World of farming reveals opportunities

THINK of farming in India, and many people may think of rice and spices.
But there is much more to the local agricultural scene, as Nuffield scholar Emma Germano discovered.
The Mirboo North vegetable farmer is now touring the world inspecting agriculture in countries as diverse as Qatar, Turkey, France.
She is researching global export opportunities for vegetables and other primary produce.
Back home, Ms Germano is the business development and operations manager for Germano Produce, a family business supplying cauliflower and cabbage crops for the Australian eastern seaboard fresh market and Woolworths Australia.
“In India we started in the south of the country seeing dairy, coconuts, nutmeg, coffee, banana, poultry, spices and aromatics,” she said.
“In the north we saw sweet corn for export, a fish farm, and met with some Australian Government agencies to discuss joint ventures in research and development.
“We also saw a model of collaborative farming that is being used to help farmers in India living below the poverty line.”
In Qatar, she studied the Australian live export trade in sheep and cattle to the Middle East.
“We visited a slaughterhouse and abattoir with feedlot. We also saw the fish, fruit and vegetable, and livestock markets, as well as a greenhouse growing flowers in the desert,” Ms Germano said.
“We met with Hassad foods to discuss food security for Qatar and the government’s foreign investment abroad. This is something that has huge implications for agriculture in Australia.”
In France, the scholars have learnt about subsidies and how collaborative farming organisations are using precision agriculture to decrease resource usage.
“What I have learnt so far is that we face issues that are the same as agriculture around the world, as well as issues that are unique,” Ms Germano said.
“Succession planning is a big issue in global agriculture, but not as we see it in Australia.
“I have learnt about specific farming methods, though it’s obviously not important to us how to grow coconuts, for example.
What is important though, is looking how to vertically integrate our farming business, how to market our by-products to increase our income and how to secure our markets by value adding.”
Ms Germano will also explore The Netherlands and the United States of America, and has a further eight weeks of personal travel.

Eye opener: Emma Germano tours a Qatari livestock market with English Nuffield scholar Johnny Alvis. No gates are used in the market.

Short URL: /?p=11483

Posted by Sarah Vella on Jul 8 2014. Filed under Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry