Hoda Abou Gamos

Thesis

An Economic Analysis of Surveillance and Quality Assurance as Strategies to Maintain Market Access.

Summary

Many agricultural commodities are produced over wide areas, often far from markets. In addition, harvest occurs within a short period but consumption is evenly spaced throughout the year. These features mean both transportation and storage are important and are closely interrelated.

The research will deal with both, the transportation and the storage aspects. It will use Western Australian wheat as a case study to analyse different strategies to manage biosecurity risks in stored wheat.

The project will take a systems approach to stored wheat biosecurity where the costs and benefits of delivering ‘clean’ (insect and chemical residue free) wheat to export markets are incurred at different points in the bulk grain handling network: on farm, at receivable points and grain terminals. A ‘sub-region’ of CBH delivery sites will be taken which include both quality assured sites and non-quality assured sites.

The final sub-network agreed upon, after discussions with CBH, will be Kwinana region.

Why my research is important

The research will be innovative in the way that it will be the first to undertake a systematic analysis of the economic of surveillance within a grain supply network and the second to integrate the incentive components of a farm quality assurance scheme.

The project will have several outcomes:

From the research point of view, it will:

• Provide an economic review of current surveillance and treatment systems for stored wheat in WA for the export market.

• Analyse scenarios relating to the emergence of phosphine resistance and changing regulations for the use of fumigants and pesticides.

• Analyse the design of farm incentive schemes to improve the quality of delivered grain.

From the industrial point of view:

The research will result in the improvement of cost effectiveness for surveillance and quality assurance schemes.

From the national point of view:

It will provide training in the economics of biosecurity which is currently a field with a skill shortage both in WA and nationally

Funding

• APA + Top Up from the CRC