New short course helps farmers with new rural industries
Australian bushfood such as lemon myrtle, new crops such as industrial hemp and enterprises such as ostriches are some of the new rural industries currently enticing Australian farmers with promises of quick cash.
A marketing manual and accompanying two-day short course are providing a money-saving reality check for farmers. The short course and manual have been designed by a group involving many new industry practitioners, brought together by the new crops group at the University of Queensland Gatton College.
New Crops Do Our Own Marketing Research (DOOR Marketing) has been organised by School of Land and Food lecturer Dr Rob Fletcher in response to increasing interest in cultivating new crops.
The DOOR concept was originally initiated in the nursery industry by Dr Mal Hunter, formerly the Horticulture Centre Co-ordinator, Redlands Research Station, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Cleveland. Using DOOR, nursery operators were assisted with carrying out their own research, thus solving their own unique problems.
DOOR Marketing, as the name implies, assists farmers in determining whether a new product is marketable.
The DOOR Marketing manual and workshop help farmers evaluate a chosen product to decide whether it is worth a long-term investment of time and money.
"The course forces farmers to ask the hard questions. Most new crop people regard the new crop as they would their own children and find it hard to evaluate them critically. We guide them through such an evaluation, considering their chosen venture as a business not a hobby," he said.
Dr Fletcher said he was constantly amazed at how some farmers would happily spend $300,000 on buying new equipment for a new crop venture but were reluctant to spend $300 on a course assessing its viability.
The course had so far been held for small farming groups of between 10 and 20 people in Gatton, Lismore, Gympie, Kingaroy and Rockhampton with more planned for Mareeba and Tamworth in the near future.
Dr Fletcher said the course introduced farmers to information networks, marketing strategies and computer tools for predicting production.
"We ask farmers what they enjoy doing. If they have been used to sitting on a tractor all day, trudging up and down muddy rows of native flowers may be an unwelcome change," he said.
The course provided 13 key steps to commercialising a new crop and stressed the importance of benchmarking. "There's no point continuing to pour money in when a new crop clearly is not going to yield expected returns," Dr Fletcher said.
"We're encouraging farming groups to embark on a new approach - we don't control or dominate the process. We introduce them to people who have experience in the area and aim to prevent farmers wasting their money because they didn't make adequate preliminary evaluation."
Dr Fletcher said to date, most participants had found that the specific new crop product they had chosen to target for the course was not worth pursuing any further. However, the manual provided details of the process itself and these participants had been able to follow up other new crop products, he said.
The new crops group at Gatton has produced a listing of around 4500 potential new crops for Australia available for future investigation. It was just a matter of perseverance until the right option was found, Dr Fletcher said.
For more information, contact Dr Fletcher (telephone 07 5460 1311, email r.fletcher@mailbox.uq.edu.au or website http://www.uq.edu.au/~gagkrego/)
