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PLANT HEALTH
behind many comparable agricultural nations in research intensity. While private sector invest- ment has increased in several crops, it is largely focused on short term commercial returns. Public funding, meanwhile, has not kept pace with the growth of the agricultural economy or the increas- ing cost and complexity of research driven by cli- mate change, biosecurity threats, sustainability requirements, and digital technologies. Equally concerning has been the steady con- traction of research capacity within state de- partments and the CSIRO. These organisations historically provided stable, long term career pathways that allowed researchers to tackle complex problems over decades. Today, those workforces are ageing, successor pipelines are thin, and institutional memory is being lost. Universities have partially filled this gap, but their efforts are divided between teaching and research, and short term funding cycles have made it difficult to build, retain, and renew core disciplinary capabilities. The decline in government support is most evi- dent in strategic, long horizon research, work that can take 15 to 20 years or more to deliver measur- able gains in farmers’ paddocks. Funding has in- creasingly shifted toward short term (often three year), applied projects with immediate deliver- ables, reducing the system’s capacity to invest in blue sky, high risk, high reward research. This has led to fewer opportunities to address foundational challenges before they become acute. As a result, long term pre breeding, sys- tems research, and major trait development work that underpins future productivity gains, has become harder to sustain. For early ca- reer scientists, increasingly fragmented and insecure career paths make it difficult to build deep expertise, reducing the attractiveness of agricultural research as a profession. Without renewed commitment to long term public in- vestment and capacity building, Australia risks eroding the very foundations that have histor- ically delivered step change gains in farm pro- ductivity, resilience and profitability.
Heads of sorghum varieties subjected to the same level of midge pressure in order of resistance. Susceptible hy- brid on the left and resistant hybrid on the right.
A female sorghum midge laying eggs in a sorghum head
Professor David Jordan works for the University of Queensland and has more than 35 years of experi- ence working as a sorghum breeder for both the public and private sectors. Almost all of the com- mercial sorghum hybrids grown in Australia contain traits from the pre-breeding program he leads.
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