THE ability to access overseas markets has been made a little easier for avocado growers on the back of some federal government funding.
Avocados Australia has used $109,176 in grants under the Package Assisting Small Exporters (PASE) extension program to help complete two projects helping avocado growers find new export market opportunities and reduce export compliance costs.
A $79,200 grant went to the development of an online export registration, mapping and phytosanitary data collection platform.
A further $29,976 grant was used for the production of educational materials for growers seeking to access Japanese and New Zealand markets.
Agriculture minister David Littleproud said the support will help the industry expand into new markets and find "new fans around the world".
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"The new resources developed by Avocados Australia clearly step through what avocado growers and packhouse staff must do to meet Japanese and New Zealand avocado import requirements," Mr Littleproud said.
"These resources have also been designed to accommodate future expansion into new markets, so they stay relevant.
"The new online avocado registration system project streamlines export accreditation enhancing data collection consistency, traceability and transparency.
"Long term this will lead to faster accreditation, increased compliance, increased registrations and decreased administration costs.
Josh Franceschi from The Avocado Collective said there is a pool of growers keen to export their avocados to Japan and they are assisting them with their registration.
"The successful PASE project was great at providing very clear information to help explain the requirements and saved us lots of time with onboarding new growers," Mr Franceschi said.
"We've been exporting to Japan for a few years now and the application process been always done manually.
"The new online registration program developed through the successful PASE project provides us with a one stop online solution to gather and upload all the required information digitally."
According to the 2019/20 Australian Horticulture Statistics Handbook, Australia exported 4051 tonnes of avocados, representing 4.63 per cent of the 87,546 tonnes produced.
Malaysia and Singapore are currently Australia's main avocado export markets.
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