Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary
2. Purpose of this Plan
3. Project Objectives
4. The Product
5. < A>
   1. Project Co-ordinator
   2. Central Farm Manager
   3. Cicerone Organisational Structure
6. Operational Detail
   1. Decision Making
   2. Management Structure
   3. Subscriber (Partner) Members
   4. Board Responsibilities
   5. Project Co-ordinator Responsibilities
   6. Central Farm Manager Responsibilities
   7. Research Project Teams
7. Market Analysis
8. Marketing Strategy
9. Benefit Cost Assessment
   1. Internal Parasitism
   2. Pasture Persistence
10. Funds Required

Executive Summary

• This new business, the Cicerone Project (the "Project") will create a novel framework for improved research, and increased adoption of research, on pasture-based production on the Northern Tablelands of NSW.
• This initiative is needed to improve the profitability and sustainability of livestock production on the Northern Tablelands.
• Industry investment is required because of failure of market forces to stimulate sufficient appropriate research and its adoption.
• The Project will have training and extension functions and will facilitate research.
• The Project will be led by producers from the Northern Tablelands and will complement existing research and extension organisations which will play key roles in the Project.
• The Project will function by operating a Central Learning Farm, undertake field days and skills workshops, conduct performance studies on member farms, and increase awareness in the community of research and production needs.
• Components of the Project will become self-funding within the proposed 5 year budget period. Other components will require ongoing industry support.
• 239 producers in the Northern Tablelands have provided written expressions of interest in becoming involved in the Project.
• This Business Plan is in continuous development, will take account of feedback from stakeholders and the results of the IWS funded survey of the producers on the Northern Tablelands.
• A workshop is planned for April 1998 to launch the Project, adopt this Business Plan, elect the Board of Management and make the first decisions on Project Activities

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Purpose of this Plan

This plan is being prepared by the Steering Committee for the Cicerone Project (the "Project"). It is intended principally for presentation to IWS for funding consideration, to producers on the Northern Tablelands to stimulate their interest in the Project and to other research, extension and education bodies for their comment and information.

The overall aim of the Project is to increase the profitability and sustainability of grazing-based agriculture on the Northern Tablelands, by facilitating research, organising and creating extension activities, and working together to provide a novel learning environment in which researchers, extension agents and farmers can develop new ideas and techniques.

A key feature of the Project is that it is led by producers and involves individuals and groups with stakes in the success of Northern Tablelands agriculture.

This business plan will be used to attract investment and support from Rural Industry Research Funds, commercial companies and training institutions.

The plan will identify the relationship between this business and the related businesses of NSW Agriculture, CSIRO, University of New England and others.

It is intended that the Project will serve the interests of its financial members and of the community at large by dissemination of information, creation of new knowledge and reduce the risks involved in these processes.

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Project Objectives

Management responsibility rests with the Board of Management which will be appointed by mid 1998. The current business objectives set by the Steering Committee for the Board, for the first 5 years of operation, are:

1. Undertake a series of Field Days and Skills Workshops, open to all interested parties, in all aspects of land use, production, marketing and financial management with a target of 4 Field days and 4 Workshops per year. These activities will be supported and complemented by a newsletter to be produced 4 times per year.
2. Cultivate and assist the creation of 4 new Research Projects to be closely associated with the CP within the first 3 years, the first to be operational within the first 6 months of the Project.
3. Design and create a Central Farm which meets the research and extension needs of the Project members with key features of measurement, comparison (research) and learning. The consultative process started in April and now complete has led to a decision to use the Northern Tablelands property "Chiswick" as the Central Farm and portions of "Chiswick" will now be available to the Project for its activities.
4. Increase Awareness among the participating groups of each others interests and activities and involve city-based scientists in the practical aspects of agricultural production and land management.
5. Have 6 Network Farms involved in research and 200 producer members and by the end of the third year of the project.
6. Conduct a Farm Benchmark Study to assess the natural resources, financial status and other appropriate and quantifiable performance indicators of a sample of farmer members. This assessment will take place regularly within the 5 year budget period as a learning exercise and as a measure of the performance of the Project. This study is a vital and ongoing component of the Project and the results will be widely disseminated. It will be a key part of the ongoing evaluation of the Project and the setting of future directions.

