May 13, 2002
Ah, acronyms. Just when we¹ve got
used to IP as shorthand for Intellectual Property, along comes
Simon Warner to tell us there¹s another IP on the way Identity
Preservation and the grains industry is going to hear a lot
about that, too.
Mr Warner, Grainco Australia
general manager supply chain, told a Grains Development Forum
in Toowoomba factors driving the Australian grains industry
towards Identity Preservation included:
- government regulation in the
areas of food safety and labelling, with Victoria leading the
way for the moment,
- consumer demand, prompted by
events like the leaking of Starlink maize into human food
products in the United States,
- the introduction of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and
- demand from processors for
varietal purity, where they want specific characteristics.
Mr Warner told the forum - a QDPI/industry think tank assessing
likely future directions in the grains industry that grains
increasingly would move away from the traditional system of
commodity trading, on the basis of fair average quality, to
identity preserved lines guaranteed to meet characteristics
demanded by purchasers.
Identity preservation was the maintenance of a parcel of grain¹s
identity and characteristics right along the production chain,
from seed through growing, harvesting, handling and processing
to the point of consumption.
An identity preservation system facilitated the segregation of
different parcels of grain otherwise indistinguishable from
other parcels and delivered them to an end user.
IP existed already in certain areas organic grain (probably
the only one preserving identity right through the total
production process), in seed, malting barley, varietal
segregation in wheat (a simple form) and in commodity
segregation.
Admixtures, on the other hand, were failures of IP systems and
had occurred from time to time. Examples included barley in
wheat and soybeans in specialty maize.
Mr Warner said there were a number of questions about IP that
needed to be answered, including liability who took
responsibility for what traceability and obtaining value for
the costs involved in the system.
There must be value for all chain participants in IP there was
no point if there was no value for everyone involved.
To achieve this, IP must be in response to either regulator or
consumer demand. It must be relevant to the output required and
not be over engineered, which would only add costs, not value.
A number of quality assurance systems already existed ISO9000,
Greatgrain, Graincare which would provide the basis for the
on-farm component of an IP system. The challenge for IP would be
to fill the gaps and make all systems compatible.
Through the
Grains Research &
Development Corporation (GRDC), Australian growers and the Federal
Government are supporting research by the Victorian company S G
Heilbron into identity preservation, in the project Maintaining
integrity in the grain value chain beyond commodity.
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