By NOEL MURPHY
SENDING clean, green produce to domestic markets and Asia could be a boom industry for the Geelong region, according to Frank Costa.
Southeast Asia’s trend to healthier diets, the Southern Hemisphere’s off-season delivery, a falling Australian dollar and market breakthroughs in China were bolstering Australia’s produce exports, he said.
National efforts to reduce diabetes and improve diets offered opportunities for Geelong domestically as well.
The produce king’s comments followed a story in last week’s Independent that a 4000-hectare intensive agri-business precinct at Lethbridge could generate 800 jobs, $160 million in investment and a $516 million boost in gross value over the next 10 years.
With Geelong’s $10 billion manufacturing sector under siege, Mr Costa said government should back agriculture, horticulture and related industries such as aquaculture, which could capitalise on exporting opportunities through Avalon’s airport.
“Helping exports out of Australia is very important and as the dollar falls back this gives us a really big opportunity in countries like China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia.
“We have export opportunities with citrus fruits, grapes, berries and stone fruits because the north economies are growing stronger every year right across Southeast Asia and more people can afford to buy fresh produce from Australia.”
Mr Costa has argued government assistance to failing car-makers would be better-spent on horticulture, echoing industry anxiety about issues such as research and assistance cuts, ageing farmers, a lack of newcomers to the industry and high business costs.
“These are all issues to be dealt with but, with the dollar dropping and looking like going further, we should get on top of these challenges one by one,” he said.
“Tasmania just made a big breakthrough into China with cherries. This was a huge challenge but China sees Tasmania as extremely clean and green.
“We should take its lead – why shouldn’t mainland growers push into China as well?”
