Nursery Industry Statistics 2020 - 21 to 2024-5 (NY21000) project commences

By Gabrielle Stannus
 

Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA), together with Down to Earth Research (DTER) and ACIL Allen, will continue to capture the value and volume of greenlife production in Australia over the next five years through the Nursery Industry Statistics 2020 - 21 to 2024-5 (NY21000) project. The survey of growers will commence on Thursday 28 October and conclude in early December.

NY21000 Nursery Industry Statistics is a five-year data collection project that will capture the value and volume of greenlife production in Australia and provide growers with an interactive business benchmarking tool for each year of the project. Funded by Hort Innovation using nursery research and development levy and funds from the Australian Government, this project follows on from two earlier successful projects: the Nursery Industry Statistics 2017-21 (NY17008) project, and NY16004.

A period of great change

“We are in a period of great change. We have seen growth in the industry over the past three years, as well as changes due to COVID-19,”says Daniel Watson, DTER’s Research Director, “Continuing to collect trend data will provide us with information as to where the industry is at and allow us to capture any changes that may have occurred due to COVID-19, such as stock shortages.”

Capturing greenlife sales data in 2021-22 ensures the impact of COVID-19 disruptions can be tracked and analysed to provide industry and future projects more robust trend data.

Additionally, the first year of this new project is a Census year. Capturing industry data in this census year will provide opportunities to align industry data with the Australian population.

What to expect during the survey period?

DTER continue to manage the collection of primary data ensuring appropriate and consistent collection methodology contributed to continuity of longitudinal data collection and increased survey response rate, while also capturing the metrics in a credible and robust way.

Daniel’s research team will survey a random sample of greenlife production businesses over the next six weeks, commencing on Thursday 28 October and concluding in early December.

Interviewers from Market Metrics will initially contact growers to gather their contact details. During this first call, respondents will be provided with a brief introduction and background to the project. Growers will be asked for their email details and a phone number that they want to be called back on. At that time, the interviewer will also arrange a time to call the grower back that is convenient to them.

After this initial conversation, DTER will send each respondent an email containing the full survey questions, a privacy confidentiality statement, and a summary of outcomes from the Nursery Industry Statistics 2019-20 project.

One to two weeks after this initial contact, DTER will call each grower back to begin extracting business data. On average, each grower pends 1-2 hours collating the required data and twenty minutes on the phone throughout this process.

Who should answer the questionnaire?

Daniel encourages growers to identify in advance the person/s best placed to answer the survey questions. Typically that person needs to be familiar with the business’ financial data, e.g. the owner, Managing Director or Finance Officer.

Business confidentiality assured

When interviews are complete, DTER will ‘de-identify’ and amalgamate all data collected during the survey to ensure that it remains confidential. This work is carried out in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

What’s in it for growers?

ACIL Allen will analyse this de-identified data on nursery industry performance and sentiment to inform the project’s data collection/analysis and data validation, update the Nursery Business and Data Benchmarking Tool, whilst DTER will compile a general report.

The nursery business benchmarking tool provides growers with accurate, reliable and user-friendly industry data to enable them to develop more effective strategic plans, allocate resources more efficiently and track performance over time.

Growers are turning to the nursery business benchmarking tool for better business management, including Engall’s Nursery who have used this tool to compare wage expenditure and to inform business investment.

What’s in it for industry as a whole?

This industry data is also critical for informing decision making, particularly at the highest levels of government. Statistics from the Nursery Industry Statistics 2017-21 (NY17008) project have supported the industry in various ways, including the following examples:

• Supporting the Hort Council and the National Farmers Federation to represent the industry in advocacy efforts with the Federal Government during COVID-19 lockdowns in April 2020.
• Supporting the successful application between GIA with the Australia Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) for $546,000 in National Product Stewardship Investment Funding to establish a national recycling program for horticultural plant packaging¹.