What about an Online Presence for NZFGA?

For some years the NZFGA executive have been aware that a dedicated website is needed for the overall flower industry.

In 2013 the NZFGA undertook to apply for a SFF grant with intent to create a very comprehensive online ‘Flower Portal’ for growers.

There were four parts to the project –

1. Create an informative online resource on technical aspects of Floriculture and provide a register of all downstream and upstream associated businesses.

2. Build on the ‘Floribase’ project to provide a grower register to aid interactions.

3. Assist future planning and investment decisions by growers, by providing them with an online resource of up to date local production and crop export statistics, imported flower volumes and overseas planting trends.

4. Establish an industry presence on social media sites.

The application document was very comprehensive and well prepared. Regrettably this application was not granted funding. There were a large number of applicants for funding in this roundwith significant investment being directed to the ‘Foundation for Arable Research’ mainly to study nitrogen leaching on dairy farms.

The current executive has again been considering an online presence for the NZFGA. Two issues have been influencing the executive – i) The financial cost of establishing a website and ii) the time or monetary cost of keeping it fresh and up to date.

Given these issues the executive have decided against the establishment of a dedicated flower grower’s website and chosen two other options which require minimal expense to set up but will need to be kept fresh.

• First a flower growers face book page and closed group is to be set up using Theo Van Lier as the primary user. The advantage of the group is that it can be a two way discussion. I.e. while the association can post items on the page, growers will be able to post responses if they wish. As NZFGA appreciates that many growers will not be familiar with Facebook; the association will provide detailed instructions for growers to follow. Access to the Facebook group will be for association members only.

• Secondly the association will offer more input towards the information on the floriculture page that already exists as part the ‘Grower News’ website. With good local content this will make it more relevant for NZ flower growers. To make it more directly accessible for growers and anyone wanting information about the NZ flower industry, a search optimisation and possible domain pointer will be put in place to aid visitors to find the association information

To get in touch with the Association with your views contact [email protected]