Communication and Extension - Weed Management Initiative

Reference number: PROC-9177143

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Release date:: Monday 21 October 2024
Closing time:: Thursday 21 November 2024, at 05:00 PM ACT local time
Enquiry deadline:: Thursday 14 November 2024, at 05:00 PM ACT local time

Summary

Weeds are a major threat to the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of Australian agriculture, recently estimated to cost $4.1 billion annually in crop losses and control measures. This investment seeks delivery of weed management strategies, nationally, to ensure Australian grain growers have continuing access to innovative, diverse, and cost reducing options.

The Weed Management Initiative (WMI) is a federated model, with nodes across each Grain Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) region, aiming to deliver advanced weed management practices to Australian grain growers. It consists of five key programs covering weed management, herbicide resistance from evolutionary dynamics to practical mitigation strategies, communication, and capacity building. The initiative will foster collaboration among research institutions, ensuring long-term investment and efforts in weed science.

The WMI's communication, extension, and adoption program is central to its success, focusing on effectively disseminating research outputs and facilitating their adoption by growers. This program will integrate social science methodologies to drive practice changes and measure the impact of extension efforts. Additionally, it will collaborate with the Australian Analytics for the Grains Industry (AAGI) to assess the effectiveness of its communication and extension activities. The WMI emphasizes regional responsiveness, practical demonstrations, and timely delivery of cutting-edge weed management information to growers.

Offer period

Offers will remain open for acceptance by the GRDC for a period of 6 months after the Closing Time.

Document contact and enquiries

Attention: Wendy Bosci
Grains Research and Development Corporation
Email: brtenders@grdc.com.au

Make all requests for further information or clarification in relation to this procurement in writing (email) prior to 14 November 2024.

GRDC will publish all requests and responses to requests on the GRDC website under Questions and Answers at the bottom of this webpage.

Consortia response

GRDC will not accept Tenders from Consortia.

Lodgement of Tender

Submit your Tender response electronically through the Grains Investment Portal.

AusTender

https://www.tenders.gov.au/Advert/Show?Id=b7e96ff1-53eb-4110-8530-8f04a77fd47e

Description

The proposed Weed Management Initiative (WMI) will be a federated model with nodes in each GRDC region, ensuring the delivery of leading practice weed management to grain growers, nationally.

Across the nodes, five programs will be delivered that span the continuum of herbicide resistance from evolutionary dynamics to on the ground mitigation strategies, communications and extension along with capacity building and succession planning. The WMI involves strategic partnerships with key institutions to deliver co-investment and commitment to weed science RD&E, ensuring the long-term ongoing delivery of weed management strategies to Australian grain growers.

The WMI will deliver five programs:

Program 1. Evolutionary Dynamics of Weed Adaptation and Herbicide Resistance.
Program 2. Biochemical, Molecular and Genetic Basis of Novel Herbicide Resistance.
Program 3. Mitigation and Management of Weeds Using Novel and Integrated Approaches.
Program 4. Capacity, Expertise and Collaborative uplift.
Program 5. Communication, Extension and Adoption of Weed Research Outputs.

The WMI will foster a collaborative, well-resourced, and interconnected research community, ensuring cohesion in national efforts across research, development, and extension. The federated structure, with nodes in each GRDC region (two in the Northern region) will facilitate both national strategies and responsive regional outputs.

The WMI will be underpinned by a strategic communication, extension and adoption program ensuring a strong focus on delivery of outputs and information generated being extended to growers with clear demonstration to adoption. This program will serve as the principal facilitator for communication, extension, and adoption for the WMI and the GRDC’s weed Research, Development, and Extension (RD&E) portfolio.

To ensure the optimal adoption of WMI outputs, a strategic program of social science-based communications and extension activities will underpin the WMI. This program will incorporate social science methodologies and drive practice change, emphasizing tangible, measurable outputs and communication expectations.

The Program will link closely with the nodes, the GRDC weeds portfolio and other D&E initiatives that incorporate social and include regional agronomists and staff to facilitate the adoption of effective weed management strategies on the ground. It will collaborate with the Australian Analytics for the Grains Industry (AAGI) to develop and implement a framework for measuring the impact and adoption of its communication and extension activities.

The WMI's communications, extension, and adoption program will ensure the prompt delivery of outputs to growers and advisers. Emphasising regional extension and practical demonstration of developed research will ensure that growers have timely access to cutting-edge information and best practices for addressing their weed management challenges.

Outcome

Outputs

Program 5. Communication, Extension and Adoption of weed research outputs.

By July 2025 and yearly thereafter, the communications and extension group will deliver an operational plan developed with the GRDC Weeds Manager and GRDC Communications Team for the communication and extension activities for the following year.

