CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — Grains Australia and the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC) announced on April 18 plans for an integration and alignment between the two organizations to deliver more efficient and effective services for Australian grain growers.

They said the integration will drive collaboration, improved co-ordination and streamline and deliver efficiencies across the key areas of classification, trade and market access, market information and education and customer insights and innovation for the Australian grains sector.

GRDC Chairman John Woods said the integration of the two entities was a “natural alignment” and would streamline activities and investment to maximize value to Australian grain growers and strengthen and build strategic market relationships.

“It makes sense to have these two very important agencies working together, effectively combining the work being done to explore and understand emerging and current market needs, with critical ‘industry good’ activities such as classification, market access and market information,” Woods said. “GRDC invests on behalf of Australian grain growers and supporting this integration is about ensuring they are getting the best return of investment for the dollars we spend in this space. This integration does mean change. GRDC will step down from our direct membership role with AEGIC and our investment in that entity will now come through Grains Australia.”

Terry Enright, chairman of Grains Australia, welcomed the agreement and said he was looking forward to working even more closely with AEGIC under the new model.

“Grains Australia’s role is to service the connection between what the market wants and what the industry provides, and under the new aligned operation with AEGIC we can generate more benefits to Australian growers and meet the needs of our end-users around the world,” Enright said.

Under the new structure, investment from GRDC will come through Grains Australia to AEGIC. While Grains Australia will use AEGIC’s offices where it presents efficiency, AEGIC’s Western Australia (Perth) and New South Wales (Sydney) technical capacity will be maintained and adapted to deliver on the strategic objectives of AEGIC and Grains Australia.