Vegalogue

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The need for good biosecurity practices on farm has been painfully underlined recently, with the incursion of the tomato brown rugose fruit virus in South Australia costing growers millions. But the benefits of good on-farm biosecurity go a lot further than just this kind of rare but high-impact exotic incursion.

Good biosecurity can also address the standard pest and disease pressures growers face every day. It can translate to a higher marketable yield, lower labour requirements, or lower input costs.

We had a chat with Rick Butler of Butler Market Gardens, a grower of spring onions, herbs and Asian vegetables in Melbourne’s southern suburbs, about how he’s addressed their biosecurity risks with some new technology.

Learn more about the projects discussed in this episode: VegWatch, the Vegetable industry biosecurity and business continuity strategy (VG22004)

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The Australian vegetable, potato and onion industry currently faces a range of operating challenges threatening the viability of growers who supply 98 percent of the fresh vegetables bought and consumed in Australia.

Bill Bulmer is a dedicated advocate for vegetable, potato and onion growers, drawing on his experience as a respected third-generation vegetable farmer and owner of Bulmer Farms in Victoria.

He holds the position of Chair of AUSVEG, and is also a member of several committees, including the AUSVEG VIC Executive Committee and the Hort Innovation Vegetable Strategic Investment Advisory Panel.

He joined us on the podcast to recap 2024 and delve into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Australian vegetable industry in 2025.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body, AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vibrant sector.

The Australian supermarket sector is under significant examination, with government reviews focusing on market competition, pricing practices, and consumer protection. These reviews aim to address concerns about the dominance of major supermarket chains and seek to ensure, among other things, fair treatment of suppliers and a more sustainable and equitable supply chain. 

Professor Allan Fels AO is a prominent figure in Australian competition law and consumer advocacy, who has also served as the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

He joined AUSVEG to give his informed views on the recent flurry of attention on the big supermarkets, and the major developments of 2024.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

In the aftermath of any weather event, if you talk to five growers in a given region, you’ll get six different weather reports.

General weather forecasts rarely provide the local accuracy needed to make crucial farming decisions. Recognising that shortcoming is a levy funded project started earlier this year that applies AI to the task of hyper-local weather forecasting.

The project, Using AI and machine learning to improve weather forecasting, is being delivered by Jane’s Weather, a business founded by meteorologist Jane Bunn, who you may recognise as the weather forecaster and presenter at 7NEWS Melbourne.

Jane and her colleague Josh Cross gave growers a run-down of how hyper-local weather forecasting works and what it lets growers do in a recent webinar run by AUSVEG. The webinar and the work presented by Jane's Weather were part of the Building Capacity and Resilience within the NSW Vegetable Industry project.

Learn more about the projects discussed in this episode:

• Using AI and machine learning to improve weather forecasting (AS23005)
• Building Capacity and Resilience within the NSW Vegetable Industry

The Building Capacity and Resilience within the NSW Vegetable Industry project is funded by the Australian and NSW Government’s Storm and Flood Industry Recovery Program with support from AUSVEG. The project is coordinated by Marguerite White of ICD Project Services for AUSVEG.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

With the Australian government pushing for net zero emissions by 2050 and customers, retailers, and financial institutions increasingly wanting information on growers’ emissions, the agriculture sector is at the forefront of the climate change narrative, facing pressure to drive down its emissions.

At the same time, decarbonisation is often seen as a cost burden that creates a trade-off against economic imperatives that drive productivity, profitability, growth and asset building at a time of significant margin squeeze.

The Zero Net Emissions Agriculture Cooperative Research Centre (ZNE-Ag CRC), however, aims to coordinate opportunities to develop, derisk and scale technologies while growing profitable and sustainable farming businesses.

In this episode we speak with Richard Heath, the CEO of ZNE-Ag CRC and a Director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, who says that horticulture makes up just over 1 percent of the total 17 percent that agriculture contributes to Australia's emissions. Much of what we do in horticulture is already well on the way to Australia’s net-zero goals, and Richard explains that the main goal is improving efficiencies and continually building best practices.

Greenhouse gas emissions calculators talked about in the episode:

• Agricultural Innovation Australian Environmental Accounting Platform
• Horticulture Greenhouse Accounting Framework (H-GAF) Calculator

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

With two distinct seasons, the Northern Territory’s vegetable industry has one principal growing window that is ideally placed to meet the needs of Australia’s southern states during their winter.

Most of the NT’s young vegetable industry’s output is sent interstate, which has had a big impact on its structure and crops, but the evolution of Northern Territory horticulture has also been touched by the big South East Asian influence on the territory’s culture and grower community.

AUSVEG’s Deborah Hill had a chat with Mariah Maughan, VegNET Regional Development Officer for the Northern Territory, about the opportunities and unique challenges for vegetable production in the NT.

Learn more about the project discussed in this episode:

• VegNET 3.0 (VG21000)

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

Lean management is an approach that optimises efficiency by minimising waste and maximising value for businesses. It can be applied to a wide range of industries – from construction to agriculture.

In this episode of Vegalogue we have a chat with Simon Drum, Managing Director of PSVC Advisory, about what lean management can add to a horticulture business.

Simon has 25 years of experience in agribusiness value chains, holding senior roles with some of the largest horticulture businesses in Australia. He specialises in using lean principles to transform client businesses into more productive and profitable operations.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The US is the fourth largest onion producer in the world, and harvests more than 12 times the annual onion volume of Australia.

But despite being an order of magnitude larger, the fundamentals in the field are very similar, and pests, diseases and weeds are as much a threat to the US onion industry as they are in Australia.

Managing those threats is impossible without understanding the total 'farmscape' that you operate in, according to Dr Daniel Drost, Professor Emeritus of Horticulture and a former Extension Vegetable Specialist in the Department of Plants, Soils and Climate at Utah State University.

Dr Drost was in Australia to speak to growers as part of a levy-funded onion study tour, and we had a chat with him at the Hort Connections 2024 trade show.

Learn more about the project discussed in this episode:

• Onion international study tours – inbound and outbound (VN22000)

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

This episode is the first of our new Advocacy Editions, where we'll be unpacking the big issues facing the industry with a range of industry experts.

Recent AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Surveys have highlighted persistent challenges for Australian growers, including ongoing workforce shortages and the mounting burden of compliance and regulation.

In this episode of Vegalogue, we speak to Michael Rogers, the recently-appointed Chief Operating Officer of Agri Labour Australia, as we delve into pressing workforce issues, and explore potential paths forward.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

At Hort Connections in Melbourne in early June, 10 of the horticulture industry’s leading lights were recognised with the presentation of the Horticulture Awards for Excellence for 2024.

The winners of these awards have fascinating stories to tell about overcoming challenges to build some of the most successful businesses in the industry, groundbreaking research, or personal stories of lives and careers in the dynamic world of horticulture.

This episode we have a chat with Angelo Lamattina of Victorian carrot grower Rocky Lamattina & Sons, the winner of this year’s Syngenta Grower of the Year award.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AUSVEG and the Australian vegetable industry at ausveg.com.au. Subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Tik Tok.