About the Building Horticulture Business Capacity Program

There is currently a great opportunity for horticulture businesses owners across WA to participate in the Building Horticulture Business Capacity Program, which is directly focused on supporting growers to increase their business profitability, resilience and longer-term sustainability.

Participants will work closely with an expert farm consultant during the program who will help you to take your business and financial management to the next level and measure the progress along the way.

This will assist you to make more informed decisions where it counts and remove some of the unnecessary stress while building a more resilient business.

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Everything you need to know

Why would I want to participate?

The environment in which growers operate is one marked with increasing complexity, competition and a rapid pace of execution and change. Most growers are challenged by:

  • Suppliers raising input prices to a point that the market can bear
  • Rise of influence of supermarket chains on the access to consumers and the increased demands they place on their grower suppliers in terms of price and administration
  • Variability and lack of transparency of market prices
  • Impacts of COVID on labour supply
  • Greater levels of bureaucracy and restriction to access finance since the Royal Commission
  • Increased levels of compliance administration
  • Increased competition from interstate and overseas
  • Changes to water allocations

All of these have occurred and increased incrementally over time – bit by bit – which continually challenge and stress margins and profits.

Also, suppliers, supermarket chains, market agents and financial institutions have all advanced their business management practices and have access to greater levels of detailed information and data that put the majority of individual horticulture business owners at a significant disadvantage in transactions.

This program will help you meet these challenges and close this gap.

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So what actually happens?

To start with we will sit down and talk with you about your business and financial management practises to understand where you’re currently at.

Then we will conduct a detailed business performance analysis to understand how your business is performing. This will show you how your business is tracking against key profitability and asset growth metrics, pinpointing focus areas for greater revenue and margins. It will also give you an idea of how your business is performing against industry benchmarks.

Then we will sit down together again with you to understand the findings of the business analysis that are contained in your final report. From this we will identify what changes you can make within your business to increase your profitability and grow your assets. We will look strategically into the future as well as tactically at the here and now.

There will also be further opportunities to participate in other development and networking events with like-minded growers throughout the program.

This process will be repeated over the duration of your involvement so you can track the progress of the changes you make to your business and financial management practices and see the progress within your business – this about building sustainable practise change towards resilience not a one-off.

By participating in the program, you provide yourself with a rare opportunity of taking an honest and thorough look at your business with the assistance of an independent third-party expert.

This service is provided for $1500 per grower and confidentiality is of paramount importance throughout.

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Is this for me?

This program will suit those hort business owners who are motivated to drive more profitability and shape their business to better face the future ahead.

Participating business owners will need to be open to new perspectives, willing to acknowledge where there are emerging issues, be motivated about solving those issues and committed to following through with action based on what they have learnt and decided.

There will be an expectation of commitment. This program ‘won’t do it all for you’ but it will widen the scope of understanding of your business owner from accepting many aspects as ‘just the way it is’ to something they can investigate, interrogate and manage – therefore putting you more in the driving seat of the destiny of your business.

The program is about reducing the amount of ‘unknowns’ and providing you with the information and insight so you are better equipped to meet and respond to the demands of the current and future environment.

Click here to get involved

Frequently asked questions

Who is funding this?

The Building Horticulture Business Capacity Program is a collaboration between Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, APC Vegetable Producers’ Committee, APC Pome Producers’ Committee and will be delivered by vegetablesWA in partnership with expert Farm Management Consultants Planfarm.

Am I eligible to participate?

Yes – If you are the business owner, or major decision maker, of a Horticulture business in Western Australia.

Who are the Expert Farm Consultants?

WA based farm consultancy Planfarm. Planfarm has over 40+ years experience of providing financial and business advice across all agricultural industries including broadacre, livestock, horticulture and permanent crops. Along with farm business management advice, Planfarm provide specialist advisors in agronomy and grain marketing servicing over 480 farming businesses throughout Western Australia. These services have been in response to increasing sophistication and scale of farm businesses and changes in the grain marketing environment in Australia. Planfarm advisors continue to assist clients to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in the Western Australian agricultural sector. Click here to learn more about Planfarm.

I’m very busy, how much time does it take?

Recognising the numerous demands on our time, we’ve streamlined the process so that the bulk of the work is done by the program team and that we only call on you when it’s necessary.

We estimate that in total that this will take up 6 to 8 hours of your time each year.

What Information is required in the business analysis?

Typical data required from business owners includes:

  • Profit and loss, cash book from financial management software systems
  • Balance sheet
  • Specific Production data – including area, volumes, etc.
  • Labour Information
  • Water licence and usage information

How can I be sure of the confidentiality of my data?

Great efforts go towards ensuring all data shared with the program remains securely stored and all confidentiality  maintained.

Contact Manus Stockdale
vegetablesWA BHBC Project Lead
0448 897 652
manus.stockdale@vegetableswa.com.au

Paul Omodei

Contact Paul Omodei
Planfarm Director
0427 728 566
paul@planfarm.com.au