Export Fodder RD&E Plan development

Summary

To commence a comprehensive RD&E strategy development process, we will start with scenario planning to first explore the future operating environment of the Australian export fodder industry by, together with the Export Fodder Advisory Panel and selected industry stakeholders, co-developing future scenarios of the Australian export fodder industry and identifying what the most important challenges and opportunities are for the industry, and in particular for the AgriFutures Export Fodder Program RD&E activities. We will then generate strategic options to address the challenges and capture the opportunities that have been identified under each scenario. Lastly, we will pressure-test (‘wind tunnel’ testing) each strategic option to assess how future-proof they are under each future scenario.

The outcomes of the scenario planning part of this project will be brought forward into a five-step Strategy Development & Write Up process:

Review: We begin with an analysis of the current industry status (following the industry profile provided by AgriFutures Australia) compared with the past 5 and 10 years; identifying key challenges and connecting them to the earlier defined scenarios during the scenario planning phase.
Assess: Building on Step 1, we will assess the current RD&E plan, its mid-term review, including the progress and status of ongoing initiatives. We will also evaluate the outcomes of the current plan and initiatives to identify recommendations for future research, such as what to include in the new plan and what to leave out. Additionally, we will perform a gap analysis, indicating which challenges are not tackled under the current plan.
Generate and prioritise: In Step 3, the Advisory Panel input and scenario planning outcomes, combined with findings from earlier research, will be clustered into key themes. We will constructively challenge and refine the ideas in relation to the future scenarios and strategic logic potential (impact), leading to joint prioritisation. We will then assess their scope and the resources required for implementation.
Validate and draft: Based on the draft outlines, we will create detailed descriptions and strategic logic for each initiative. These will be reviewed and refined in close collaboration with key stakeholders from the Advisory Panel. The validated input will then be used to draft the new Strategic RD&E plan, aligned with the provided framework by AgriFutures Australia.
Finalise: In this final step, we will present the draft Strategic RD&E Plan to AgriFutures Australia and the Export Fodder Advisory Panel. We will use their feedback to further refine the RD&E Plan, creating the final AgriFutures Australia Eport Fodder Program Strategic RD&E plan 2026-2031.

Program

Export Fodder

Research organisation

Jester Strategy Pty Ltd