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The Product

The product is a service. The service is to:

• Create a learning environment in which researchers and producers can learn from each other and create new knowledge for the benefit of Northern Tablelands agriculture.
• Undertake training and increase awareness by conducting field days and skills workshops on topics determined by the project stakeholders.
• Provide access to a Central Farm which will facilitate the uptake of research by trials and comparisons under commercial conditions.
• Provide information, by means of newsletters and other media, of importance to Northern Tablelands farmers.

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Organisation and People

The Cicerone Project will be an independent body, run for the benefits of investors and financial members. It will be controlled by a board of management whose structure and composition will be determined by the following principles. The Board will:

• Be led by producers.
• Make decisions based on consensus.
• Take responsibility for financial and employment matters.
• Comprise members who can represent the interests of all stakeholders in the Project.
• Be accountable to stakeholders.
• Ensure that strong and effective links are maintained with related projects, particularly the Sustainable Grazing Systems (SGS) program for the Northern Tablelands, to minimise duplication of effort and maximise benefits to producers.

Two key appointments are anticipated at the beginning of the Project: Project Coordinator and Central Farm Manager.

Project Coordinator

The duties of the Project Coordinator will be to implement decisions of the Board to meet the objectives of this business plan. The appointee will have backgrounds in farming, research and extension, have a high level of commitment to the ideals of the Project and a high level of 'people skills'. Skills in negotiation, science, farming, accounting and the media are all desirable.

Central Farm Manager

The Central Farm Manager may also report to the Board and work closely with the Project Coordinator to ensure that objectives relating to the Central Farm are met. This will involve working closely with "Chiswick" staff while creating and maintaining the independent nature of the Project, an imaginative and practical approach to farm management and the extension and research associated with the Central Farm, people skills, a high level of commitment, and willingness to follow the direction of the Board. The appointee will be characterised as both a 'thinker' and a 'doer'. The Central Farm Manager will become a self-funded position.

Cicerone Organisational Structure

Subscriber Members. On payment of an annual subscription of $100 Subscriber Members will have exclusive or preferred access to some skills training workshops and representation on the Board of Management.

Board of Management. The Board of Management will be the legal identity of the Project with responsibility for execution of the Business Plan.

Cicerone Project Coordinator. The Coordinator will be an ex-officio member of the Board of Management, report to the Board of Management, and have a major role to facilitate workshops and training, interact with Research Projects, Focus Farmers and the Central Farm Manager , Subscribers and other Stakeholders. Liaison with the Northern Tablelands Sustainable Grazing Systems group and similar producer-groups will have a high priority.

Central Farm Manager. The Central farm Manager will run the Central Farm on which there will be research activity which in turn may be linked to other Cicerone research projects.

Project Teams will have specific research, development and extension objectives and in addition to their particular reporting requirements e.g. to a research organisation/funding body, will report to the Board of Management and interact with other Project Teams.

Focus Farmers will be undertake research or demonstration activity on their farms and will work closely with the Project Coordinator and Project Teams.

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Operational Detail

Decision Making

The Board of Management will make decisions by consensus, not by voting, and will be inclusive of all relevant industry segments.

Management Structure

The Central Farm will not be an institutional research farm. It will be identified as a producer led research, development, extension farm leading to real changes in adoption.
There will be no bureaucratic, top-heavy administration. However an appropriate level of administration will be required.

The Board of Management will be responsible for the project. With a producer as chair and consensus-based decision-making it may not be necessary to have a numerical majority of producers on the Board of Management.

