Growcom CEO, Pat Hannan, Growcom Chief Advocate, Rachel Mackenzie and Growcom Board Director Les Williams attended as Chairman of the Queensland Horticultural Council. The Council was formed late last year to represent the key regional growing organisations throughout Queensland and to voice common issues identified across horticulture.

“We are naturally pleased that Minister Donaldson comes from a major horticultural region and is already well across the fact that horticulture is Queensland’s second largest primary industry at farm-gate, worth $2.7 billion a year to the Queensland economy – and rapidly growing,” Hannan said. “We called on her to become horticulture’s Champion at the Cabinet table to ensure that impediments to horticulture’s development are removed.

“At the meeting we raised our key issues of concern for the industry’s development which includes energy pricing, biosecurity issues, water pricing and access, relationships with the supply chain and labour challenges. We expressed our concern at the attrition of technical skills within the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and called for increased funding for plant biosecurity within the Department. We passed our submission for the Biosecurity Capability Review direct to the Minister.

“We recognise that there is a clear role for DAF in research and development with an increasing role for industry extension through such mechanisms as horticulture’s Best Management Practice program, Hort360. We offered to prepare a showcase of the successes achieved by our BMP program, in conjunction with other agricultural industries such as sugar and cotton, which also have these programs in place.

“We talked about the importance of our partnership with the Queensland Government with the formation of the new Queensland Agriculture Workforce Network to make it easier for agricultural employers in rural Queensland to find the workers they need by being well informed about local employment and training options from industry-based officers.

“We also discussed Growcom’s potential role in working with government to increase the industry’s capacity and orientation towards export.

“We raised our frustration at energy pricing, a major issue for most growers running irrigation and cold rooms to produce their crops, and how governments have appeared to handball the issue from one department to another in the past.

“We mentioned the roles of our Board Director, Derek Lightfoot on the Biosecurity Ministerial Council and of myself as Queensland Farmers’ Federation’s representative on the Queensland Ministerial Freight Council (MFC) which aims to facilitate communication and consultation between industry and the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR).”

Growcom thanked the Minister for setting up the meeting and her willingness to listen to industry.