The five-year benchmarking program will enable growers to identify opportunities to transform their enterprises and bolster the nation’s food supply.
Delivered through Hort Innovation and led by agricultural consulting firms Planfarm and RMCG, the program will provide vegetable and onion growers with the ability to benchmark their business against national and regional benchmarking data.
This will enable growers to track their own performance against industry averages and ‘best-in-class’ performance, providing the catalyst for positive practice change and farm business growth.
Hort Innovation chief executive officer Brett Fifield said the program would work with growers and industry to deliver a program that addressed the notion that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”.
“This exciting initiative will build an unparalleled level of farm data to give growers more confidence to make changes and improvements within their operations,” Mr Fifield said.
“Providing aggregated national benchmarks will enhance the financial and business literacy of vegetable and onion growers across the country.”
Mr Fifield said the program would involve benchmarking experts working closely with growers to track their production and map out opportunities for improvement in their businesses.
AUSVEG chief executive officer Michael Coote said the initiative would enhance the resilience of the vegetable industry by providing clear and effective measures of success.
“This initiative will give growers a mechanism to evaluate their business’s performance compared to others based on their specific crop type and location,” Mr Coote said.
“The data will also provide insights to the industry as a whole, so that we can identify areas to invest more heavily in to enhance our competitiveness and unlock a more prosperous future.”
The program was launched at the annual Hort Connections event in Adelaide from June 5 to 7.