A new project is being funded by the nursery levy to collect statistics accurately and in enough detail to help with industry strategic planning and resource prioritisation, follow market trends, and track industry performance over time.

NGIA says it is taking the lead in Nursery Industry Statistics and Research (NY16004) project, using its networks, experience and knowledge as industry representative body to act as a conduit between growers and the project team.

There are two other partners:

• Down to Earth Research, a social and marketing research company with extensive experience in conducting evaluations and surveys, and the application of advanced statistical sampling techniques, data analysis and reporting;
• ACIL Allen Consulting, the largest Australian owned independent, economic, public policy, and public affairs management consulting firm with expertise in data and statistics research and analysis.

The industry body notes that number of previous attempts to collect data have met with mixed results, but have also helped to identify the barriers to participation by those in the nursery supply chain. This project aims to take a different approach that overcomes those challenges.

A combined top-down, bottom-up methodology will simultaneously collect the data to provide an industry snapshot, and prepare the industry to harness the benefits of having this data.

There are three stages:

• Reviewing existing data and methodologies, and consulting with industry about what data is available, how it might be collected, and how it might assist the industry once collected;
• Planning and designing the new approach, then collecting and analysing the data;
• Developing a tool to help with future data collection and analysis.

The project is expected to be completed by November 2017.

Source: NGIA