The institute launched its TasAgFuture survey at its Future Forum in Launceston on Wednesday, asking people to help shape its research.

Project lead and institute research fellow Dr Peat Leith said 100 in-depth interviews had been conducted to help formulate initial views, but 1000 more voices were needed for the survey.

Dr Leith said views were diverse, but some areas needed a common focus, like the value chain.

“In the commodities sector there is a lot of cost-price squeeze, there’s a lot of push to increase efficiency,” Dr Leith said.

“Something we’re reasonably good at doing is working with the agronomy of plant growing and improving that efficiency, but increasingly we’re seeing niche and boutique production going on, especially where properties are smaller and people need to diversify their businesses.”

A new focus on working across the value chain through marketing and food quality has opened up as a result.

“We’re seeing those demands quite clearly. We need to work out how to support these different enterprises that are growing in many different ways,” Dr Leith said.

Tasmanian Agricultural Productivity Group executive officer Terry Brient said competition was not coming from within the state, but from mainland Australia and overseas.

“We’ve got to grow our sector and be as competitive as we can and take the opportunities that are available to us,” Mr Brient said.

Visit www.utas.edu.au/tia/tasagfuture to fill in the survey.