Australia: Focus on Horticulture

Australia’s extensive horticulture industry includes fruit, vegetables, nuts, flowers, turf, and nursery products. “Our industry showcases mainly small-scale family farms, however, there is a growing trend towards medium to larger scale operations,” says Alex Livingstone, chief executive officer of Growcom, an independent organization that provides services to help members, clients and partners achieve greater success in the Queensland horticulture industry.

According to Livingstone, Queensland grows one-third of Australia’s produce. Horticulture is Queensland’s second largest primary industry, worth more than an estimated AU$2.75 billion in financial year 2013-2014 (July 1-June 30) and employing about 25,000 people. Queensland’s 2,500 horticultural farms produce more than 120 types of fruit and vegetables and are credited with the majority of Australia’s banana, pineapple, mango, mandarin, avocado, beetroot, and fresh tomato production.

The Queensland Department of Agriculture estimates the value of the State’s fruit and nut production at about AU$1.3 billion in 2012-13 and for the same year, the gross value of vegetable production is forecast at AU$1.12 billion.

In 2011-12, Australian horticulture had a gross value of production of AU$8.700 billion, ranking third behind the meat and grain industries. For the major product groups, fruit and nuts, and then vegetables, gross value of production in 2011-12 was AU$4.09 billion and AU$3.338 billion, respectively, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australia has a trade surplus in fresh vegetables; that is, the value of exports exceeds the value of imports. However, because of high imports in the processed, frozen, and other sectors, overall Australia had a trade deficit in 2011-12 for fresh and processed fruit, nuts, and vegetables of AU$863 million. In 2011-12 Australia exported AU$1.239 billion of fresh and processed fruit, nuts, and vegetables.

Export of fresh Australian produce, particularly fruit, is limited by quarantine restrictions in a number of countries including Japan, the U.S., mainland China, South Korea, and Taiwan.

In 2011-12 Australia imported AU$2.102 billion of fresh and processed fruit, nuts, and vegetables. A wide range of fresh produce is prohibited from entering Australia on the basis of quarantine restrictions.

Horticulture Issues

According to Livingstone, considerable confusion and uncertainty has existed throughout the Australian horticulture industry in the past with regard to some of the technical aspects of on-farm food safety. “This was exacerbated by the number of food safety/quality assurance standards and audit checklists that growers of fresh produce had to face,” he says.

As a result of these issues, produce stakeholders developed Freshcare, which is the largest Australian on-farm assurance program for fresh produce, providing food safety and quality and environmental certification services to more than 5,000 participating businesses nationwide.

“Freshcare has become the industry standard for food safety in the fresh produce sector,” Livingstone relates, “both for supply through the produce markets in the capital cities, and for direct supply to some of our major retailers. However, whilst Freshcare is widely accepted for indirect supply, one of our major retailers still has their own food safety standard, and others only accept international food safety standards, benchmarked to the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). Certification under one scheme does not lead to certification under the other. Hence, some producers have to comply with three or more food safety standards. In addition, the food service industry, including McDonalds, for example, has a separate system again.”

The foundations of the Freshcare Program are user-friendly Codes of Practice and detailed training support materials, says Clare Hamilton-Bate, executive officer of Freshcare Limited. “The Freshcare Codes describe the practices required on farm to provide an assurance that fresh produce is safe to eat, has been prepared to customer specifications and legislative requirements, and has been grown with care for the environment,” she explains.