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Home > About Horticulture > Introduction
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About Horticulture
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Horticulture is the fastest growing agricultural industry in Australia with a gross value of production (GVP) of $6.9 billion, $0.8 billion of which is exported. Over the past 10 years Australian horticulture has been a growth sector of the Australian economy, with the GVP growing 6.6% and production at 1.2% per annum. Over the past 6 years the sector has employed an average of 108,000 annually, which is 1.1% of national employment and is the equivalent of 25% of agricultural employment in Australia (HAL White Paper, 2005). The horticultural industry is thus a major employer with 1 in 4 agricultural employees in horticulture throughout Australia. Furthermore, two thirds of horticulture’s value is generated in regional Australia, where 71,600 of the sectors 108,000 workers are employed.
The horticulture sector is the second largest sector within Australian agriculture, being slightly less than the grains industry, but well above the combined average contributions of the wool and dairy industries (HAL White Paper, 2005).
Horticulture is diverse incorporating 140 commodities; including industry such as vegetables, fruit, nuts, nursery, turf, cut flowers and extractive crops. Table and dried grapes, but not wine, are also part of the sector.
“Horticulture is also geographically diverse – with horticultural commodities undertaken in almost all 56 catchment areas across Australia (see Figure 1 for catchment boundaries).”
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Figure 1: Map of Australia broken down by Natural Resource Management (NRM) Region Boundaries (Source: Australian Government) (click to enlarge).
The major growing areas for edible horticulture include the Goulburn Valley of Victoria; the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of New South Wales; the Sunraysia district of Victoria/NSW; the Riverland region of South Australia; northern Tasmania; southwest Western Australia and the coastal strip of both northern New South Wales and Queensland. Nursery and turf production generally occurs within or close to the capital cities and regional centres.
Banana, pineapple, mandarin, avocado, mango and fresh tomato production is concentrated in Queensland; stonefruit and oranges in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia; processing potatoes in Tasmania; fresh pears, canning fruit and processing tomatoes in Victoria; and apples and fresh vegetables in all states.
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Productive capacity
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The two largest product sectors of horticulture, fruit and vegetables have generally achieved increasing GVPs since 1999-00. The fruit GVP increased every year apart from 2003-04 which followed a severe drought. The vegetable GVP has been more variable and vulnerable to droughts. It has also experienced a significant market downturn for processing vegetables.
Since 2000-01, the main constraint on the industry’s productive capacity has been climate variability and the impact of two severe droughts in quick succession on production and farm profitability. Low water availability from natural rainfall and restricted irrigation water allocations have been the key production-limiting factors.
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