while seeking to answer the question: is there a better way?
Spread across 32 hectares of deep clay loam, the farm provides opportunities for both dryland and irrigated research, with an initial focus on grain sorghum, forage sorghum and corn, and over the next 12 months will expand to include permanent infrastructure to enable greater training capabilities.
Pacific Seeds managing director Barry Croker said Foundation Farm forms part of the company's long-term vision to support Australian growers to achieve their full potential.
"This investment needs to solve and meet challenges, but also anticipate change in technology, environment, pests and even paddock to plate expectations," Mr Croker said.
"Foundation Farm is not about duplicating research efforts, this is about practical space where practical challenges can be solved by practical solutions.
"The fastest and most efficient ways to these solutions is to listen to growers, understand the problems and collaborate across industry to come up with the answers.
"Foundation Farm is not about the variety that is planted, but rather how it's planted, the technology and techniques to best prepare the ground, plant the seed, monitor and feed the crop, harvest the crop, anticipate where to find the best market - the foundation of our crops."
Mr Croker said they aimed to open the door to fresh thinking and new possibilities.
"Foundation Farm is also a facility to support researchers and agronomists through education and experience with practical field trials, a platform for innovative crop agronomy that challenges how a farm works."
Officially opening the farm, Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said cross-industry collaboration was key to driving innovation and benefits for farmers in the field.
"As our populations grows and farmers face new climate challenges, it has never been more important for like-minded organisations, researchers and growers to work together to not only overcome these challenges but identify and implement opportunities for Australian agriculture to continue to prosper as a result," Minister Littleproud said.
Pacific Seeds summer grains agronomist Trevor Philp said one of the main things the farm will focus on is managing water use more efficiently.
"It's all the little 5 per cent things that you do right - getting a plant up and healthy right from the start; am I applying the right nutrition; am I controlling the weeds and pests properly - all of those things add up to managing our water better," Mr Philp said.
"We're consistently going to fields that aren't wet enough to plant and we need to learn how to make the most out of water and how to make it more reliable for the farmer; if that's all I've got, how do I get the most out of it?"
In addition to challenging what we've been doing and what we're going to do in the future, Mr Philp said he is particularly excited about the opportunity the farm will give to young farmers and young agronomists.
"If we can provide a platform where they can come and learn in an open environment and ask questions and we can test any idea that they might have for them, hopefully we'll set them up to continue on from there," Mr Philp said.
"And I guess that's why we call it Foundation Farm - we've all learnt from somebody else, so we want to set a nice foundation and hope to teach other people and they can carry the mantle forward.
"Hopefully the benefits from this investment will last far into the future."