Subscriber (Partner) Members

Subscriber members are referred to as Partner Members in the Market Survey (Appendix A). The privileges and responsibilities of Subscriber Members are as follows:

Privileges:
• Right to vote
• Receive regular newsletter
• Eligible for discounts for courses
• Greater access to Central Farm and Project Teams

Responsibilities:
• Participate/help organise/attend field days and learning days
• Form some focus farms
• Actively participate in field days

Board Responsibilities

The Board will:
• Develop, maintain and implement the vision of the Project
• Be accountable to stakeholders
• Give direction to Director and Project Teams
• Develop Policy guidelines for operating projects.
• Oversee budget
• Appoint Director and ratify other staff appointments
• The Board will be appointed for two years with half of the Board being open for election at each annual general meeting. The anticipated size of the Board will be nine members.

The table below sets out some of the activities, groups and interests that will be represented on the Board.

¹ The Project will encourage commercial links for individual projects and activities but there will be no linking of the overall Project to any single commercial organisation.

Project Coordinator

The Project Coordinator will have the following responsibilities:

• Implement the Board's decisions
• Facilitate creation and development of projects
• Maintain accounts (at appropriate level and only related to Central Farm)
• Process correspondence
• Develop and maintain physical infrastructure
• Appoint and manage staff
• Manage contracts associated with funding of the central farm
• Co-ordinate learning activities, newsletter, etc.
• Maintain database of information
• Attend board meetings (nonvoting)

Central Farm Manager

The Central Farm Manager will have the following responsibilities:

• In conjunction with the Coordinator, develop farm plans
• Report regularly to Coordinator
• Assist the Coordinator in consulting with subscriber members, especially in relation to changing farm plans
• Be responsible for any expenditure being kept within an approved budget
• General Farm and Trial management
• Assistance with learning, especially at field days
• Monitoring, conducting soil tests, etc.
• Record keeping, climatic data, etc.

Research Project Teams

These would be created and disbanded as projects were developed, run and completed.

Individual Project Teams will be responsible for:

• Managing their research budget and project implementation
• Make data available to members
• Be prepared to participate actively in Field Days and Skills Workshops
• Respond to tenders for research
• Liaise with Director, Farm Manager and focus farms

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Market Analysis

There is a need for increased adoption of research by farmers. Evidence for this need on the Northern Tablelands comes from:

• IWS studies reported in their most recent strategic plan
• The initial workshop which initiated this project of 45 researchers, producers and extension advisers.
• Survey undertaken by Department of Land and Water Management in 1995.
• The survey recently undertaken by the Rural Development Centre on behalf of the Project. These results are appended in detail (Appendix A) but a summary of its conclusions are:

  "Nearly eight out of ten respondents want to be involved in the Cicerone project in some way. This suggests the Committee's concept of a network of farms is one that has strong support and there should be ample scope to create a network across the Northern Tablelands.

  The results concerning land and pasture management suggest that a majority of livestock producers in the Northern Tablelands find dry season, fertiliser use, pasture composition and pasture persistence to be major problems. These results suggest that producers would welcome management innovations that would improve the resilience, stability and longevity of pastures in the Northern Tablelands.

  In terms of grazing and feeding management a majority of producers prefer to reserve pasture to meet the extra needs of livestock rather than rely on supplementary feeding. This reflects concern over the costs of feed grain and fodder. However, this reliance on pasture for feed means that the quantity and quality of feed available from pastures represent serious problems for many producers.

  Worm resistance and calving spread stand out as the only serious breeding or health problems for sheep and cattle respectively. Producers would welcome further work in these two areas."

  The Steering Committee has accepted this report and endorse its conclusions.

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Marketing Strategy

The project will be marketed to three separate groups.

1. Producers. A media campaign associated with the mailing of the RDC survey was undertaken and will continue until the survey is closed in November. The results of the survey will be disseminated through the media. A workshop will be held in April 1998, at which the results of the survey and the outcome of applications for funding will be reported to producers.
2. Other Stakeholders. Resellers and pastoral houses have been approached by the producer members of the Steering Committee, seeking their views on the Project and to informing them of progress. UNE, CSIRO and NSW Agriculture are represented on the Steering Committee and are fully aware of the project.
3. Funding bodies. As investors these bodies are primarily concerned with the benefits to their own community of levy-payers. MRC were represented at the meeting April 1997, all of the RIRFs have been informed about the development of this project and it is intended to further stimulate interest and awareness by formal and informal contact.

