THE Council of Grain Grower Organisations Limited (COGGO) in Western Australia is offering grants of up to $150,000 over two years for innovative research and development projects aimed at returning benefits to the state's growers. 

Interested parties have one week left to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) application for prospective 2026 projects, which can target any part of the WA grain supply chain. Applications close on Friday 4 July.  

This year, the COGGO Board is especially interested to receive EOI applications for projects that seek to improve the testing of starch quality of cereal grains -improving on the current falling number test. 

Specifically, it is seeking proposals that target either or both:

• A test that is quick to perform at grain receival sites (substantially quicker than the current falling number test)
• Alternative accurate measures/proxies to test for the desired quality characteristics for wheat and barley.

COGGO is open to co-funding a suitable project in conjunction with other organisations or investors interested in addressing these issues.

COGGO chairman, Chris Wilkins, said the organisation has a long history of providing catalytic funding for innovative research and development projects in WA that focus on addressing constraints and improving the profitability and sustainability of growers and the growth of the WA grains industry. 

The COGGO Research Fund has helped finance R&D projects to the value of over $6 million since 2013, with funding of $20,000 to $75,000 per annum available for one to two year projects, to a maximum of $150,000. 

Four projects, commencing this year, received funding through last year's grant process. These include: 

• "Developing high nitrogen use efficiency barley lines" - Sakura Mudiyanselage and Chengdao Li, Murdoch University. 
• "Screening early growth vigour germplasm to enhance the adaptive response to early drought in narrow-leaf lupin" - Gaofeng Zhou, Murdoch University. 
• "Emerging biological crop growth enhancers evaluated in an independent field based format" - Michael Lamond, SLR Agriculture. 
• "Control of cockchafers" - Ben Whisson, ConsultAg. 

HOW TO APPLY 

EOI applications for prospective 2026 projects are available at giwa.org.au/industry-projects/coggo. 

For further enquiries please call (08) 6262 2128 or email [email protected].

The closing date for initial EOI applications is Friday 4 July. Accepted EOIs will be invited to submit a full project proposal for projects ready to commence in 2026.