Australian almond industry - liaison and extension project (AL07008)

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Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.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?

The almond industry of Australia has recently undergone rapid expansion with planted hectares and production increasing from 4,595 hectares and 8,500 tonnes in 2000 to 27,300 hectares and 26,000 tonnes in 2008. Due to the recent expansion of the industry and the requirement to inform and empower the industry to make better business decisions - the Almond Board of Australia (ABA) employed an Industry Liaison Manager (ILM) and undertook the Australian Almond Industry Liaison and Extension project (Project AL07008).

The key outcomes of the project were:

• The delivery and technology transfer of the results and findings of the industry’s recent and continuing major research projects; “Sustainable Optimisation of Australian Almond Production” (Projects AL01001, AL04009a, AL05002, AL06004, AL07003 and AL07005), “Economics of Almond Production in Southern Australia” (Project AL06008), “Angle Vale Leaf Tatter” (Project AL07006), “Improving the Management of Almond and Prune Rust” (Project AL06007), “Australian Almond Breeding Program Stage 2 – Secondary Evaluation” (AL08000) and “Enhancing Pollination Efficiency” (AL06003)
• Provide relevant material, resources and communications to enable continual industry development.

Field days, workshops, grower meetings, website updates, fact sheets, excel database management programs, regular email circulars, industry conference presentations, the provision of useful published research articles and website links regarding various almond production and management issues were all used to achieve the key outcomes.

In order to assess the success of the industry development outcomes and to receive recommendations for the future direction of this project a consultant was employed to undertake an Industry Development Needs Assessment (IDNA). A few of the key outcomes of this assessment were:

• A new project application to be for a period of five years
• That it be structured to grow over that period as the need for Industry Development services grows
• The ABA to be the contracting body for the project
• Adequate resources (both staff and financial) are to be allocated to the project
• For all future almond R&D projects, the contract should clearly stipulate that the research provider not be required to separately undertake technology transfer/extension; but that they should work closely with the ABA to incorporate their project outcomes.