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Banana industry plans internet data portal

The Australian banana industry is seeking tenders for suppliers to build a banana production and marketing information system to improve the resilience of an industry sometimes hit by cyclones and often threatened by overseas pests and diseases.

The tender is being managed by Horticulture Australia Ltd, The Australian Financial Review reports.

Melbourne-based tenders specialist TenderSearch says the deadline for submissions is May 10.

HAL invests more than $80 million annually in more than 1,200 different research, development and marketing projects, in partnership with specific horticulture producers.

For the banana industry project the successful tenderer will develop a system for collection, analysis and reports on a variety of industry data to ensure accurate information to underpin effective economic and strategic decision making.

Individual grower confidentiality will need to be protected by aggregating data and removing individual grower names and returns from generally available databases.

The general database for the collected material will support queries, reports and generation of tables, graphs and maps.

The project can be seen as a precursor for virtually all Australian small to medium country business for the next decade.

The expansion in internet volume capacity makes it easier for regional, rural and remote producers to report to central data-gathering points.

Bananas are the largest single Australian fresh horticulture crop and are produced by about 584 growers.There are growers in Western Australia, Southeast Queensland, Northern NSW and elsewhere, but 90 per cent of output is from Northern Queensland.

Output in 2009-10 was an estimated 310,000 tonnes. In February, 2011 cyclone Yasi eliminated about 75 per cent of banana trees in Australia, wildly disrupting production, with chronic shortages for some time, followed by a big surge as new trees reached maturity more or less at the same time.Production back to normal

"The production and supply levels are now returning to normal levels, and industry members are closely watching the production levels," the tender documents state.

"The banana industry would like to have accurate and up-to-date information on the location, size and varietal composition of banana plantations in Australia for industry planning and resource allocation, and for supply-chain planning for organising marketing and transport logistics.

"Besides, good industry data will be helpful in the event of a natural disaster recovery such as extreme climate event or pest incursion."

The issue will be discussed at a four-day Banana Industry Congress from Wednesday, May 29 to June 1.

Source: stockjournal.com.au
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