Hort Connections inspires VegNET Gippsland
Our VegNET Regional Development Officer Bonnie Dawson recently joined around 2000 horticulture industry colleagues at Hort Connections in Brisbane, the first time that people from all over Australia were able to attend since 2019.
Bonnie connected with her fellow RDO’s and the AUSVEG Team, spending plenty of time sharing information, planning future initiatives, looking at ways to best deliver value to growers and collaborate more across regions.
Inside the extensive trade show at Hort Connections
It was a great opportunity to catch up with growers off farm and Bonnie had some valuable discussions about working towards a better workforce culture together, and how the VegNET program can support growers to achieve this.
With consumers more interested than ever before in how their food is grown and where it comes from, there were some enthusiastic conversations about generally elevating the profile of fresh produce, and helping people understand how and why there is so much variety to choose from in Australia. An important part of this discussion was how to best explain the multiple stages of planning, consideration and decision making that goes into a crop before the seed even goes into the ground.
For Gippsland specifically, the story telling and the communication has the potential to take on another angle by working with growers and processors to incorporate a provenance story into the fresh produce they are dispatching to various locations around the country every day. Where possible, this could be achieved in a visual sense by incorporating the Gippsland Trusted Provenance (GTP) brand into packaging and labelling, backed up by promotional support from Food & Fibre Gippsland as the custodians of the GTP program.
With agtech, biosecurity and Integrated Pest Management key areas of focus for VegNET, attending Hort Connections gave Bonnie some fresh inspiration for activities, workshops, field trips and practical demonstrations for the months ahead.
“Seeing so many people I’ve only ever met online over the last few years was really valuable - nothing beats face to face conversation for ideas to flow and collaboration opportunities to become much clearer - I’m excited about our VegNET plans and what’s in the pipeline for the next 12 months to support growers and continue to help strengthen the industry”.
AUSVEG President Bill Bulmer speaks at the Gala Dinner
Bonnie works with growers all over Gippsland to provide opportunities to explore and trial new technologies and practices, access relevant research and connect to other locally available resources and programs, all aimed at improving the productivity, profitability and competitiveness of their business.
