A new $8 million, four-year program is targeting development in northern Australia's cattle, cropping and cotton sectors including North Queensland.
Billed as a "game changer" for the sectors, the program is the largest investment to date for The Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA).
CRCNA chair Sheriden Morris said the program had the potential to develop new industries for long term growth, shifting the landscape of northern agriculture through sustainable, adaptable cropping systems and cattle production improvements.
The Cotton Grain Cattle (CGC) Program includes six projects and has 30 research and funding partners working to maximise the productivity of cropping and beef production systems across the northern Australia.
Read More:
There are two projects being delivered in North Queensland.
One will provide a dedicated agronomist to service cotton/broadacre crop establishment in Mareeba.
The second project aims to co-design scalable diversification options and drought resilience practices for north Queensland cotton, grain and cattle enterprises, and quantify the economic, social and environmental values and risks of these options.
Other projects are looking at diversification in the Ord River, Western Australia, while a Crops for Cattle project will look at increasing the efficiency of north Australian cattle production systems using local crops to improve dry season weight gain.
CRCNA senior project manager Ian Biggs said the North Queensland projects would provide growers with an opportunity learn about options for agricultural diversification.
"The program will give them a feel for critical questions they need to ask themselves," Mr Biggs said.
"If they are grazing - they will get a feel for the issues they need to consider if they want to go into broadcare cropping, the economics and risks."
Mr Biggs said agriculture had "fantastic potential" across northern Australia.
"Northern Australia has history of agricultural developments which promise amazing things," Mr Biggs said.
"This one is not promoting a Lakeland type development, rather the individual grower can assess their own business and their own willingness as to how far they commit.
"There are larger cotton growers who have come north, pushed up through drought in southern growing areas and seen the amazing potential.
"They have jumped in boots and all."
Growers in the Far North's emerging cotton industry have already benefited, with a recent tour group heading west to gain some peer-to-peer learning experiences.
Travelling under the FNQ Sustainable Cropping group banner and pulled together by program partner Gulf Savannah NRM, the group visited broadacre cropping and multi-enterprise farms in the Douglas Daly, Katherine and Kununurra (Ord) regions including Douglas and Tipperary stations and Kimberley Ag Investment holdings.
The CGC program is focused on research and development outcomes that address a number of issues including soil and water suitability and management, agronomy, crop protection, biosecurity and the development and maintenance of local industry capacity in remote locations.
