Consortiums and Multi-stakeholder Partnerships

Grain SA has restructured internally and two units in line with our ever-expanding mandate were established, namely Grain Economy and Grain Research and Policy Centre. Central to this was the need to escalate Grain SA’s active role in the co-ordination of need-driven grain research. The approach agreed upon was to establish consortia and multi-stakeholder partnerships, preferably with universities and other appropriate public-private partners. Additionally, partnerships and stakeholders were identified to work with the Grain SA team for a food secure future. Funding is a crucial element and a concerted effort was made to prioritise funding for the different research needs identified by producers. Critical to Grain SA’s role is to ensure funding is directed to new prioritised focus areas. These priority focus areas are: Crop Improvement, Crop Protection and Climate Change. The next steps were the development of joint research programmes for each focus area linking up with various technology-driven initiatives and making sure that appropriate technologies are reaching the producers.