Appendix 1 - Discretionary Grants
A discretionary grant allows the portfolio Minister or paying agency discretion to determine whether or not a particular applicant receives funding. The payment can be made to an organisation or individual, and the recipient need not provide a service to government in return for the grant. In 2003-04 the following grants were approved.
Discretionary Grants Program
FarmBis Australia
Program Description
- Provide business and marketing assistance in the form of workshops for owners and managers of small to medium-sized wineries.
- Develop an industry training strategy and grower training program for the Dried Grape Industry.
- Benchmark the Australian pork industry’s competitive profile across the supply chain against leading pork-producing nations. The initiative also provides for a training needs analysis, to identify how future training packages for producers can see world’s best practice adapted to the Australian environment.
Discretionary Grants Program
Industry Leadership – Women and Young People in Rural Industries
Program Description
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – awarded nine Study Awards to enable young people working in rural industries to gain the skills and experiences they need to make a greater contribution their industry.
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – awarded five International Observers scholarships to improve the confidence, communication and interpersonal skills of young rural people to develop relationships with industry and government representatives.
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – 40 individuals were selected to attend the Young Rural Leaders’ Course to provide young people with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage more effectively and influentially with industry and government at the national level.
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – 30 individuals were selected to attend the Export Market Development Training Course to foster export awareness in Australia’s young rural leaders and expose them to the concepts and skills required to conduct export business.
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – awarded 14 Young People’s Corporate Governance scholarships to the Australian Institute of Company Directors to improve young people’s corporate governance skills.
- Young People in Rural Industries Program – Australian Rural Youth Sponsorship for the National Young Farmer Competition to increase the profile of the event and of young people with industry and the public.
- Women in Rural Industries Program – Building the Future, Sharing the Work initiative supported three national rural women’s non-government organisations to develop a partnership with industry.
Discretionary Grants Program
Indigenous People in Rural Industries Program
Program Description
- Indigenous People in Rural Industries Program – awarded one scholarship to the Australian Rural Leadership Program.
Discretionary Grants Program
New Industries Development Program
Program Description
- To help manufacture and commercialise a modular plastic raceway for the aquaculture sector.
- Tohelp commercialise a production line for frozen organic vegetables.
- To help develop and commercialise a range of value-added, organic chicken products.
- To produce a range of value-added kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) products, including customised curry sauces, for the Japanese market.
- To commercialise an innovative software package designed to boost business skills in the cropping and horticulture sectors.
- To fully commercialise production of marine worms for the fishing bait and aquaculture feed industries.
- To launch a complete range of extra-virgin olive oil skin care products on the domestic and international markets.
- To undertake a commercial-scale production run of a new, rapid-acting, Australian-patented, silicon fertiliser.
- To commercialise the first certified organic skincare range in the world the products of which include macadamia oil.
- To commercialise a Drench Resistance Kit which enables sheepmeat and wool producers to determine the presence of internal parasites resistant to traditional anthelmintics.
- To help commercialise an Australian-made bio-control to tackle the heliothis moth, a serious pest in the cotton industry.
- To grow golden perch commercially via aquaculture.
To establish and commercialise a new commodity finance arrangement initially for Australian Lot Feeders Association members and accredited cattle feedlots. - To set up a manufacturing plant to commercially produce exotic chutneys and sauces.
- In-Market Experience Scholarship to consolidate a local grower cooperative, by producing value-added redclaw crayfish products for the domestic and overseas markets.
- Scholarship to help boost the prices Australian-based producers of the Japanese cattle breed Wagyu receive for their products.
- Scholarship to commercialise a new, near-fresh, shelf-stable tomato product for the domestic and international markets.
- Scholarship to help commercialise a technologically advanced, horizontal roto-cultivator.
- Scholarship to develop Australian-themed, value-added retail prawn packs.
- Scholarship to help commercialise pearls from the Pteria penguin oyster – commonly known as the ‘Mabe’.
- Scholarship to investigate the local market for high-quality goat blood serums for use in medical research.
- Scholarship to commercialise nutritious beef ‘meals-in-a-bag’, which have a shelf life of 12 months without the need for refrigeration.
- Scholarship to commercialise an Australian-grown, high-quality, specialty coffee.
- Scholarship to help develop supply and alliance agreements with growers for premium, sustainably-managed farm-grown timber, especially sugar gum.
- Scholarship to help commercialise Anthuriums for Australia’s cut flower market.
- Scholarship to establish formal business relationships with processors and lot feeders through the use of forward contracts to provide the Australian cattle and meat industry with a new way to market their products.
- Scholarship to commercialise a range of elderflower beverages.
- Scholarship to commercialise sulphur-free dried morello cherries and blue berries through a unique ‘cool-drying’ process.
- Scholarship to help set up an Australian vanilla industry in the NT.
- To commercialise a sheep fertility gene.
- To commercialise an organic compost enriched with beneficial microbes which suppress crop disease.
- To commercialise a range of valued added rock lobster products.
- To commercialise a shelf-stable meat sauce.
- To establish a basis for an Australian safflower oil industry.
- To commercialise organic dry baby food.
- To produce mung bean flour free from hull material.
