How do you solve labour shortages, increase the reverence of farming and improve the GDP? If you were a member of the audience at the Rural Press club last week, you would have heard the answer eloquently delivered by Anthony Lee, CEO of Australian Country Choice.

Great things are happening in the North of our great State, and from all the talk at the FNQ Growers Field Day held in Mareeba last week, even greater things are just around the corner.

So much more than a vital pizza topping, a delicious snack, or an accompaniment to a holiday cocktail, pineapples have been a mainstay of Queensland’s horticulture industry for over 100 years. For the year ending June 2021, 71,084 tonne of pineapple was produced in Australia, at a value of $46.8 million. Of that, 34 percent was sent to be processed, 66 percent was sent to the fresh market, and almost all of it was grown here in Queensland.

Resilience. Is anyone else feeling the pain? I would love to do a word count on how many times the word resilience has been used in news articles, grant programs and political speeches over the past decade.

I have been part of many meetings, programs and projects whose purpose was to ‘build resilience’, and Growcom of course has a resilience focus currently, and I’d dare say into the future.

When growers supplying retailers are being asked to jump over ever higher packaging, quality and other hurdles, can we not expect better treatment at the negotiating table?

The new Albanese Government would be excused for thinking they’ve caught the rough end of pineapple in terms of their timing coming into office.

Samboy, Thins, Kettle Chips and Natural Chip Company; the snacks that go crunch in your mouth and keep you coming back for more.

This week I am excited and honoured to be starting as the new Chief Executive Officer at Growcom, a peak industry body with a long and proud tradition of representing the interests of Queensland’s fruit, vegetable and nut industries.

After an extensive recruitment process, peak industry body for Queensland horticulture, Growcom is pleased to announce the appointment of Rachel Chambers to the role of Chief Executive Officer.

Had you asked Lachlan and Annaleise Donovan 25 years ago if they’d be running a thriving horticulture enterprise employing over 100 people, forging export opportunities, and managing ten avocado orchards, they might have laughed you out the door.

Granite Belt farming enterprise, Taylor Family Produce, has been growing vegetables in Queensland for over a century. Today the business grows iceberg and cos lettuce, celery, silverbeet, wombok cabbage and cauliflower across 344 hectares of land spanning two locations.

Bellenden Ker exotic tropical fruit grower, Josh Maunder is forging a new direction for the industry investigating improved methods of production centered around cyclone resilience, production capacity and profitability.

The Australian pineapple industry is taking a proactive approach to improving environmental outcomes and enterprise sustainability with a number of industry-led research and development trials currently underway across the state.