Closed ATM View - PROC-9177119
Development of a Soil Health Framework for Australian agricultural production systems
Kim Gilbert
: +61 2 6166 4500
:
Kim Gilbert
:
+61 2 6166 4500
Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart
Healthy soils underpin high performing, efficient and profitable agricultural production systems. The growing emergence of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting to demonstrate sustainable and responsible agricultural practices e.g., Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework, (AASF), including principles relating to the protection and enhancement of soil health, necessitate a coordinated and national approach.
Value capture opportunities for protecting and/or enhancing soil health on-farm include; increased production/yield, improved input use efficiencies and reduced costs, access to existing or emerging markets (and potential price premiums), access to (cheaper) finance, enhanced natural capital and potential biodiversity and/or carbon credit schemes.
A key gap for Australian producers to capture value is the lack of a common definition and approach for quantifying, monitoring and reporting soil health against relevant benchmarks. An integrated Soil Health Framework that defines soil health and provides measurable, interpretable, and decision-useful indicators will generate the evidence base for sustainable soil management practices that enable growers/farmers to measure, monitor, manage and report the status of their soil health, thereby demonstrating their sustainability credentials whilst driving more resilient and profitable production systems. Importantly, a standard approach across the agricultural industry, that is practical, cost-effective and appropriate for Australian conditions, provides an opportunity to set the agenda and future-proof Australian agricultural production systems, ensuring Australian producers remain competitive in an increasingly challenging global market and changing climate.
A multi-disciplinary team is expected to review national and international approaches and consult extensively with key industry stakeholders across the value chain (including but not limited to growers, advisors, finance sector/banks, markets/traders/buyers, government, industry bodies/representative organisations) to co-design, develop and validate the Soil Health Framework, ensuring it is internationally recognised and relevant to Australian conditions. Opportunities to leverage and value add to existing activities and data sets (for example, existing GRDC [and other RDC] investments, National Soil Action Plan 2023-28 activities including the National Soil Monitoring Program and Australian National Soil Information System [ANSIS], Future Drought Fund projects, Soil Science Challenge projects, Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils, etc) deemed relevant for delivery of the investment should be explored. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate capacity to deliver the investment outcome across the Australian agricultural industry. GRDC budget will cover the cost of delivering all three investment outputs, with Outputs 2 (validation) and 3 (monitoring and evaluation) focussed solely on grain production systems. Additional, commodity specific validation and monitoring & evaluation activities will be subject to additional funding from relevant RDCs.
GRDC is seeking a 50:50 co-investment (cash and/or in-kind) by research partners for Outputs 1, 2 and 3.
To provide a consistent cross sector approach, GRDC will establish a Participation Agreement with RDCs to facilitate cross-commodity collaboration. The Participation Agreement will provide RDCs with an opportunity to provide input / feedback relevant to their respective commodity, including provision of in-kind contributions (e.g., access to existing data, information, resources) to GRDC for use by the preferred tenderer (if deemed relevant) to the development of the Soil Health Framework. The Participation Agreement will cover governance and reporting arrangements as well as rights and obligations of RDCs that choose to participate.
For all details and to apply to this RFT please go to GRDC Website:
https://grdc.com.au/research/partnering-in-rde-investment/opportunities/current-opportunities
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 $4 million (inclusive of GST), also include a separate satisfactory and valid STR of that proposed subcontractor.
It is anticipated that any resultant contract in relation to this procurement will have a proposed term of 5 years and 1 Month, February 2025 to March 2030.
For all details and to apply to this RFT please go to GRDC Website:
https://grdc.com.au/research/partnering-in-rde-investment/opportunities/current-opportunities
Applications must be submitted through the GRDC Grains Investment Portal:
https://access.grdc.com.au/
Kim Gilbert
: +61 2 6166 4500
:
Kim Gilbert
:
+61 2 6166 4500