Functional Grains Centre PhD candidate Ms Rachael Wood was recently invited to be part of an event at Parliament House in Canberra hosted by SunRice. Her report is below.

The theme of the night was to showcase that SunRice is not just a commodity trader but also adds value to the product.

SunRice Chairman Mr Laurie Arthur and Chief Executive Mr Rob Gordon addressed the crowd of rice growers, Members of Parliament and industry officials.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, the Hon. Mr Barnaby Joyce MP and Shadow Minister for Rural and Regional Australia, the Hon. Mr Joel Fitzgibbon MP attended the event to speak about their support for the rice industry expanding into new export markets.

The menu showcased Australian rice and one popular dish was duck breast on a bed of rice. Most growers found this a quite ironic as ducks are a significant pest for the industry.

Growers and industry officials were encouraged to network with political staff demonstrating that the Australian rice industry makes an important contribution to the country’s export economy and supports local jobs in regional NSW.

I had the opportunity to speak with both Mr Arthur and Mr Gordon about my research and the exciting work that the Functional Grains Centre is currently producing that has the potential to value-add to rice products. Mr Arthur even suggested that I could work for SunRice in South East Asia in the future - fingers crossed he remembers the conversation in a couple of years.