A referendum opened about a month ago with postal and online votes closing at noon on August 23.
Referendums are usually a foregone conclusion for industry bodies and are guided by legislation with arable growers voting to renew levy orders every six years.
The odd curve ball, however, can be thrown — such as the reshaping of Meat & Wool New Zealand into Beef+Lamb NZ after farmers rejected wool investment in the 2009 referendum.
In contrast, grower support of the arable body appears strong.
FAR chief executive Dr Alison Stewart said a "strong positive" result was needed.
"We are hopeful that of all that value we have been bringing for the last 25 years the growers will still see the value of continuing on and give us a positive outcome in the referendum."
She was encouraging them to vote in the referendum on the future of the levy-funded research organisation.
A negative outcome would have consequences, she said.
"I guess we wouldn’t have $10 million worth of research and extension work going on for arable crops. We wouldn’t have any biosecurity readiness and response activity, and so that would mean the risk of an arable disease coming in and establishing would be much higher. There would be no science-based input into how government policy may impact on the arable sector."
Dr Stewart said there would also be no independent evaluation of new tools and technology.
FAR provides growers with a 2:1 return on investment of their levy money from $5.7m collected last year and leveraged by another $5.6m in funding from government, agricultural trusts, industry and commercial companies.
An average of 80 to 90 research projects are carried out each year, with at least 75% of each crop levy going back into crop-specific research and development and the other 25% going towards generic or pan-sector research activities.
