Nursery Industry Statistics 2020-21 to 2024-25 project starting soon

By Peter Vaughn, GIA CEO
 

Horticulture Innovation Australia (Hort Innovation) recently requested proposals from businesses to capture, analyse and deliver nursery industry statistics for the project NY21001 - Nursery Industry Statistics 2020-21 to 2024-25, with applications closing on 31 August. Subject to who Hort Innovation select to do the work, it would be timely to start preparing your key production and financial statistics for the 2020/21 financial year so you can contribute to the continuation of this vital area of work for the industry.

The industry statistics collected for the 2020/21 financial year will be important to assess the impact of COVID-19 on sales in the second half of 2020, or first half of the financial year, as this was a period of great uncertainty, a long period of lockdown in Victoria and sporadic lockdowns in other areas of the country. It will also be useful to compare against Australian census data collect on 10 August 2021.

The aim of the next phase of this project work will be to build on the outputs of Projects NY16004 - Nursery Industry Statistics and Research 2016-17 and NY17008 - Nursery Industry Statistics 2017-18 to 2019-20, to deliver accurate, timely and longitudinal nursery industry statistics, data and other industry metrics. This data will support strategy development, decision making, investment decisions, record keeping, business management capability and sustainable management capability for nursery businesses and industry leaders. Both NY16004 and NY17008 were conducted very successfully in partnership by Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA),and its predecessor Nursery & Garden Industry Australia, Down to Earth Research (DTER) and ACIL Allen.

The Nursery Industry Strategic Investment Advisory Panel (SIAP) provided support to continue the nursery industry data collection and to conduct it over multiple years to enable continuity and validation of data. This new project, to capture industry statistics for the next five years, will address the key recommendations and build on the approach and methodology of NY17008.

The new project has identified the following information to be collected and disseminated over the life of the project on an annual basis:

• Volume of nursery greenlife products sold (including trends where possible) to the final destination across supply chains
• Nursery gate value of greenlife nursery products grown and sold to the final destination
• Total production area used for greenlife production in Australia (indoor and outdoor)
• Total number of greenlife production nurseries and employees in Australia by employment type
• Business turnover (revenue) and operating costs (including inputs, wages, utilities, rent)
• Business investment (e.g. infrastructure/technology), current sentiment and future industry confidence

The project is directly aligned and will contribute to Outcome 4: Business insights in the new Nursery Industry Strategic Investment Plan 2022-2026.  Specifically, it will provide the data and insights to:

• Measure industry supply (production) to support decision making
• Support the industry to remain aware of market, industry and operating environment trends to drive informed decision making
• Understand current and emerging trends
• To review and refine the nursery business benchmarking tool to support addressing cost of production, productivity and turnover metrics.