AGWA invites more submissions for five-year Strategic Plan

The Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA) is consulting widely to develop its new five-year Strategic Plan, and all members of the Australian wine community are invited to make their views known.

In December 2014, AGWA released a paper to stimulate discussion with grape and wine levy payers about its proposed strategic priorities.

AGWA Chair Brian Walsh said, 'We genuinely believe that we have the geography, geology, climate and people to be recognised internationally as the world’s pre-eminent wine producing country in the long-term. The alignment of our RD&E capability with our market development resources will support our two strategic priorities of increasing demand and the premium paid for Australian wine and increasing the sector’s competitiveness.'

Since the release of the discussion paper, numerous meetings and workshops have been held to hear the grape and wine community’s views and, in coming weeks, AGWA will be meeting with more key stakeholders, including Wine Grape Growers Australia, the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, Riverland Wine, Murray Valley Winegrowers and the Riverina Wine Grapes Marketing Board.

'We are really encouraged by the level of interest from our levy payers and the broader wine community and the support we’ve received for our two proposed strategic priorities thus far. Equally important are the many new ideas that have emerged from our discussions and workshops around opportunities to align activities within the strategic framework.  A 5-year plan is our duty, a 30 year plan is our ambition – to help create an environment of sustained prosperity,' Brian said.

As well as making their views known to either their peak representative organisations—Wine Grape Growers Australia (WGGA) and Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) – levy payers are encouraged to provide written submissions by 20 February 2015. 

The five-year Strategic Plan will be submitted to the Minister for Agriculture by 30 April 2015.