The world has discovered Australia’s native fingerlime. This nutrient rich fruit, with its distinctive pearls of citrus caviar, vibrant colours and novel flavours, has captured the imagination and taste buds of chefs and consumers around the world. Prized for millennia by indigenous Australians for its medical properties, commercial fingerlime production has subsequently flourished in Australia. Today, Australia leads the world in the commercial production of fingerlimes, as well as being a world leader in fingerlime research and development.
Jade King, Chair of the ANFA Board, is a fingerlime producer and a Nuffield Scholar. Through this AgriFutures Australia funded scholarship, Ms King has travelled the world researching the production and development of fingerlimes. Ms King said, ‘What I discovered from my travel and research was that while Australia leads the world in fingerlime production quality and research, our efforts were not aligned nor coordinated. It was evident to me that the solution lay in the establishment of a peak industry body for the Australian fingerlime industry. ANFA grew out of that idea’.
ANFA’s aims are clear to promote and foster proactive management and advance the interests of Australian commercial fingerlime growers. ANFA will take a responsible leadership role in the future of the Australian fingerlime industry and is committed to developing a body that represents Australian fingerlime growers as the world leaders in production, research, genetic superiority and sustainability of this endemic citrus.
Ms King states “The board aims to lead ANFA as a responsive and innovative industry body that engages the whole value chain and ensures Australia remains the leaders in world production and research of its endemic native citrus.” She goes on to say that “ANFA will establish and maintain an industry database to support grower communication, forecasting and marketing initiatives, biosecurity, research and development”. As the Peak Industry Body, ANFA will seek to represent the concerns of the overall fingerlime industry to all levels of Australian government.
For more information: australianfingerlimealliance.com.au