Phase 2 - Harvester set-up workshops for the economic optimisation of harvest losses, efficiency and grain quality.

Description: 
Growers are experiencing significant yield, quality, and financial loss from poor harvester set up, with losses in WA alone equating to over $300m per annum. Past investment in harvester workshops has delivered to a known industry gap around understanding the fundamentals of flow of material through their machines, all the points for potential losses, how to measure losses and optimise machines for loss, throughput and quality. Past investment has reached around 10% of growers and monitored significant change in understanding of, and intent to measure and manage losses, and has shown there is still strong demand from growers for more Harvester set-up workshops. Noting the modelling of adoption for this practice is exceptionally high for growers who are engaged, there is an opportunity to continue to support these improvements and accelerate adoption through engaging more of the grower, contractor and dealer cohorts through an additional five years of investment, as well as to build capacity for the industry.
This investment is designed to deliver National coordination including quality assurance, industry stakeholder engagement and monitoring and evaluation to support delivery of a:
•          Program of workshops (15 per annum) nationally (5 per region).
•          Research to quantify harvest losses and evaluate mitigation innovations, partnered with a
•          Capacity building program to build a pathway to commercialisation of a service
This investment will ensure a national coordinated approach to continued harvester set-up research, development and extension via the delivery of three project outputs aided by an appointed Project Coordinator.
1.          Harvester Set-Up Workshops – Extension to Impact Program.
2.         National Harvester Losses Research and Development Program.
3.         Harvester Set-Up Expertise Capacity Building Program.
 
Outcome:
By December 2031, grain losses in major and minor crops have been quantified nationally, 20% of grain growers have the knowledge to optimise their harvest operation with reduced losses, improve throughout and reduced harvest costs. Training has supported the development of five harvest set up experts with a pathway to commercialisation of harvester optimisation services for growers nationally.
 
Outputs 
Output 1.
Title: National Harvester Set-up Project Coordination.
Description: 
By January 2027, and annually thereafter National Coordination and leadership of all activities and parties associated with the delivery of Outputs 2-4.
The national coordination function will be responsible for:
 
·           Coordination, planning, development and delivery of Output 2-4.
·           Quality assurance, processes, protocols – including training of people involved around manufacturer agnostic approach and GRDC requirements.
·           Industry Stakeholder Engagement – engaging with manufacturers, dealerships and other industry stakeholders to enhance collaboration, showcase new technologies. This may include running an EOI process for engagement with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and dealerships.
·           Engagement of expertise in monitoring and evaluation to measure impact of workshops over the course of the investment.
·           National coordination of promotion, communications and extension.
·           Liaising with GRDC regarding GRDC resources which can be leveraged including podcasts, video, GroundCover, social media channels, print publications for workshops etc.
·           Ensure linkages between the research project and extension workshops.
·           Develop National Annual Operating Plan including:
-          Deliverables, locations and activity timelines and key responsibilities for all outputs.
-          Source, engage and coordinate trainee harvest experts associated with Output 4- coordinate trainee cohort opportunities across research and workshops delivery.
Output 2.
Title: Harvester Set-up Workshops.
 
Description: 
By October 2026, and annually thereafter plan, promote and deliver 15 interactive Harvester Set-up Workshops Nationally, targeted at grain growers, harvest contractors, and machinery dealers/resellers, to increase capability in optimising harvester set-up. Target regional spread for these workshops with per GRDC region annually (Southern, Western and Northern).
Workshops will engage national and international harvest specialists (set-up experts to deliver content but MUST take a manufacturer agnostic approach.
Details:
Delivery of these workshops includes:
1.        Collaboration with the national coordinator and all delivery partners.
2.       Engagement of local growers, manufacturers, and stakeholders to endure diverse machinery offerings are available.
3.       Promotion.
4.       Event management.
5.       Collection and collation of monitoring and evaluation.
Content of workshops will cover, measuring and optimising harvest losses, optimising harvester throughout, how to measure losses when engaging harvest weed sed control calibration of sensors, yield monitors, aftermarket add On’s to reduce harvest losses, harvest safety (WHS fundamentals) and may leverage other investment such as GRDC’s Grain Storage investment.
Output 3.
Title: National Harvester losses Research and Development.
 
Description:
By February 2027 and annually thereafter deliver research and development of Harvester loss quantification assessment and mitigation strategies to inform grain growers for the Northern and Southern regions.
Research and development may include but not limited to:
·           Yield loss benchmarks (front and back-end machine losses) for key crops in each region (Northern, Southern)
-          Crops to include but not limited to, wheat, barley, canola, lentil, chickpea, lupin, sorghum, soy, mungbean and/or other crop types as appropriate to region.
·           Efficacy of interventions to minimise front end losses from after-market parts (e.g. air reels, paddles, corflute, duckfeet etc.)
·           Collation of effective machinery modifications (header settings, adjustments, part replacement etc) required to optimise loss and throughout performance.
The research must be conducted by harvest specialists alongside trainees associated with Output 4, allowing trainees to gain hands on experience, increasing skills and knowledge via on the job applied learning.
Output 4.
Title: Capacity building – harvester setup expertise.
 
Description:
By 2026, and annually thereafter engage, train, develop and enhance the skills of a minimum of five harvester setup trainees in optimising harvester performance and efficacy.
The Capacity Building Program will leverage Output3 as the primary mechanism of training, working alongside existing harvester setup specialists and will include:
1.        Engagement and support of trainees, management of fees for time associated with training and development.
2.       Program of training and development to support capacity of individuals to provide a fee for service offering in harvester optimisation to Australian grains growers at the conclusion of this project.
3.       Use of trainees in the delivery of Output 2 as the project progresses.
This Output is primarily aimed at building capacity allowing trainees to be working alongside harvest specialists with grower machines to build their capability. This program I aimed at building long term capacity in Australia, with a view to divestment from GRDC in this area. Consequently, industry engagement pathways for trainees to provide commercial services to growers will be required.
Where appropriate, approaches which leverage existing capacity in OEM and dealer organisations for training purposes should be considered.