While the strength of Grain & Graze lies in its regional approach to innovation and extension, there is much to learn by looking across the regions.

Whether a region has summer or winter dominant rainfall, whether its average farm size is large or small, there are some principles about profitability, sustainability and social cohesion that remain constant.

For this reason, Grain & Graze has established four national projects that deal specifically with key issues common to all regions:

• Feedbase Management 

• Whole-Farm Economics

• Social Influences

• Biodiversity and Productivity

At the heart of each of the national projects lie these questions:

• How can improved feedbase utilisation and distribution contribute to reduced business risk and improve Natural Resources Management (NRM) outcomes?
• What is the relationship between the resilience (profit and sustainability) and enterprise mix of mixed farming systems in different regions?
• What understanding of the social dimensions of dealing with complex mixed farming systems can enhance the adoption of Grain & Graze project results?
• How do we get the best outcome for productivity and biodiversity (composition, structure and function) on mixed farms that are mostly crops and pastures, with a small area of remnant vegetation?

These research questions reflect national priorities identified by regional producers where they believed a cross-regional effort would be the best way to find answers.

The project teams also use regional data, analyse the data with local experts and return the results back to producers in the regions.