Presidents Report - Meeting with Minister Littleproud

I am meeting with Minister Littleproud, the Federal Minister for Agriculture, in the next couple of weeks.  Although GIA had regular contact with his Department over the last year during the COVID crisis, this will be the first face to face meeting in some time.  These meetings with Ministers and the primary staff are incredibly important in updating key decision makers on the matters that are impacting on an increasingly diverse industry.  Biosecurity and a national growers register will be our top priorities for discussion.  I will update you in my next report on the results of the meeting.

Recently, GIA reviewed the Hort Innovation Sustainability Framework.  Hort Innovation has worked with Australian horticulture’s industries and stakeholders to develop this framework for understanding and measuring the sustainability of Australian-grown horticultural production and setting goals for the future.

The Australian-grown Horticulture Sustainability Framework has identified seventeen topics that stakeholders consider significant to the environmental, social and economic sustainability of production of fruits, vegetables, nuts and amenity horticulture in Australia.

These topics were clustered into four pillars:

• People & Enterprise.   People & Enterprise identifies the strong links between the people, enterprises, communities and economic value of Australian grown horticulture.
• Nourish & Nurture.  Nourish & Nurture recognises the role of Australian horticultural produce in improving diets, health and well-being by providing safe, quality food and greenlife.
• Planet & Resources.   Planet & Resources focusses on reducing any impacts on the natural environment and on the dependence of horticultural production on resources, biosecurity and resilience to climatic variability.
• Less waste is about reducing all forms of waste in horticultural production.

As the title suggests, this a framework that can be adopted by our industry.  The next step is for the GIA Sustainability Committee to develop an action plan and set achievable goals.  More to follow!!