Alannah MacTiernan lashes out plans to merge parts of AEGIC with Grains Australia

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan is poised to land the first blow if new body Grains Australia tries to “dismember” any part of Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre’s market information and education capabilities. Ms MacTiernan said she was prepared to resist any push to “fundamentally change” AEGIC and make it a predominantly research-focused organisation, which could be proposed to help boost the market intelligence and education capacity of a new group called Grains Australia. “The thing that makes AEGIC work is the combination of dealing with market access and education, and research and development,” she said. “The very combination that has made AEGIC successful will be destroyed by ripping out those functions of market access and education. “We think this will be very disadvantageous for us, as an export-orientated industry. “There are a suite of things that gives AEGIC the capacity to achieve ... including having a high level of market understanding and market access, and doing the research and development to respond to that.” Grains Research and Development Corporation chief executive Steve Jefferies said one of the Grains Australia board’s first tasks would be to determine how AEGIC and Grains Australia could co-exist. He said while the new group was set to amalgamate several smaller ones, AEGIC would remain a standalone organisation working “very closely” with Grains Australia. Dr Jefferies said parts of AEGIC could be “shared or transferred into Grains Australia”, including its market intelligence and education focus. “There are functions that sit within AEGIC that we intend to be in Grains Australia,” Dr Jefferies said. “Whether those functions need to totally transfer or if that can be shared will be considered by the new board.” Dr Jefferies said AEGIC could specialise in “post farm gate and value-adding research”, while market intelligence and education aspects could be transferred or shared. “The research and development side (of AEGIC) would remain independent,” he said. “It is the market information and market education functions of AEGIC that we could look at transferring or sharing. “There are four core functions of AEGIC: classification, trade and market access, and market education. “We will be negotiating with the WA Government about the future of AEGIC, let us call it AEGIC phase two, where it specialises in post farm gate and value-add research.” Dr Jefferies said initial discussions suggested establishing the “industry-good company via a restructure and renaming of AEGIC”. “This proposal is not proceeding,” he said. “It is intended that AEGIC will continue ... and consideration will be given to the transfer and/or secondment of industry good functions to Grains Australia. “It is intended that the longer-term model for AEGIC is for it to focus primarily on research and development and other non-industry good service functions.” Ms MacTiernan has come out swinging at the suggestion, saying she was not opposed to the creation of Grains Australia but was “completely opposed” to the AEGIC proposal. “We understand the desire to bring together these small entities, in a single body,” she said. “We are not opposed to that change but we are competently opposed to what is being proposed here, because it is going to be a dismantling of AEGIC. “This just shows again that we have a very east-coast centric GRDC ... saying it can continue in name only, and the key suite of capabilities it has are going to be lost.” But Dr Jefferies said working with Grains Australia could strengthen AEGIC’s capability. “There are many synergies for a close relationship between AEGIC and Grains Australia, definitely,” he said. “Our focus has been on getting Grains Australia up and away but as soon as that is up and away, our focus will shift to the focus to the future of AEGIC. “We will definitely be engaging with AEGIC over the next few weeks to look at, particularly, the functions of market information and education and how they are best dealt with in a model going forward.”