FARM ONLINE | Nitrogen fixing cereals? Grain industry urged to consider blue sky research

Revolutionising the way grain producers farm by funding research into ambitious and transformational tools should be the focus of efforts into the future.

This is according to former Independent for New England Tony Windsor, who made the suggestion of working on nitrogen fixing cereals during his webinar with Grain Producers Australia in April.

"I want to see the industry doing something about a cereal that nodulates and creates nitrogen," Mr Windsor, also a grain grower in central NSW, said on the webinar.

"People have been looking at it for decades and some say it is technically possible, but with nitrogen fertilisers likely to become even more expensive why aren't we pushing harder to get more research done to see if it is possible to do it at a farm level?"

Farm Online reported that he challenged GPA to look at this priority as a part of its representative organisation role to the Grain Research and Development Corporation (GRDC).

GPA chief executive Colin Bettles indicated GPA was already on the job- pointing to his organisation's 2025 federal election policy priorities document.

"We're going to follow through with our work and plans to optimise the returns growers get from our research investment levies," Mr Bettles said.

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