Reaping benefits from homegrown projects

Confirmation of a project likely to add an extra string to the Wimmera’s agricultural bow is an example of how a simple idea can blossom into something worthwhile.

Horsham will soon be the Australian home of a protein-powder manufacturing plant and the region will be exporting yet another fresh and highly valuable product to the world.

Australian Plant Proteins, a subsidiary of Melbourne agribusiness investment company EAT Group, is pumping millions of dollars into the project and expects production to start later this year.

For a company to seize such a concept, generated from brainstorming in our part of the world, is something of which we as a region should be proud.

The nuts and bolts of the idea is pulse crops, regardless of how they look after being ravaged by climatic conditions such as frost, often retain their protein value.

But how the product has looked has represented a critical difference in determining price and value.

Being able to recognise the issue for a start, adapting a powder idea as a value-adding opportunity for farmers, understanding the potential for market demand and then finding an investor willing to seize the concept all represented tantalising challenges for Wimmera Development Association in developing a business case.

Of course much of the process has involved private enterprise moulding the business model to suit its operations and expectations. But foundations of the concept remain homegrown and overall the project is a massive tick for having a pro-active approach to development.

Closely following, reporting and commenting on this project since its inception many years ago has provided fascinating insight into the process.

Yes, it seemed obvious. Protein is a magical element that is often a measure between what is average and high-quality raw plant food.

And what a win in cropping security it would be for producers if a new high-value market line emerged from downgraded lentils.

But attracting the estimated $30-million in investment needed to establish supply lines and create a manufacturing plant in the Wimmera always seemed a big ask. But here we are. It pays to think big. Why stop there? The project is proof that we as a region play a large role in controlling our own destiny and look forward to the next idea that we hatch and grow.

Digging their own hole

The Weekly Advertiser SIR, – There were two stories in 6 that deserve a response.

First, the editor is quite right to ask why is Vicroads, aka Major Roads Project Authority, ‘dragging the chain’?

Good question because there has been no public consultation by way of its Environmental Consultation Group since May 2018.

Clearly there has been planning work still proceeding, but with zero public oversight – even by a tokenistic group such as their ECG.

Also Northern Grampians mayor Kevin Erwin asks the same question as a member of the Western Highway Action Committee.

Well, that committee was briefed more than three years ago on what a minimally destructive duplicated freeway could look like, to achieve a safer road while avoiding the majority of Vicroads planned land clearing.

There is no record of the Western Highway Action Committee ever acting on that advice, in the same way as every level of government has also failed to consult and represent the hundreds of people who want a better outcome than was seen between Beaufort and Buangor.

Meanwhile, Vicroads has been misrepresenting these people, producing a video simulation of an alternative route in late 2016, numerous FOI requests were delayed, its planning permit expired prior to construction of works on the project but they went ahead anyway, and numerous other instances of desperately bending rules to suit themselves – all the while costing taxpayer dollars and wasting valuable time.

The next stage of the project could have been completed by now, with millions of dollars saved, but no, the only hole they’re digging is one for themselves. of February Russell Pearse Ararat