The second-ever annual report into the financial and production performance of the state’s vegetable growing business continues to shed light on the state of the industry. 
The WA Vegetable Industry Benchmarks Report was produced by vegetablesWA together with Planfarm, with funding from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s Agribusiness Innovation Fund and Hort Innovation.
vegetablesWA Benchmarking Lead Bryn Edwards said the report contains data supplied by growers from 6 of the states 7 vegetable growing regions.
“This builds on the foundation of information we established with last year’s report and is the start of us being able to track industry performance over time,” Mr Edwards said.
“Western Australian vegetable growers achieved an average return on capital of six per-cent in the 2017-2018 financial year”.
“The top 25 per-cent had a return on capital of 15 per-cent while the bottom 25 per-cent had a return on capital of 3 per-cent, highlighting the varied performance of vegetable growers around the state”.
“Importantly, the data in the report showed the vegetable industry can generate great returns comparable with any other industry or investment type.”
Paul Omodei, Director at Planfarm, provided further detail, “Interestingly, the most profitable growers, as measured by vegetable operating profit per hectare, were not those from a particular area, of greater scale or a particular vegetable type, but those that were able to achieve a higher income per hectare while keeping costs as a percentage of income below 65 percent.”
“The key to keeping costs below 65 percent, was controlling labour spend through focused, well organised and efficient workflow processes.”
“The most profitable growers were also focused heavily on vegetable production, allocating 100 per cent of their area to growing vegetables.
Overall, there was a 10% increase in sold vegetable production between 2017-2018 and the two preceding years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
vegetablesWA CEO John Shannon said the report is starting to paint a detailed picture of the operations of vegetable industry, allowing the organisation to more effectively lobby on its behalf.
“This data means we can identify areas of need within the industry so we can focus on those and boost the industry overall.”
Vegetable growers looking to improve their on-farm management and financial reporting should contact vegetablesWA.
To read the full report: https://vegetableswa.com.au/vegetableswa-releases-second-benchmarking-annual-report/
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