Closed ATM View - PROC-9177110
Request for Proposal: Innovations for soil, nutrient, and water productivity
Contract Administrator - Enabling Technologies
: 0881988400
: etcontract.administrator@grdc.com.au
:
Contract Administrator - Enabling Technologies
:
0881988400
Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart
Background
In Australia, the primary constraint on broadacre agriculture crop yields is water availability. Nutrition also plays a crucial role in achieving higher yields and represents one of the most significant variable expenses for growers. Optimising crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient and water use are critical for profitability and environmental outcomes.
Groundbreaking innovations that either enhance the availability of water for crops or unlock the chemical, biological and physical productivity of soils, have the potential to benefit Australian grain growers’ profitability. The scale of this potential benefit presents an opportunity for partnership and innovation. Australia’s gross value of grain production would increase by more than $1B annually from just a 3% gain in crop nutrition productivity – achievable through more efficient application. GRDC conservatively estimates that overcoming major soil constraints to crop nutrient and water use e.g., sodicity, salinity, low pH, and aluminium and other nutrient toxicities, would lead to a net increase in grain production value of over $0.5B annually. Improvements in crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient and water use would also have broader economic, food security, and environmental benefits.
Rainfed agriculture in Australia requires decision-making amidst substantial uncertainty regarding seasonal conditions. It involves committing resources upfront for a season whose outcomes are unpredictable, with some unavoidable risks. While in some years well-informed decisions may lead to suboptimal results, growers are increasingly utilising formal analysis and decision support tools along with their intuition to navigate these uncertainties. Nevertheless, without marked enhancements in seasonal climate predictions—and greater acceptance and adeptness at using these probabilistic forecasts—the uncertainty in cropping decisions will persist significantly.
Compounding the impact of seasonal variations on crop yield and financial success are spatially diverse soil constraints that demand custom solutions. Consequently, the economic benefit of addressing these constraints fluctuates within paddocks and across different seasons. In certain situations, investment in these solutions might even detract from profitability. This fluctuation constitutes an obstacle for growers considering the adoption of management strategies for these constraints. Many of these strategies entail substantial capital outlay and may not appeal to growers with limited funds or immediate financial goals.
Moreover, spatially variable soil constraints require tailored solutions, making the economic benefits inconsistent. High costs and risks deter many growers from adopting management strategies, especially those requiring substantial capital. While technology can help, better access to farm-specific data is crucial, but current data collection methods, like soil sampling, are too expensive and labour-intensive for most farmers
GRDC has a substantial past and current portfolio of RD&E investment in crop nutrition, soil, and water productivity. There has been extensive crop nutrition management research and development considering the ‘4 Rs’: right rate, right source, right placement and right timing. Investment has created a wealth of data describing how crop yield responds to varying the ‘4 Rs’ across different soil types and environments reaffirming the large influence on short and long-term profitability. GRDC has also significantly invested in soil constraints that affect crop nutrient and water use efficiency, including identification, diagnosis and management options to mitigate impacts. Project details of past and current investments are listed on the GRDC website. .
Despite GRDC’s significant investment with positive industry outcomes, GRDC expects there are more opportunities for innovation in nutrient and water use efficiency, soil productivity, and farm profitability. GRDC is thus calling for innovative RD&E proposals in soils, nutrient, and water productivity spanning two of the Focus Areas identified in GRDC’s Research, Development & Extension Plan 2023-28 (https://rdeplan.grdc.com.au/our-strategy) . GRDC welcomes all innovative proposals that fall within the Focus Area scopes and offer step-change improvements over current industry practice. Based on our knowledge of industry need, technology, and market trends, several prospects for innovation have been outlined.
Focus Area: Optimise crop nutrition and improve soils
Nutrition is critical in building crop yield and remains one of the highest variable costs for growers, so optimising crop nutrition and efficiency of nutrient use is critical for profitability. Responsible nutrient management also has important implications for sustainability, particularly off-site environmental impacts including gaseous losses (e.g., nitrous oxide emissions), and leaching or surface runoff (e.g., eutrophication and reduced water quality). Within this focus area, GRDC will invest in:
1. Foundational knowledge to inform soil and nutrient management
2. Information that informs decision making about nutrition source, rate, timing, and placement
3. Adoption of existing soil amelioration, mitigation, or tolerance solutions
4. New fertiliser technologies
In this Focus Area, GRDC sees opportunities in creating and implementing new methods and tools, new technologies or products for identifying and/or managing soil constraints and tracking soil and crop nutrition, including using new sensing and automation technologies to make soil sampling/testing cheaper, faster, and/or less labour-intensive. There are also opportunities to customise soil and nutrient advice based on farm-specific data and conditions. Growers could also benefit from new, comprehensive, approaches to account for profitability and risk outcomes of nutrient management strategies at both field and farm scales, improving biological nitrogen fixation, and balancing nutrient availability and demand dynamics in different cropping systems.
