The Coalition Government is backing fairer prices for horticulture growers through funding totalling $1.75 million to improve market transparency and bargaining power for the industry.
Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia, David Littleproud, said the funding to ABARES and to an industry consortium led by Fresh Markets Australia is a practical example of the Government’s commitment to addressing price transparency in perishable agricultural goods supply chains.
“The more perishable your goods are, the weaker your position at the bargaining table,” Minister Littleproud said.
“Australian horticulture produces some of the finest produce in the world, and it’s essential that our growers get a fair price in the marketplace.
“A grant of $653,950 provided under the Government’s $5.94 million program to improve market transparency across perishable agricultural goods supply chains, will be provided to Fresh Markets Australia to help develop and build of a web-based application that provides trusted, verifiable, daily updated market data across all fresh fruit and vegetables.
“This will mean that growers can access daily market information online about the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables, and the volume of market sales”
“With this investment the data lifecycle from generation to display will be only 24 hours”
“The provision of this funding is one of the ways the Coalition Government is backing fair, strong and resilient supply chains and putting in place frameworks that ensure everyone is treated fairly and pays their share.”
Fresh Markets Australia General Manager, Ms Gail Woods, said the project will investigate, develop, pilot and implement FreshData a Verifiable Market Price Reporting scheme.
“FreshData will be accessible online, overlaying historical weather and other data to enablethe horticulture supply chain to gauge whether prices received are competitive and to deliver price signals to interpret if there is an under or over supply of produce,” Ms Woods said.
“The project aims to provide growers with information to inform investments in future supply capacity.”
ABARES will conduct a representative survey of apple and pear growers to gain a detailed picture of farm performance with results from the survey to be published on the ABARES website. The study will be undertaken using $1 million from existing funding of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.
“This work will enable a timely publication cost of production, production margins and overall industry profitability to be determined – transparency that will assist all parties to strike a fair bargain,” Minister Littleproud said.
“Understanding an industry’s cost of production is essential to understanding if growers are being treated fairly in the market,”
The funding directly addresses key recommendations made by a recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Inquiry into Perishable Agricultural Goods industries.
Only the Coalition Government has a plan to continue delivering a strong economy and a stronger future for rural and regional Australia.
Fast facts
- The Coalition Government is investing more than $5 million in projects to improve market transparency across perishable agricultural goods supply chains.
- The ACCC inquiry into PAG recommended that governments and industries explore measures to increase price transparency in perishable agricultural goods industries, to increase competition in those industries.
- Workshops were held in late 2021 with the chicken meat, dairy, horticulture, pork, red meat, seafood, and wine grapes sectors, providing opportunities to identify price and market transparency issues and explore tools and processes to address them.
- The Fresh Markets Australia project consortia includes: Brismark, Freshmark, Fresh State, SA Chamber of Fruit & Vegetables, Market West, Brisbane Markets Limited and Perth Markets Group Limited, as well as Horticulture Innovation Australia, who will be providing support to the project.