- To commercialise a technology for production of a non-protein nitrogen stock feed supplement.
- To develop an Akoya pearl industry.
- To commercialise a cattle-breeding service that uses sex-sorted semen in conjunction with in-vitro fertilization to produce elite female embryos and resultant offspring.
- To commercialise cultured long fin eel production using innovative aquaculture technology, which will then be marketed as a range of value added products.
- To establish a commercial taro, cassava and banana snack industry.
- To commercialise a spray arm which allows the operator to spot spray with a high degree of slewing action from the safety of their cabin.
- To establish a pilot scale plant for the commercialisation of innovative granulated agricultural chemicals in the plant growth regulator (PGR) and herbicide and fungicide markets.
- To commercialise the ZESPRI™ GOLD kiwifruit in Australia.
- To commercialise dried asparagus and native produce for export to Japan.
- To commercialise organic safflower oil.
- To commercialise nutrient release agents which enhance the availability to plants of nutrients from fertilizers.
- To commercialise certified organic fish.
- To commercialise hay grading and quality inspection service.
Discretionary Grants Program
National Landcare Program National Component
Program Description
- To develop ecologically sustainable fresh water aquaculture using best practice water management techniques for Atlantic Salmon and other fresh water species
- Develop a precision pastoral system through integrating the GRASP pasture growth model with pasture monitoring and feed budgeting technologies
- Demonstrate surface irrigation techniques for crop establishment to the processing tomato industry
- Demonstrations of controlled traffic farming systems and modification of existing farm equipment
- To establish commercial size trials of new sugar farming systems, including break-cropping and controlled traffic systems
- Demonstrate on a commercial scale the benefits of sub-surface drip irrigation systems over traditional irrigation methods for the lucerne seed industry
- Design, engineer and fabricate four new harvester fronts to collect native seeds for salinity prevention, biodiversity and sustainability production.
- To establish three seaweed production operations in saline groundwater evaporation ponds
- Promoting zone management of crops and pastures in the Farmlink Groups to increase water and nutrient use efficiency through improved use of technology and techniques
- To increase the adoption of lotus in pasture in the Northern Tablelands of NSW, by developing management strategies and demonstrating pasture development
- To conduct trials of tall fescue pastures in the presence of novel endophytes compared to pasture with normal endophytes
- To demonstrate the value of farming systems based on increased perenniality which can deliver sustainable water-use, biodiversity and social solutions
- To construct wetlands at wholesale nurseries to treat waste water and to widely publicise these activities
- To demonstrate and run workshops on the improved use of disk seeders and herbicide use in no-till farming systems
- To establish demonstrations and run workshops regarding the use of precision agriculture in lower rainfall environments
- To investigate the use of low contour mounds and controlled traffic farming in irrigated wheat and canola production systems
- To test proposed solutions to problems with no-till farming in stony, calcareous soils
- To test a range of soil treatments designed to promote healthy soils and to identify strategies relevant to needs in the Taroom shire
- To develop changes in cultural practices that lead toward a more sustainable pineapple industry in Queensland through improved soil health and mulch management
- To establish dung beetle populations in Spring Hill / Trentham area.
- To expand land area under new farming systems and modify equipment to work this system to achieve environmentally sustainable sugarcane farming in the Wet Tropics Far North Queensland Region
- Providing regional bodies across Australia with assistance in developing community capacity building strategies.
- Australian Rural Leadership Program scholarship for the development of people who are already active leaders to help guide rural and regional Australia into the future
- To develop regional natural resource management plans that improve resource availability to cotton farmers and maximise the contribution to catchment health made by cotton farms
- Advance the development of a consistent framework for monitoring and reporting on the contribution of Australian agriculture to ecologically sustainable development
- To produce a strategy and implementation plan for sustainable wildlife farming trials that can be implemented by landholders and rural industries
Discretionary Grants Program
Rural Financial Counselling Service
Program Description
- Rural Financial Counselling Service Part A: Community based projects– continued funding 63 grants to community based management committees seeking to employ a Rural Financial Counsellor to work with primary producers, some small rural businesses and fishing enterprises based in rural areas, who are experiencing financial hardship and have access to no other source of financial counselling assistance
- Rural Financial Counselling Service Part B: Short Term Industry Adjustment projects - approved five grants to groups seeking to employ Rural Financial Counsellors on a short term basis to work with primary producers in targeted industries on issues associated with industry restructure.
- Emergency Rural Financial Counselling Service Funding Approved four grants to community-based management committees seeking top-up financial assistance to overcome unforeseen expenditure (incurred largely as a result of the drought).
Discretionary Grants Program
Science and Innovation Awards for Young People
Program Description
- Eighteen grants were approved to assist young people involved in Australia’s agricultural, fisheries or forestry industries to undertake a project that will make an important and lasting contribution to their industry.
Discretionary Grants Program
DAFF Biotechnology Policy (not a program)
Program Description
- Sponsorship funding was provided towards the agricultural biotechnology conference BioFestival04: Agbio & You as part of the department’s communication initiatives under the Biotechnology Strategy for Agriculture, Food and Fibre.
Last reviewed: 01 Mar 2010
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