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Benefit Cost Assessment

The Northern Tablelands is a major Australian region for pasture-based production of meat and wool. It comprises 4 Rural Lands Protection Boards (RLPBs): Armidale, Glen Innes, Tenterfield and Inverell. Numbers of farms and their livestock populations are given in the table.

¹ Number of Properties Assessed by the Rural Lands Protection Boards for each livestock species.
² Number of livestock assessed (thousands)
³ Average Property Size (Ha)

Two of the important problems indicated by the market analysis undertaken for this Project are internal parasitism of sheep and pasture persistence for both sheep and cattle. These are likely candidate areas of activity for Cicerone, with associated research projects. Benefits and costs of research in these areas, as examples, are briefly described here.

Internal Parasitism

There are several research programs directed at reducing the impact of parasites on sheep production. These include breeding approaches, vaccination, biological control improved use of chemicals and grazing management. Each of these has been subjected to BCA by IWS and the research organisations implementing the research. The major benefits of the Cicerone Project to each of the research programs will be to increase adoption of the technology and improve the technology by the involvement of producers in the research. Such benefits are difficult to quantify, but to take one example, breeding for parasite resistance (the Nemesis program) has a target adoption rate of 30% in 100m Australian sheep with an estimated net present value of the research of $19.5m. If the Cicerone Project undertakes a large part of the extension of this technology and embraces the research as a Project Team, then the potential impact can be estimated. For the Northern Tablelands (2m sheep in the High Rainfall Zone) the net present value of the research would be about $1m. If Cicerone activities can increase adoption from 30% to 40% then the contribution of the Cicerone Project, to this one aspect of one problem, would be around $350,000.

Pasture Persistence

Pastures are the cheapest form of feed for livestock. Costs per tonne of dry matter can be as low as $10/tonne DM if pastures persist over more that 6 years (J.M. Scott, 1996). It is a common experience in this region that sown pastures last less than 10 years with many graziers finding that they are failing in a much shorter time. Whilst legumes come and go over extremes of seasons, it is possible to retain the perennial grass component, which is so important for the stability of the pasture and for its use of water and nitrogen, provided that the pasture is managed well. Of course, many farms in the region have sown pastures which have lasted much longer that 10 years with one lasting as long as 80 years (R. White, pers. comm.). It is crucial that graziers in this region learn how to ensure the persistence of their pastures over the long-term. If the life of an improved pasture can be increased through better management from 8 years to 15 years then the sum of all establishment and renovation costs per hectare, expressed in present day values, can be decreased conservatively from a net present value (NPV) (or cost) of $340 to $278/ha - a saving of 19% on the investment in improved pastures. This calculation is for a realistic discount rate of 10%. If poorly managed pastures last for under 6 years or, if the discount rate is applied at a more conservative rate more appropriate to a sustainable system (say 5%), then the NPV of pasture establishment for a pasture with greater persistence will decline by an even greater margin. This improved efficiency would make investments in improved pastures more attractive and thereby substantially assist in improving the efficiency of wool and meat production.

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Funds Required

It is anticipated that the development of the infrastructure of the Central Farm, investment in measuring equipment and initial improvements will require a financial investment during the first 3 years of the project. Thereafter some components of the Central Farm operation will be self-sufficient, relying on returns from products, sponsorship and commercial activities. However, the Project will continue to require some investment from industry.

The investment sought from IWS is detailed in the following section.

Given the participatory and collaborative nature of Cicerone activities, other funding bodies and industry organisations will be invited to consider investment in the Project.

Financial arrangements for the purchase of stock and the leasing of land are being negotiated but it is noted that the land and most of the animals and improvements on "Chiswick" are owned or have been funded by the wool industry. The final budget requirements depend on the outcome of these negotiations.

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