Seeing RED: grant funds expansion

Three horticulture enterprises in Queensland have scored funding through the Rural Economic Development (RED) Grant to expand their farming business. Bundaberg’s Cross Family Farms, Mareeba’s Galati Farming and Atherton Tablelands producer Berry North, have all received RED grants of up to $200,000 to assist with economic development in regional Queensland.

Cross Family Farms

Consumer demand for fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetables is the inspiration the Cross Family Farms project to construct two new state-ofthe-art cold rooms to assist with supply to help meet the ever-growing demand for their produce. Sales and Compliance Manager of Cross Family Farms, Clinton Phillips, said that the new cold rooms will improve cold chain management for the business and packhouse production. “Our current cold rooms are outdated and not efficient for the business as they cannot hold the large amount of produce we are harvesting. This project will increase our capacity by more than 50%, improve the shelf life of the produce and enable export opportunities,” Mr Phillips said. Cross Family Farms grows a large variety of vegetables including tomatoes, snow peas, capsicum, chilli, green beans, butter beans, borlotti beans, zucchini, grey pumpkin, kent pumpkin and more. Mr Phillips says that in the past decade, consumers appetite for fresh fruit and vegetables has increased dramatically. “This has led to fresh horticulture produce being chilled, packed and transported thousands of kilometres interstate, and much further to export markets from farms like ours. Fast chilling to target storage temperatures is a major step to successfully achieving market expectations,” he said.

Galati Farming

In Mareeba, Galati Farming will also use the RED funding to install an additional cold room to support the expansion of their orchard to help meet consumer demand for fresh fruit. Director of Galati Farming, Gina Galati, owns and runs the business with her husband, Giovanni, who is the second generation to own the business, and says she looks forward to seeing the business grow with the help of the grant. “We currently grow lemons, grapefruit, mandarins and pomelos but are struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for fresh fruit,” Ms Galati said. “After much consultation with multiple agents in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne we knew that we needed to expand our orchard and the new cold room will help us accommodate the extra produce.”

Berry North

On the Atherton Tablelands, Berry North will be using their RED grant towards the capital cost of purchasing optical grading equipment which will allow them to grade, sort and pack blueberries at four times their current rate. General Manager of Berry North, Martin Inderbitzin, said Berry North enjoys a challenge and the use of new technology in horticultural production and packaging. “Visual grading of fresh produce is an exciting technology that will take Berry North’s business to the next level,” Mr Inderbitzin said. “Computer optical grading enables complete surface and internal inspection of blueberries, with greater throughput and consistency than our existing manual grading process.” “This technology will not only greatly improve the efficiency of the packing facility function but will translate into improved product output and enable Berry North to expand their berry production,” he said. Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries, Mark Furner, said they are three of 16 businesses to receive a grant in the latest round of funding. “These grants are about backing our farmers to take on the world and supporting vital growth to create good jobs in traditional industries like agriculture,” Minister Furner said. The initial three rounds of the RED Grants program have seen funding of $10 million over three years to support more than 30 projects which have created 1,800 jobs across regional Queensland. For more information about the RED Grant scheme visit www.qrida.qld.gov.au.

Minister Furner with Giovanni Galati from Galati Farming.

Wendy and Trevor Cross show Minister Mark Furner and Bundaberg MP, Tom Smith, their tomato grader.