AU: Funds needed to expand fruitful research
Horticulture Australia (HAL) is the national body for co-ordinating research and development funding and activity for fruits, vegetables, nuts, nursery plants, cut flowers, turf production and extractive crops.
For 2014 to 2015, HAL is particularly interested in proposals on pollination and bee health, robotics, orchard improvements and productivity gains, trade and market access, protected cropping (hydroponics and glasshouses), national breeding programs and industry leadership and education.
Those alone should be more than enough to blot up all the cash allocated. HAL has provided up to $1 million annually over a five-year stretch for co-investment proposals – that is, top-up funds to supplement previous investment expenditures or leverage on previous research results or progress.
Asian interest
Asia's expanding middle class is interested in many of the items targeted for the HAL research.
This can encourage more intensive agricultural activity, with strong growth prospects and the ability to deliver economic benefits and employment over a wide stretch of regional Australia.
Richard Colbeck, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, was given a specific example in February when he unveiled a $1.8 million factory upgrade in north-west Tasmania for the Field Fresh onion factory at Forth.
Field Fresh, which handles about 20 per cent of Australia's onions, added new pre-cleaning equipment, a multi-screen grading line and new toppers to cut the burgeoning tops off onions.
Senator Colbeck took the opportunity to reiterate that the federal government supported a "vibrant, innovative and competitive agriculture sector and believes agriculture has a place as one of the five pillars of the Australian economy".
Source: stockjournal.com.au