Understanding barriers and enablers to IPM adoption in Australian grains

Australian grain growers are managing pests in an increasingly complex and constrained environment. Key challenges include increasing insecticide resistance, changing access to crop protection products, regulatory and market pressures, emerging and episodic pest threats, and the need to protect beneficial insects and biological control services while preserving the effectiveness of available chemistry. GRDC has previously invested in integrated pest management (IPM) adoption, extension and research into the factors that influence practice change across a range of grain-growing regions and pest systems. This provides an important foundation, but much of the earlier adoption work was undertaken before the current level of pressure from insecticide resistance and chemical access constraints, and before more recent changes in how growers and advisers access information and make pest-management decisions. GRDC is seeking a suitably qualified provider or multidisciplinary team to undertake an independent opportunity analysis examining the barriers, enablers and pathways influencing practical IPM adoption in Australian grain systems. The analysis will draw on existing evidence, current and previous GRDC and industry investments, available tools and resources, relevant experience from other agricultural industries and international cropping systems, and the perspectives of growers, advisers, researchers, extension and adoption practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders. The work must consider the technical, behavioural, advisory, commercial and broader system-level factors influencing grower and adviser practice change. It must establish a contemporary understanding of current IPM adoption capability, barriers and enabling conditions; assess what has changed since previous IPM adoption and extension investments; and identify the audiences, circumstances and delivery approaches where future effort is most likely to improve practical adoption outcomes. GRDC requires practical, evidence-based and decision-ready recommendations to guide the design of future research, development, extension and adoption investments in IPM. The work is intended to focus on adoption and practice-change pathways rather than undertake a detailed technical review of individual pests or pest-management tactics. Where technical limitations are affecting adoption, these should be identified as matters that may require further research and development.