Growing together in a changed environment

LEE-ANN OFFICER SPECIALITY TREES

Our community may resemble small independent hubs of marketplace activity, but essentially, we are trading in the same space, connected globally by technology, transport systems, flight paths, electricity grids, WIFI, NBN. Something to come from this crisis is the overriding notion that we are not separate towns, villages or communities but one world. One human race, with a natural connection to the environment. We are not immune to pandemic, and we will struggle to contain viral invasion, but we now understand more acutely how quickly a crack in the surface can widen and spread with the blink of an eye, a 24-hour plane flight, a 3-hour train trip or a 15-minute catch-up.

These networks have brought us together in a way we could not imagine three months ago. Under this pandemic, we have been forced to unite.

While there are some regions with internal divisions, the crisis has shown that it is possible for political parties to work together. Australia and New Zealand are leading the way. We can take from this crisis that we are equipped to address climate change and community health needs if we have the unified resolve to do so. With co-operation comes genuine transparency. Supporting businesses that can adapt to a new business landscape with product that is grown sustainably and ethically is reassuring. Buying ‘bio-secure’ product takes on a deeper meaning. Consciously, maybe more unconsciously, we have stripped things back to basics. We seek accountability; to support people and businesses that are doing the right thing.

As a large percentage of us apply hand sanitiser for the fifth time today and type from a home office, others remain in operations adjusted to physical distancing, and we must acknowledge that biosecurity has a heightened relevance and understanding to our world and industry.

As growers, designers and installers of living things, we must concede that our operations can be and are vulnerable to threats from weeds, pest and disease. The link to good hygiene, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices and quarantine systems is somehow more important, as we balance renewed ideals around green space, health, sustainability, personal freedoms and connectivity with being operational as businesses in the long-term. There are systems that support the future of the industry, as seen through accreditation and biosecurity measures for agriculture and horticulture. These affect you and I, the security of our food supply, ecosystem diversity and with reducing our carbon footprint. Responding to both bushfire and now COVID-19 will require re-building resilient, sustainably productive and greenconnected communities able to meet our physical and psychological needs. Our industry administered accreditations, while not compulsory, are useful when assessing nurseries for best practice, environmental and biosecurity credentials and those trying to do things better.

Biosecurity matters. In 2010 Myrtle Rust was found in Australia, enacting national restrictions and quarantine laws to eradicate it. That same year, it was deemed not technically feasible to do so and we transitioned to a position of managing it as it naturalised across the country.

The species-threatening potential of Myrtle Rust is not dissimilar to COVID-19, and its significance may not have been as mediaworthy, but its threat to the survival of our most iconic trees and shrubs is very real. And it is not contained. Over time, it will change our Australian landscape.

Accountability is also reflected in quality. Businesses can sometimes deviate too much and respond so quickly to change, that quality is often compromised.

In the production nursery, the risk of growing different stock and higher volumes based on expected demand is carried entirely by the grower, for anywhere up to 5 years. The window for that sale can be as small as three months and usually not more than six months. The temptation in a crisis is to trade quality for the transaction. But quality is tangible and can be proven. In root systems, in the visual health of the tree, the way it has been formatively pruned, the presence of a single leader, in height to root ratios and via testing procedures under Australian Standard AS2303-18 and audited best practice processes via accreditation.

We urge the Green Industry not to compromise on quality. Quality nursery stock is available. As members of LVML you understand what goes into producing a quality product, and the planning, designing, supplying, installing and maintenance of quality projects. Work with your supplier to achieve better outcomes, together. Doing all these things well is fundamental to our whole industry. Political lobbying at state and national levels about the value of green life is compromised if we as an industry care little for the value of the product and services we provide.

We hold great value in quality and accreditation. We plan to be here in the longterm and we want all of you to be there with us, achieving great things together.