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CSIRO proposes to meet Kevin Rudd’s vision of sustainable production by closing laboratories. In particular one with nearly a century of innovation and the transfer of knowledge to practice and thus to national and personal wealth. 

The Merbein laboratory of the Division of Plant Industry is to be closed.  Yet this laboratory is uniquely placed to contribute to the development of sustainable practices for irrigated industries in the Murray-Darling-Murrumbidgee basins.

The Board further proposes to cease activity in all horticultural crops but to retain an activity in the wine industry.  Horticultural or intensive agricultural crops provide nearly two-thirds of the food we eat and nearly all the micronutients and anti-oxidants.  They are a substantial part of our rural economy with potential in the tropical north; Australia’s new agriculture.

Accounts of early voyagers are telling accounts of life without fresh fruit and vegetables!  These commodities provide much of the wealth enjoyed by our supermarket chains – they are essential in our life and our economy but our premier research organisation is no longer able to support such research.

The Merbein Laboratory was established by growers in Australia’s first planned irrigation scheme in 1919.  It was subsumed by the then CSIR, now CSIRO, in 1927.  Research carried out on the physiology and agronomy of the grapevine led first to Australia’s leading horticultural export of dried fruits and subsequently to the $3 billion wine export industry.  That laboratory, together with the Australian Wine Research Institute, jointly provided the framework for the Australian wine industry and for those who would now emulate it the world over.

The success of the Merbein laboratory lay in the integration of scientific discovery with practical application in the field.  No matter how innovative the proposed molecular laboratory studies may be, Australian research risks returning to the “discover – throw it up in the air and hope some one uses it” approach or it will be licensed to the highest bidder, internationally.  Where is the national benefit in this?

Scientific innovation in agriculture, extensive and intensive, demands physiologists, agronomists, engineers and field resources to take laboratory discoveries to ‘practice’.  Molecular research can be done anywhere, but industry development must be done on site.

So is there really a case to cease such research at a national level?  Or is the decision a measure of the failure of industry to continue to invest in the laboratory as it once did?

Given the serious nature and the urgency of the crisis in the Murray Valley and related regions, it is clear there is a demand for the Laboratory.  Given recent appreciation of the long-foretold crisis in global food production there is a demand for research on horticultural commodities; not only in the former ‘food-bowl’ of the Murray Valley but in Northern Australia.

Demand is there for the Board and all to see.  What is not there is a commitment to agronomy, to innovation in production of intensive and extensive crops; that is a Board responsibility.  What also is not there is funding and that is jointly a Rudd Government and an industry responsibility.

A telling statistic that may well underlie the board decision is the figure of 25 per cent external funding for research at the Merbein Laboratory.  Here is an organisation that was initiated and funded by local farmers and which seemingly has been abandoned by them and their organisations.  The figure should be 50 per cent especially given that Government matches industry contributions real industry funding is only 12.5 per cent.

A further index of failure of strategic policy in horticultural research funding is that less than 2 per cent of Australia’s $70 million annual funding in the area is directed to multi-industry and strategic research.  Perhaps this lies at the heart of the proposed closure of the laboratory and withdrawal from horticultural research? 

Given that $35 million of the $70 million applied annually are tax payer funds, perhaps a more strategic view could be adopted by the agency allocating those funds, Horticulture Australia.  If that were the case, perhaps CSIRO might review its decision and perhaps Australia’s future agriculture may enjoy the sort of success enjoyed by our wine industry. Furthermore, the Murray Valley industries that are presently in crisis may continue to prosper. 

Australia needs innovation in the production of all our food crop groups; not just dryland grain crops and wine.

Jac Considuine was Professor of Horticulture and a founding board member of Horticulture Australian.