Victorias' population is expected to increase by 1.4 million (30%) by 2030 and demand for locally produced vegetables will need to match this growth. Seventy percent of Victorian vegetables are grown on Melbourne's urban fringe where land and water resources are unlikely to become more available. We must supply fresh vegetables to over 6 million Victorians by 2030 Developing and adopting sustainable practices is the challenge for the vegetable industry. Our industry is almost totally dependent on oil for fertilisers, farm machinery and our food distribution systems. Rising fuel costs and cheap foreign vegetable imports threaten the viability of local growers. Adopting sustainable production practices will raise the profitability vegetable production Soil Health Degradation of food production systems is a worldwide problem and fortunately, solutions are being developed. Horticulture Australia are investing your R&D levy in the development of a wide range of sustainable production systems. Reducing production costs. To be competitive with foreign imports, we must reduce our on-farm production costs. Increasing the efficient use of water, fertiliser and plant protection products in large scale production systems are among the challenges ahead.

Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL), has released a series of discussion papers on the carbon footprint of the Australian vegetable industry.  The following vegetable industry carbon foot printing discussion papers were funded by HAL through the growers vegetable levy with matching funding from the Australian Government. The papers provide useful information including an estimate of the carbon footprint of the Australian vegetable industry. Horticulture is estimated to contribute 1 per cent of Australian agricultural emissions. Agriculture contributes 16 per cent of all Australian emissions. Follow these links to download the discussion papers : Paper 1:    What is a carbon footprint (pdf, 584 k) Paper 2:    Emissions trading, reduction and marketing (pdf, 185 k) Paper 3:    Available carbon footprinting tools (pdf, 95 k) Paper 4:    Carbon footprint of Australian vegetables (pdf, 374 k) Paper 5:    Who will use the vegetable carbon tool? (pdf, 173 k) Paper 6:    Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions   (pdf, 274 k) See Also: VG 05051 A Scoping Study into Climate Change and Climate Variability Dueter, P. QDPI (2006) - extract (pdf, 351k) The impact of climate change on horticulture may be significant, some positive, some not. Most of the anticipated climate changes will call for a very high standard of crop management. Successfully adapting to increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns will require both pre-emptive and reactive adaptation strategies / options.