The recent Hort Connections Conference held in Adelaide this year was a cracking event with a big thumbs up to both the organisers and sponsors.

North Queensland horticultural growers are set to be better supported to achieve their business and financial goals following the announcement of a new partnership between Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers (QFVG) and the Rural Financial Counselling Service North Queensland (RFCSNQ) today. 

Queensland horticultural growers will be able to create, innovate and accelerate their ideas thanks to a new collaboration announced today between Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers (QFVG) and the FNQ Food Incubator.

Last week’s State Budget, while heavily focused on measures to alleviate cost of living pressures, also delivered investment in biosecurity, drought preparedness, water and energy infrastructure and planning.

Last week over 3,000 people in the national horticultural supply chain came together in Adelaide to celebrate, educate, collaborate, innovate, and advocate for an industry which supports umpteen hundreds of thousands of jobs across the nation. I say umpteen as unfortunately no one really knows how many jobs indirectly rely on horticulture, a noticeable lack of data which really inhibits our advocacy efforts.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been fortunate enough to visit two major horticultural regions – connecting with our members and hearing first-hand the issues affecting them.

The Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science has completed their review of flying-fox management regulations for crop protection and have decided to stick to their election commitment to repeal flying-fox management regulations and return to a modern framework of protection.

May is Domestic Violence Prevention Month. This presents an opportunity to start a conversation, a chance to review and revisit internal policies and procedures, as well as an opportunity to invest in DV Alert or Psychological first aid training for staff.

We were repeatedly told not to expect anything for horticulture in this budget, so we readied ourselves for no good news. What we didn’t brace for was the sneaky way the government would go about funding biosecurity.

Central Queensland horticultural growers with an interest in soil health are invited to attend the upcoming Dirt Work shed talks being run by Growcom in June.

For anyone who doesn’t yet understand the value of being a member of an advocacy body such as ours, here is but one example as to its value.

Ashbern Farms has seen their hard work and exceptional organic on-farm practices recognised by Australian Organic, with co-owner Brendon Hoyle being named as the 2022 Australian Organic Farmer of the Year.

Recently, we had to describe horticulture in brief. This is tricky when representing 104 commodities, so we went back to basics. Horticulture is the branch of plant agriculture dealing with garden crops, generally fruits, vegetables, nuts, flowers, turf, and ornamental plants.

The horticulture industry in Queensland is not only made up of a diverse array of commodities but has a number of regional grower groups who each strongly represent their own agendas to further the industry’s progress.  

Christmas eve last year I had a grower call me about a request to supply product during the Christmas period which would have seen them lose a great deal of money as picking, packing, and transporting costs would have all been incurred with public holiday rates.

When we self-proclaimed this year as “The Year of Horticulture” we hoped we would be able to effectively celebrate the work our growers do, educate consumers and advocate to decision makers. We also hoped we could bring some fun and positivity into our industry, an industry which needs to shake off an image problem.

After taking a wrong turn earlier this week, the Easter Bunny has turned up in Queensland’s carrot capital, the Scenic Rim, ready to stake her claim on the 600 million carrots that will be grown later this year. Yep, the region is the carrot capital of the country!

Many are waking up this morning to discover the Easter Bunny has made an early, surprise visit to Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall.

Even for a person usually interested in politics of all kinds, up until last week I hadn’t heard of the Dutch political group – the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). An interesting and highly relevant story, its history, and potentially its future, is one worth following.

Like the Anzac soldier and bronzed surf lifesaver, the farmer holds a special place in the Australian imagination. Through hard work on a harsh and often unforgiving continent, the farmer cultivated and fed a nation. Or so the story goes…