Australia
July 6, 2012
Today, AUSVEG launched a new website to assist Australian vegetable growers to monitor and improve their environmental performance – www.enviroveg.com.
AUSVEG is the National Peak Industry Body representing Australia’s 9,000 vegetable and potato growers.
The new website was launched at the New South Wales Farmers’ Association in Sydney by Mr John Lloyd, the Chief Executive Officer of Horticulture Australia Ltd and will provide AUSVEG with greater insight into the environmental performance of the industry.
AUSVEG Environment Coordinator Mr Jordan Brooke-Barnett said the new website would bring the Program into the 21st century and provide greater ability for growers to compare environmental performance against their peers.
“The EnviroVeg website gives AUSVEG the ability to analyse the environmental performance of growers in areas such as energy management, water use and soil nutrition,” said Mr Brooke-Barnett.
The EnviroVeg Program was established in 2000, and provides growers with information and tools to allow them to complete an annual self assessment of their environmental performance across nine key areas of their operations.
“Our new website will collect data from the self assessments and present detailed results showing how participating growers are performing at the national and state levels, or even by crop type and farm size,” said Mr Brooke-Barnett.
“Individual growers can then compare their annual score against these averages and put plans in place to improve their environmental performance.”
The EnviroVeg Program has grown rapidly in recent years to over 300 growers, comprising of almost 50,000 hectares of vegetable growing land.
“With environmental issues becoming increasingly prominent and costs of farm inputs such as energy rising, we expect the strong uptake to continue as growers look to use alternative environmentally-friendly methods to reduce their production costs,” said Mr Brooke-Barnett.
The EnviroVeg Program is funded by Horticulture Australia Limited using the National Vegetable Levy and matched funds from the Australian Government.
For further information visit http://ausveg.com.au/enviroveg/programs.htm
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