It is well understood how all-encompassing the agricultural industry is with regards to people, communities, organisations, locations, occupations and products, just to name a few.
The industry also has its challenges like adapting to climate change, declining rural populations, human health, environmental diversity, the growing rural/urban divide and the narrowing yield gap, all without clear solution. Furthermore, these issues are often interconnected and can have large scale effects on huge areas, populations and economies.
BCG is keenly aware of how these issues impact both directly and indirectly the work it does and the communities on which it depends.
For these reasons, BCG has begun an exciting and innovative initiative thanks to the generous support of the William Buckland Foundation.
‘The BCG Community Network’ aims to identify the complex challenges rural communities and growers face and drive change by bringing together a cross-sectoral, multi-disciplinary team to address priority themes through an agile, creative and long-term project design.
This includes representatives from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the National Centre for Farmer Health, Federation University, Crop Facts, Nicon Agricultural Services, RMCG and NAB.
Project activities will include an intensive stakeholder charrette and a community of practice, both to run in 2018. Action group workshops and research activities will follow in 2019 and 2020.
Broadly, the outcomes will be:
- An increased capacity in rural communities in areas such as adapting to climate change, impacts on ecosystems, health, data management and improved infrastructure.
- More targeted investment in future projects creating shared value from investment in rural communities ensuring problems are targeted rather than solutions given from outside the region.
- A co-designed identification process with problems and solutions coming from both growers and researchers.
- A multi-disciplinary and flexible program that could be used as a model in other regional areas of Australia.
BCG Chairman Caroline Welsh explained the premise behind the BCG Community Network is to begin tackling broad issues in a cooperative manner.
“Currently opportunities to collaborate on wider regional and rural issues are not possible with existing funding models, which have traditionally only had scope for a single discipline.”
Ms Welsh explained that it isn’t the first time the William Buckland Foundation have believed in BCG’s vision.
“The William Buckland Foundation generously contributed to our current office building in Birchip, in which 19 full time staff now work.”
Mr Buckland had a passion for agriculture, owning multiple agricultural enterprises, and giving “preference to agricultural and related pursuits” in his foundation.
If you have questions about the project, please contact the BCG office on 03 5492 2787.
