by Pete Barrowclough, President HGANZ
In July 2023, Lincoln Agritech Ltd, of which I was CEO at the time, came across a request for Expressions Of Interest (EOI) to provide hazelnut research to the Australian hazelnut industry. This EOI was sent out by Agrifutures Australia which is a Rural Development Corporation. This EOI was open to all Australian and New Zealand research organisations. Lincoln Agritech Ltd submitted an EOI on the basis of its expertise in precision (sometimes called digital) agriculture. We were invited to a two day workshop at Albury on the border of NSW and Victoria. Dr Armin Werner and I attended the workshop. Around 15 Australian research providers also attended the workshop including universities, and state research organisations. Basil Baldwin was also there, who is seen as a guru for the Australian industry, having completed his PhD many years ago on Hazelnut growing (a link to his thesis is provided later in this Newsletter). He is Australia’s version of our own Murray Redpath. The workshop was broken up into themes that had been prioritized from the Australian Hazelnut 2030 Strategic Blueprint prepared in May 2022 (see link below), and research providers expressed interest in the themes that they could provide expertise for. The themes were:
- Promote efficient and sustainable production systems
- Benchmarking (improve systems through technology transfer and innovation)
- Build a vibrant and profitable hazelnut industry (explore and develop methods, processes or technologies; technology transfer).
One of the useful connections I had was the personal relationship I had developed with the executive officer of Hazelnut Growers of Australia (HGA), Trevor Ranford. Trevor knew me from zoom calls that we had had between the Hazelnut growers of Australia governance committee and the HGANZ governance committee. I was also the only person in the room from the research community that was a hazelnut grower. It was an interesting two days with much discussion about what the research priorities should be and who was best to provide the research. Agrifutures was putting up A$2,000,000 in total over five years for the research program. That sounds like a lot of money compared to the resources that the HGANZ have in New Zealand but in the research world it’s a modest amount to answer all of the questions the industry has to solve. However it’s a good start and a positive step by the Australian Federal Government.
We returned to New Zealand comfortable that we had something to offer the Australian industry and that research carried out by Lincoln Agritech for the Australians would also have value to the New Zealand hazelnut industry. Trevor was very supportive of our presence there and was keen to seek collaboration between the New Zealand and Australian hazelnut industries. However it was made clear that if Lincoln Agritech were to secure any Australian funding for research, the research needed to be conducted in Australia and not New Zealand, which is fair enough.
At the end of the workshop we were accepted into theme 1 which was led by the Department of Primary Industries for NSW. We then submitted some detailed proposals and subsequently received information that our proposal had been accepted and that we would get funding to conduct research on accurately measuring flowers and nuts, and to understand flower-to-nut conversion rates. It is hoped growers could use this information to make management decisions to improve the conversion rate in Australia, and thus eventually in New Zealand as well. Lincoln Agritech’s Dr Armin Werner and Dr Jeffrey Hsaio (Machine vision scientist) are now preparing detailed work plans to undertake this research. The research will be owned by HGA but I am hopeful that with the good relationship that we have with Trevor Ranford they may be willing to share the results with New Zealand growers. The opportunity now exists for HGANZ to secure some funding from New Zealand agencies to conduct similar research on New Zealand orchards so that both sides of the Tasman can benefit from the synergies that this would bring.
While I was in Australia I took the opportunity to visit a grower and processor north of Melbourne, Ben Barrow of Carboor Farms. Ben had around 11,000 trees and a large processing plant (see photos).
Interestingly, one of the issues that was of discussion at the time in Albury was how the Australian Hazelnut industry should cope with climate change and increasingly hot temperatures. Subsequently it was announced in November 2023 that Ferrero was pulling out of its $70 million investment in Hazelnut production in Australia because they were having production problems due to heat stress.
agrifutures.com.au/product/australian-hazelnut-2030-strategic-blueprint/
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