One Western Australian export business has learnt the value of diversifying to survive turbulent economic times. Roger Horak, of United Exports, says he has seen the number of WA businesses doing what he does decline dramatically since 2002. “When we started there would have been 13-15 export companies just in WA exporting a range of produce . Now I doubt there are more than four or five. Australia runs a real risk of becoming a net importer,” he tells Fresh Plaza.
“We have fantastic growers right form the north to the south of the state, but we’re limited by costs of production and labour costs.” United Exports used to send as many as 300-400 thousand cartons of stonefruit overseas, Mr Horak says, but that number has shrunk to less than 50,000 boxes.
A government strategy for exports is more important now than in previous years, Mr Horak says, because economic conditions have shifted in favour of exporters again. “For the last five years interest in Australian products has been a one way street downhill. Now we’re seeing some signs of recovery though, such as a lower Australian dollar, and opening of closed markets like Vietnam, which are fantastic. Markets will return from a pricing perspective.”
Unless there is a strategy incorporating special visa classes, waves of migrant workers and solutions that have worked in other countries, Australia won’t be able to exploit the opportunities presented, though, he adds.
Australia has been slow to gain access to markets, and not ensured that access remains open, according to Mr Horak. “On the grower side we have massive potential for an export market, but we don’t have direct access to China. We don’t have direct access for blueberries. To be honest there are more countries we don’t have access to than those we do.” Competitor countries have “huge lobby groups, and money they spend on getting access to markets,” to help, he points out.
Investors are looking at specific crops that could work for exports, particularly in WA, but will not commit without knowing there is a workable solution to labour and production cost issues, Mr Horak adds. “Looking at carrots, for example, that’s probably the biggest commodity exported out of WA. One of the reasons is that they’ve been able to successfully mechanise the process. Even then returns are marginal though.”
Blueberries a bright spot
United Exports has successfully developed exports for blueberries recently, taking Australian varieties, bred by Dave Mazzardis and developing them in South Africa, and going through the quarantine process in Chile, Peru, Mexico and the US. “With blueberries, the Australian material, size and firmness of varieties, will make them very attractive to Asia,“ he says. “We do a lot of work throughout South Africa using what we’ve learnt in Australia. We’ve diversified into exports out of Africa, Asia and Europe. Those other 15 companies didn’t develop globally but we see a very bright future for that, within the next 20 years.”
Following the news that Indonesia is again accepting Australian mangoes, Mr Horak says there is also a possibility that United will begin dealing in mangoes again. The company deals mainly in stonefruit, citrus and table grapes at present, Mr Horak confirms.
