Science of Merino: Free-thinking is best for livestock research priorities

Innovation is and always has been the cornerstone of Australia’s livestock industries, but efficient resource spending is the key to growth, according to Mark Ferguson. The research scientist said if producers could align their efforts, remove the duplication, and focus on the right things at the right time, “that would be amazing for the industry’s future”. “Innovation has come through a combination of science-trained research teams conducting considered experiments, and farmers testing new things and modifying what they do,” he said. “There is now an evolving ag-tech sector which is fantastic to see and will continue to bring new opportunities to our industries.” He said with this evolving sector, there remains a big role for research and development in the more traditional sense. “If everyone stays in their lane there should be a natural synergy between ag-tech developments and government and industry funding,” Dr Ferguson said. “Government and industry funding should focus on market failure — areas where viable solutions from incumbents or newcomers in the industry are unlikely to materialise. “It also should be directed where big chunks of the industry will benefit even if they don’t engage.” Dr Ferguson said industry-wide genetic evaluation was just one good example of this. “The ongoing research effort required to develop new methods and techniques and to incorporate new data sets and knowledge would be too great for a commercial company to tackle unless it had some way of commercialising the resultant genetic gain,” he said. “Equally, even though not all farmers fully engage in genetic evaluation — the improvements made as a result of the investment flow-through to a more vibrant and viable industry would be beneficial to all.” He said there was an enormous gap that sits between the most productive and profitable farms in any given region. “We can’t close the gap (reduce the variation), but we can shift the whole population by focusing on new technologies or methods that help the best to do better,” Dr Ferguson said. “We can tackle the best way of defining and resourcing the most important priorities for investment by getting people thinking about their preferences for research and development spending.” Dr Ferguson said the alignment scenario had scientists concentrated on particular areas of focus, but farmers were currently experiencing greater “pain point” challenges, and governments were highly concentrated on their election promises or ideals. He said this equation may not result in the most appropriate allocation of resources for research across the sector. Dr Ferguson said funding resources were directed by a standard of deciding benefit-cost analysis priorities but suggested that two additions would offer varying degrees of success. “Firstly, it is important to not only consider solutions that are currently well-defined or possible,” he said. “The current rate of technological change means that something that isn’t possible or feasible today could be cheap and easy in a decade. “Secondly, and related, we need to consider cross-discipline and cross-industry thinking when we are in solution mode.” He said most teams deciding on strategic plans, writing research proposals, or contributing to advisory groups were very knowledgeable in their topic, region or farming system. “But they are rarely exposed to the latest developments in other areas of science or technology,” Dr Ferguson said. “If we only consider developments within our industry, we will never break down the barriers at the scale and rate we need to. “So, next time you are asked for your opinion about what should be research priorities, please consider it carefully.” He said more focus was needed that allowed free thinking and free of personal biases. Dr Ferguson said it was easy to take what the livestock industry already has for granted. “Not taking things for granted, I am extremely grateful for the variety of mechanisms that are available to fund exploration into the future,” he said. “I think the fact that there are levies and that governments are willing to match these levies provides us with a fantastic opportunity to bash down barriers. “The more efficiently we spend our resources the more barriers we will bash down.” For more information, visit thehub.nextgenagri.com.