Co-operative power can boost bottom-line

This is according to WA Mid-West Horticulture Cluster Group chair, Bao Duy Nguyen, who said working together as a group gave the entire industry more bargaining power.

Mr Nguyen returned to his family farm, Sun City Produce, at Walkaway, in Western Australia three years ago. He soon realised the restrictions on crop rotations, potential oversupply and tightening margins in their low tech greenhouse cucumber production.

The 2017 Nuffield Scholar has since travelled the world looking for the best ways to sustainably develop the horticulture, and chaired the new horticulture cluster group in Geraldton, WA.

“I saw in Spain there was a lot of grower groups that were very efficient in marketing and selling producer for growers. They were buying fertiliser in bulk at a cheaper rate, they had negotiating power as a group –  what our cluster group did was lobby the minister, and we had Department of Agriculture with us, and we were able to negotiate a more sustainable price for our water in the region,” Mr Nguyen said.

In Netherlands groups of growers regularly visit each other’s greenhouses to discuss practices such as energy use and disease, showing it was possible in a saturated market to work together rather than just compete.

Speaking at the Nuffield conference in Melbourne last week, Mr Nguyen said since completing his study he had also done a desktop study of the reuse of waste water in Geraldton, finding it would mean cheaper water long-term, and trialled the uses of fans to reduce humidity in his own greenhouses, resulting in a 10 per cent increase in production.

“Low tech greenhouses are located in areas that already have favourable climate, so any innovation you put to your greenhouses should be justified otherwise your return on investment will be low,” Mr Nguyen said.

“Know your structure, and to help this install data logging sensor system, new management tools cloud based, real time so you can make decisions quite quickly.

“The trend in supermarkets to want one on one relationship with the grower, so high tech greenhouses and investors are applying direct because they have a more quality product with more reliable production. What does this mean in regards to smaller growers when there could be less demand on the market floor?

“I think we are behind in some things and you have to work on disruptive technology or trend  automoation are coming, are we ready to compete on production, quality or sustainability?

“If you have no money for trials, you should be observing your leaders in the field or institutions where low tech greenhouses are, they have a wealth of knowledge.”