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The biosecurity surveillance system for the grains industry: A gaps and opportunity analysis

The biosecurity surveillance system for the grains industry: A gaps and opportunity analysis

Reference number: PROC-9177181

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Release date:: Monday 16 December 2024
Closing time:: Tuesday 28 January 2025, at 05:00 PM ACT local time
Enquiry deadline:: Tuesday 21 January 2025, at 05:00 PM ACT local time

Summary

To ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of the Australian grains industry, it is important to mitigate risks associated with exotic pests and effectively respond to plant pest threats. A nationally coordinated grains biosecurity surveillance system for grains pests and diseases is required that delivers these benefits in the most cost-efficient manner. This objective may be achieved through improved coordination and expansion of existing surveillance activities, or by exploring alternative models.

GRDC is investing in a consultancy to review gaps and opportunities in the grains biosecurity surveillance system. This analysis will consider national strategies, implementation plans, and industry needs, involving consultation with diverse stakeholders in the grains industry and biosecurity sector. An understanding of the costs associated with potential future surveillance models and their reciprocal benefits is required. Therefore, the second component of this consultancy is to provide business cases relating to the identified gaps and future opportunities.

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 21 January 2025.

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

Note: No Q&A will be available from 25 December 2024 to 1 January 2025.

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/b8dddd2a-d148-4030-bef0-c70b064d18f8

Description

To ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of the Australian grains industry, it is important to mitigate risks associated with exotic pests and effectively respond to plant pest threats. This necessitates an efficient and robust biosecurity surveillance system for grains pests and diseases, which maximises the probability of early detection of exotic incursions, thereby reducing eradication costs and increasing their likelihood of success. Additionally, this system can provide evidence of absence data to support trade.

Many surveillance programs for exotic and endemic grain pests and diseases currently exist yet often operate independently, leading to possible duplication and fragmentation. To address this and other challenges, the National Grain Biosecurity Surveillance Strategy 2019-2029 was developed to guide leadership, management and coordination of surveillance activities for high priority grain pests and pests of market access concern. Additionally, a broader Nationally Integrated Surveillance System for Plant Pests is being developed but is yet to be finalised.

Ultimately, a nationally coordinated grains biosecurity surveillance system is required that delivers services in the most cost-efficient manner. This objective may be achieved through improved coordination and expansion of existing surveillance activities, or by exploring alternative models. The second component of this consultancy is to provide business cases relating to the gaps analysis and future opportunities. An understanding of the costs associated with potential future surveillance models and their reciprocal benefits is required. The successful tenderer will collaborate with the GRDC economics team to deliver this output.

Outcome

Outputs

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 12 months.

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.

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	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.	40%
1b	Project Plan A detailed plan to deliver the investment outcome and outputs, specifying the: a) specific information, products and/or services to be delivered b) key tasks/milestones, responsible parties and indicative timeframes c) Stakeholder consultation plan, defining the relevant stakeholders that will be consulted to achieve the project outcome, or the planned process for how these will be identified. d) project team structure and management arrangements, including collaborations with organisations, commercial companies and/or other projects with relevant data. e) budget defining funds sought in each year of the project	60%
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

Lodging a Tender

Questions and Answers

Q1. Clarification of tender closing time requested .

A1. The closing time for this tender - Proc-9177181 is Tuesday, 28 January 2025 as per the tender information listed on the website, and not Thursday, 28 February 2025 as advised on the notification from GRDC subscribers distributed on 19 December 2024.

Q2. Can GRDC provide an indication of budget for this investment?

A2. GRDC will not disclose a budget for this investment. Applications will be evaluated for ‘value for money’. Price is only one component of this which will be considered alongside the other selection criteria.

Q3. Does GRDC envisage that academics/universities are the main respondent for this piece of work?

A3. No, GRDC is open to applications from other relevant parties that have the knowledge, networks, and capability to undertake this work. GRDC recognises this may come from multiple avenues as the biosecurity sector has stakeholders spanning many different types of personnel and organisations. While a consortia of organisations will not be accepted, projects led by one organisation but including other parties through sub-contracts will be considered.

Q4. Is GRDC expecting the work to be co-funded (i.e. GRDC funds only a portion of the total cost of the investment)

A4. For this investment, GRDC does not expect the successful tenderer to provide cash or in-kind co-contribution, and a Services Contract will be used. However, when evaluating applications, any proposed co-contributions (cash or in-kind) might be considered during the value for money assessment.

Q5. Can GRDC provide further detail on the report deliverable, for example, an indication on the focus and number of business cases required? Whether economic evaluation is required?

A5. GRDC has kept the report deliverables open-ended in this request for tender, allowing applicants to propose their best approach. Significant work reviewing current grain biosecurity-related surveillance programs has already been completed through the development of the Grains Industry Surveillance Strategy and updated in the recent Biosecurity Plan for the Grains Industry.

Consequently, there should be minimal focus on the current status of the surveillance system; instead, emphasis should be placed on potential improvements or modifications to strengthen it. GRDC is also interested in exploring novel ideas that may offer alternative methods of surveillance.

The number of business cases required will likely be determined by the analysis itself. A proposal could include a limit on this number or a checkpoint where a decision with GRDC is made regarding the number and extent of business cases conducted. If multiple future surveillance models are proposed through the analysis, an economic evaluation between these options would be necessary. These evaluations could focus on a limited selection of pests to simplify the analysis.

Please note that the GRDC Economics team is available to collaborate with the successful tenderer to conduct these business cases and economic assessments if required.

Q6. Can GRDC clarify the selection criteria and their weightings for application evaluations? The webpage lists 'Price' and 'Risk' as 'N/A'. Are these factors not considered?

A6. All applications will be individually evaluated and scored based on the responses to the criteria for Personnel Capability and Project Plan with the components being weighted at 40% and 60%, respectively.

The Price and Risk components have no weighting and are evaluated relative to any other applications, and a value for money basis.

Q7. The project description refers to "exotic and endemic grain pests and diseases" however the Outcome and Output refers to "any exotic plant pest incursions". Can we please have clarification as to the scope of this review and analysis?

Does the scope include pre-border, border and post-border issues?
Does the scope include all arthropods (insects, mites etc), molluscs, viruses, foliar and soilbourne diseases, vertebrates?

A7. GRDC is primarily focused on post-border surveillance of exotic pests for this review. However, the surveillance of endemic pests may also be relevant. For instance, exotic pest surveillance might be more cost-effective if integrated within endemic pest programs.

The scope of the review includes surveillance of all exotic pests, particularly those identified as High Priority Pests. However, business cases and economic assessments may concentrate on select pests for simplicity.

Q8. Does GRDC prefer to have the stakeholder consultation undertaken in person or would there be a preference for virtual consultations, which will reduce the project cost?

A8. Virtual consultation will often be sufficient. GRDC acknowledges that in person consultation can offer better value for money in some circumstances.

For example, when multiple stakeholders with valuable insights can be consulted in person in a single trip.