Australia's prawn farmers have developed a five year R&D plan through rigorous consultation throughout the industry and with other stakeholders, such as R&D providers and funding agencies.

As a result Australian prawn farmers have identified their primary objective from investment in R&D is achieveing growth in an economic and environmentally sustainable manner.

They aim to do this by investing to increase the industries average production from 4t/ha to 8t/ha, increasing the farm gate value of farmed prawns from $14/kg to $16.50/kg whilst continuosly improving environmental management.

The R&D required to underpin achievement of these objectives has been broken down into three programs:
1. Improving domesticated broodstock
2. Improving prawn farm productivity
3. Improving farmed prawn market value

As such industry support for project development is based on both proposed new projects and existing projects contributing to achieveing these objectives.

Within the Seafood CRC industry involvement in project planning and review is considered a must, as is maintenance of the relevance of the R&D strategy. The Executive Officer position will be responsible for achieving this under the direction of the APFA Executive Committee.