Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL)’s Capturing the Prize report has, for the first time, recognised the potential of the agrifood sector in the Canberra region and the Australian Capital Territory.
In its ACT region report, the Commonwealth Agribusiness Growth Centre, trading as Food Innovation Australia Ltd (FIAL), makes estimates for significant growth in ACT-based agrifood businesses over the eight years until 2030.
FIAL forecast that the Australian Capital Territory’s agrifood sector has the potential to be worth $545m per annum by 2030.
In a recent EDM (27 June 2022), Regional Development Australia’s ACT division (RDA ACT) stated that it was ‘confident we can exceed them, such is the groundswell here [within RDA ACT’s Canberra Region Food Collaborative], particularly from grassroots food enterprises and a discerning, engaged market of consumers demanding more locally-grown fresher sustainably produced products’.
RDA ACT went on to note that ‘the boost to wellbeing in the ACT [and how] a vibrant local agrifood sector means … better nutrition and more say over the food we consume and better prices’. It stated, further, that along with Canberra’s 24-hour airport, with Pakfresh facility and easy access to Sydney markets by road and rail, the capital houses several leading research institutions including ANU and CSIRO, adding ‘firepower for value-add innovation’.
Capturing the Prize determined that the growth potential in Australia’s $61 billion per annum agribusiness sector was such that the sector could return more than $200 billion per annum to our coffers by 2030, and that realising this growth potential could create an additional 300,000 jobs.
Lead image: Dairy Farmers Hill Lookout, near Canberra. Credit: Chandra Tamang/Shutterstock