The most important industry in the world is horticulture. Not convinced? Name one industry that doesn't rely on a workforce who needs to eat a range of fruit, vegetables and nuts to stay alive?
Horticulture provides jobs which include scientists, bankers, managers, supervisors, machinery operators, machinery sales, pickers, packers, agronomists, food tech specialists, quality assurance, administration, mechanics and marketers to name just a few. The freight supply chain for horticulture alone employs 57,000 Australians and horticulture also serves as the foundation of the 57,000 restaurants and cafes we have across the country.
Horticulture is a pretty big deal. Aside from farm gate value, the number of indirect jobs that support various economies throughout the country cannot be underestimated, but often is.
Given our current labour market, there has never been a better time to come together to discuss the state of workplace relations in Australian horticulture. Last week, Fair Farms, our industry owned program designed to help growers improve their compliance with workplace laws, while also demonstrating their commitment to treating workers in fair, safe, ethical and responsible manner, held our first conference.
Social compliance is a relatively new development, making an appearance in the past decade. From what we now know, given our labour market, it is now gearing up considerably with one retailer going from two people employed in this area to 12 over the past year.
Growers, retailers, auditors, politicians and peak bodies came together to try to work through various sticking points. As topics such as audit fees, red tape, consumer demands, global pressures, lack of labour and compounded compliance were discussed, it was important to acknowledge that although we may have come from various viewpoints on the topic, fundamentally there were two things we could all agree on.
- Australia's horticultural industry must have a reliable workforce.
- The reputation of the horticultural industry must be improved.
Because one relies on the other.
It was for these very reasons Fair Farms was developed by Queensland's peak industry body, Growcom. It is the only Australia-wide training and certification program for fair, safe and ethical employment practices on farm.
A grower perspective from the conference was this: It is a shame that growers who do everything right have to prove their behaviour with a certificate of audit. It's an added burden and cost that we could all do without. But it's an even greater shame that the few growers who don't do things right, spoil the reputation of all those who do. These growers detract from our workforce and unfairly price their produce; it's not a level playing field. These growers forced us into this space, and they need to be forced out. We need to reboot the reputation of horticulture.
A harsh but true reality.
