Ag no longer research priority: Keogh

Speaking at the Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations and Australian Council of Agricultural Journalists' Ag Innovation Forum in Sydney last week, Mr Keogh said agriculture had "fallen down the ladder" of research priorities in recent years.

"While we've certainly got a very innovative agricultural sector here, I think it's fair to say that agriculture has fallen down the ladder a lot in terms of the focus of research, particularly in our universities," he said.

"I think part of the problem is we've created a system where universities are run as businesses, and the most profitable business they have is selling their educational services to overseas students.

"They want to go up the international rankings, and to do that they want to publish internationally, so a paper on a fungal disease in ryegrass in grazing sheep in the NSW Riverina just doesn't cut it when it comes to getting your points."

He said changes were needed to ensure researchers were working on industry-relevant topics.

"I think we have to, at a federal government level, provide strong incentives for researchers who are engaging and interacting with industry," he said.

"That may be by providing extra merit for those who attract industry funding. It's a concept that's been talked about for a long time, called impact management."

He said changing the funding system to reflect industry priorities would "swing the pendulum back towards younger researchers who are establishing themselves rather than established researchers who know they just have to keep churning out papers to get their points".

Mr Keogh believes the lower priority placed on ag research is likely to have a flow-on effect on ag programs offered to university students through smaller intakes and lower teaching budgets.

He said the lack of R&D funding would not only make it hard to keep key research personnel in the country, but would also impact the maintenance and upgrade of vital agricultural research facilities.

"Waite is a really good model - it's a bit like the specialist centres you find internationally," he said.

"The problem is, we need more centres like these - we can't just have one like Waite. We should really have a couple of these type of clusters in every state."

Fellow panellist and Thinkable.org founder Ben McNeil said the disconnect between researchers and the public was particularly concerning.

"Australia is one of the worst performing countries in terms of industry engagement or uptake with researchers," he said.

He said researchers were "publishing for a specific, minute audience", leaving the public "no role to play in research".

"That's a really massive problem because generally, most of the R&D in Australia, at least from the university side, is publicly-funded. Researchers really need to open up and engage with the public."

Mr McNeil said that the failure to effectively communicate research outcomes with the community had played into the hands of anti-GM campaigners and animal activists.

"One of the problems about having research locked behind closed doors where no one hears about it is that third parties can come in and sabotage an issue. The scientists are all very supportive of this R&D and pursuing (GM foods) as a path towards feeding the planet, whereas in the public, there is no engagement with the scientists."

Jacinta Rose attended the ACAJ Hot Tropics tour courtesy of Rural Media SA.