Program 5 will underpin the WMI and will deliver communications and extension for the WMI and all GRDC weed investments:

Identify required actions for adoption of sustainable weed management strategies, incorporating social science and the latest research from WMI and other GRDC weed investment, tailored to local, regional, and national contexts.
Review and consolidate scientific support, addressing gaps and adapting solutions to specific areas.
Engage with growers, industry, and advisers through surveys, discussions, and focus groups to understand decision-making factors and promote strategy adoption.
Include both ‘ground up, peer to peer’ and 'science down' extension practices in the plan.
Establish a framework for measuring the impact and adoption in collaboration with AAAGI.
Establish clear timelines and set measurable goals for each activity.

Proposed Budget

Proposed Contract & Term

GRDC will contract under the terms of the Services Contract.

The schedule(s) attached to the contract will detail the project details: the outcomes, outputs, milestones, budget, participating personnel and required intellectual property.

The template contract containing the proposed Terms and Conditions is available on the Application resources page on the GRDC website.

It is anticipated that any resultant contract in relation to this procurement will commence with a proposed term of 5.5 years.

Conditions for Participation

The following are mandatory conditions with which a Tenderer must comply to participate in this procurement process:

The Tenderer must be a single legal entity or recognised firm of partners
The Tenderer and any proposed subcontractor must be compliant with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, the Modern Slavery Act 2018 and any other applicable labour laws and standards in the jurisdiction in which they operate.
The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not have a judicial decision against it (not including decisions under appeal) relating to employee entitlements and who have not paid the claim.
The Tenderer and any subcontractor must not be named on the Consolidated List, being the list of persons and entities who are subject to targeted financial sanctions or travel bans under Australian sanction laws, as maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
In accordance with the Shadow Economy Procurement Connected Policy, a Tenderer must include a satisfactory and valid Statement of Tax Records (STR). If the total value of all work under any proposed subcontract is expected to be equal to or above $4 million (inclusive of GST), also include a separate satisfactory and valid STR of that proposed subcontractor.

Minimum Form and Content Requirements

The following are the mandatory content and format requirements that the Tenderer must complete and provide to participate in this procurement process:

Submit Tenders using the Grains Investment Portal.
Write Tenders in English and express any measurements in Australian legal units of measurement.
Budget details must be submitted on the ‘GRDC Budget Template’ provided in the Grains Investment Portal.

Evaluation Criteria

In the table below are the Evaluation Criteria that the Tender Evaluation Team will use to assess the value for money of all Tenders.

No	Type	Weighting
1	Technical – Qualitative evaluation criteria related to non-price factors such as methodology, project plan, track record, experience.
1a	Project Plan A detailed plan to deliver the investment outcome and outputs, specifying the: specific information, products and/or services to be delivered key tasks/milestones, responsible parties and indicative timeframes project team structure and management arrangements, including collaborations with organisations, commercial companies and/or other projects with relevant data.	70%
1b	Personnel Capability A list of all key personnel, including proposed sub-contractors, detailing relevant: knowledge experience, including collaborating with industry personnel and stakeholders achievements of the project lead in providing effective leadership, management and timely delivery of high quality outputs.	20%
1c	Demonstrated track record of the project team, including: a) relevant achievements of the project leader in providing leadership, co-ordination, management, monitoring and evaluation and the timely delivery of high quality outputs b) relevant technical knowledge and experience of all key personnel (including proposed subcontractors) in the research area c) relevant achievements in the delivery of commercial IP (if relevant) d) ability of the project team to collaborate with the relevant research organisations and industry personnel to build on the research (national and international) already undertaken in this area	10%
2	Price - The tendered budget.	N/A
3	Risk - Risks inherent in the application including the degree of compliance with the draft contract and any actual or perceived conflict of interest.	N/A
4	Australian economy - The economic benefit of the procurement to the Australian economy.	N/A

Lodging a Tender

Questions and Answers

Q1. The proposed WMI is broken into 5 program components.

Will all 5 programs be tendered individually in the coming months; in a similar way to the communications and extension component?

A1. Programs1-3 are incorporated in strategic partnerships and will not be subject to open tender.

Q2. Please provide any information on how the WMI will align with the existing WeedSmart program – will WMI replace WeedSmart or work in collaboration?

A2. The WMI will be a separate communications platform from the WeedSmart Program. WMI program 5 will deliver communication, extension and adoption of research outputs for the WMI and GRDC weeds portfolio, it will collaborate and communicate with WeedSmart where appropriate.

Q3. We understand the outcome of the WMI across the five programs is to reduce the economic impact on grain growers farming systems by 2%. Is there a goal/target/outcome specifically for program 5 in relation to Communication, Extension and Adoption of weed research outputs?

A3. Program 5 will underpin the delivery of this target through extension of research outputs. The specific goals for program 5 are listed in the outputs section of the tender.