Chair’s Report

2021 at Mallee Sustainable Farming (MSF) has been a busy year with many challenges, as a collective we have had many successes and exciting changes as a Board and organisation. It has been yet another difficult year for the research and extension side of the organisation with cross border restrictions limiting field days and meetings. Through innovation and adaption, we have managed to fulfill all requirements with projects and had some fantastic Board meetings discussing strategy and planning.

have been challenged by changes in border closures and restrictions, this has prompted some exciting things to come from MSF in the future on how we can communicate to our members. We are very pleased with how we have managed this year again with restrictions, our funding partners have been excellent with understanding some of the difficulties with this and been flexible enough for us to deliver on projects electronically and through what traditional field days and workshops we have been able to run.

We have seen the appointment of two new Directors, Nicole Byrnes (Farmer Director NSW) and Therese McBeath (Specialist Director CSIRO Adelaide). The two have added a large amount of industry experience and extensive networks in their roles and will be a great asset to the organisation.

I would like to thank Ron Hards for his long service and commitment to MSF as a Farmer Director and as treasurer also. His experience in the grains industry from previous roles on other industry committees and organisations has been exceptional for the Board, past and present. Ron has been a great mentor and champion of MSF, which will be sorely missed by the Board.

As MSF evolves, we have appointed Tanja Morgan as Acting Executive Officer and Project Manager, the current structure of MSF has been designed strategically enough to allow for the flexibility needed when managing the funding cycles. Tanja has been the successor to Lachlan Sutton who had to leave MSF for personal reasons, his experience in the livestock and wool industry was very useful for MSF and has opened some doors into the future for MSF in the livestock industry. Tanja and the team have been outstanding at adapting to changes throughout the year. Once again COVID regulations and contractor arrangements Personally, I would like to thank the fantastic Board that I have been able to work with and believe that we have made some great progress in a difficult year. I believe that MSF is in a great place with the current Board and the incoming directors will have some great people to lean on and transition into their new positions easily.

The twelve years I have been on the Board have been fantastic and I value everything I have gotten from MSF and the networking people and personal experience has been invaluable for myself. Over the time I have been at MSF I have seen some great changes in the organisation, and I believe now that it truly represents a farmer led Board. We are extremely agile and adaptable; this has made MSF flexible enough to upscale and downsize as needed due to funding and project requirements.

I would like to thank everyone who has been involved with the Board over the time that I have been involved. The organisation has been a great group to be associated with and I am proud of the achievements that have been made in Mallee farming during this time.

Yours Truly

Robert Pocock Chair Mallee Sustainable Farming Inc.