Day 1

The day was a series of briefings by a range of speakers. Each of the guests had 30 mins to give us a overview of their area of responsibility. Dave Brownhill and Jim Geltch were conveners.
We had Tim Crowe from DAFF set the scene with how the Dohar round of trade talks are going with agriculture 90 – 95% completed and with and total agreement coming by the end of this year. The figure being used in his brief was lowering quotas and tariffs by 54% for developed nations and 36%for developing ones .
Next we had delegations from USA, EU & Mexico to talk about their respective agricultural policies. USA & the EU are still using payments to augment the farm incomes. The wording was different but the term subsidy came to mind.
With the current BSE problems David Inall from the Cattle Council stated that the only way to judge the risks is to follow the science not the politics. The scientific response to the current situation is that the risk was very minute and in the next 5 years will see the removal of BSE. They were hoping to have a FTA with Korea in place by the end of this year.
We are being used by GRDC as test specimens. Rohan Rainbow from Plant Protection walked us through the GRDC program for proactive crop breeding for future pest and disease problems. We have been given kits to test us for biological contamination before our return to Australia.
We finished the afternoon with a series of brief by ABARE, Rural Sciences and some data from the Climate Change Manager for Ag Water and Risk Sciences.
Lars Ulvesund from AWI showed the direction that they are taking in the sports and outdoor apparel range. Merino Cool, Merino Casual & Merino Next to Skin were some of the branded product lines.