This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

In June 2004, Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers Ltd (now trading as Growcom) and Hort Innovation (Horticulture Australia Limited) retained the services of CDI Pinnacle Management to undertake a research and policy development project pertaining to the Queensland horticultural value chain.

In broad terms the project sought to:

• Develop a snapshot of the major drivers pertaining to the food industry, especially horticulture that are occurring globally.
• Gain a detailed understanding of the structures and issues influencing value chain participants beyond the farm gate in Australian horticulture.
• Identify the knowledge of and issues influencing Queensland horticultural producers and their attitudes/ actions/ relationships with the remainder of the value chain.
• Identify and discuss models and methods of doing business that may occur across the whole chain.
• Discuss and provide recommendations for actions that organisations such as Growcom and the then Horticulture Australia Limited may or should provide to the horticultural production sector in order for it to be better prepared for future change.

A grower survey was conducted in order to evaluate what were the business practices engaged in by producers with others in the chain at the time, issues associated with these relationships and how in the opinion of producers others: may have been able to assist them become better or more effective chain 'performers'. 

These findings were 'benchmarked' with research undertaken about how international value chains are performing and secondarily with how others in the value chain within Australia viewed the production sector.

From these "three angles" a series of recommendations were developed about how the production sector of Queensland (and Australian) horticulture may have been provided with a framework to develop the skills, experience, ,confidence and structures necessary to become:

• Strong and valued contributors to Australian (and horticultural) value chains. 
• Internationally competitive members of the global horticultural industry