Focus Area: Step-changes in soil and water productivity
Water is a finite resource and widely accepted as the most universally limiting determinant of crop yield in Australia. In the face of climate change, and in one of the driest and most variable environments on the planet, unproductive water use through evaporation, run-off and deep drainage frequently present an opportunity lost. New approaches to transform the capture, storage, and availability of water for crops have the potential to deliver step change yield improvements and sustainability benefits. Investment to dramatically reduce unproductive water losses and unlock the chemical, biological, and physical productivity of soils will be a focus. This could include discoveries that overcome constraints currently beyond our control, unlock soil nutrient reserves, reduce or eliminate nutrient losses to the environment or enhance beneficial biological activity in our soils. Within this focus area, GRDC will invest in new approaches to:
1. Improve soil water capture and plant uptake
2. Overcome chemical, physical, and biological constraints.
3. Unlock soil nutrient reserves
In this Focus Area, GRDC sees opportunities to explore new and innovative inputs (e.g., biologicals), crop genetic traits, new farm practices and technology, along with integrative approaches which mitigate soil constraints. There is particular need for low-cost management options that improve capture and use of rainfall on soils constrained by single or multiple chemical, physical, and/or biological constraints to crop production.
Leverage opportunity through Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry
Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry (AAGI) is a GRDC strategic partnership with Curtin University, the University of Queensland, and Adelaide University. AAGI has capabilities across the breadth of analytics applied to grains RD&E, including biometry, bioinformatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, mathematical and biophysical modelling, and geo-spatial statistics. AAGI involvement is available as an in-kind GRDC contribution to these investments. To explore options for AAGI involvement, applicants must make enquiries to AAGI during this RFT period and identify potential areas of collaboration as part of their application. Successful applicants will be required to complete an Analytical Collaboration Plan to specify the data to be provided to AAGI and the analytics AAGI will provide. A sample Plan template is available from AAGI. Applicants must make enquiries to the AAGI Director, Dr Nathan O'Callaghan, nathan.ocallaghan@curtin.edu.au. Please note, applicants that request funding for analytics readily available through AAGI must provide a technical and/or value-for-money rationale for not using in-kind AAGI capabilities.
Submit your Tender response electronically through the Grains Investment Portal at: https://access.grdc.com.au
Applicants are invited to submit their proposal to the Grains Investment Portal using the word template provided (max 10 pages). The template requires applicants to address evaluation criteria which proposals will be evaluated by.
The following are mandatory conditions with which a Tenderer must comply to participate in this procurement process:
1 The Tenderer must be a single legal entity or recognised firm of partners except where the Tender is submitted by a consortium and the Tender specifies that each member of the proposed consortium will be party to the contract.
2 The Tenderer and any proposed subcontractor must be compliant with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, the Modern Slavery Act 2018 and any other applicable labour laws and standards in the jurisdiction in which they operate.
3 The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not have a judicial decision against it (not including decisions under appeal) relating to employee entitlements and who have not paid the claim.
4 The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not be named on the Consolidated List, being the list of persons and entities who are subject to targeted financial sanctions or travel bans under Australian sanction laws, as maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
5 In accordance with the Black Economy Procurement Connected Policy, a Tenderer must include a satisfactory and valid Statement of Tax Records (STR). If the total value of all work under any proposed subcontract is expected to be equal to or above $1 million (inclusive of GST), also include a separate satisfactory and valid STR of that proposed subcontractor.
Possibly one to five years depending on application and its merits.
Grains Investment Portal: https://access.grdc.com.au
Contract Administrator - Enabling Technologies
: 0881988400
: etcontract.administrator@grdc.com.au
:
Contract Administrator - Enabling Technologies
:
0881988400