The latest research from national industry body for vegetable producers, AUSVEG, has unveiled the scope of the $213 million annual compliance, regulatory and red tape burden affecting Australian vegetable growers, as forty per cent actively consider leaving the industry within the next year.
AUSVEG has released its latest Industry Sentiment Report, outlining a continuation of the severe operating challenges consistently identified in the six-monthly surveys of vegetable growers since 2023.
The results of the most recent survey from July reveal two in five vegetable growers are actively considering leaving the industry within the next year due to challenging business conditions, and that a further two in five would follow suit if they had a viable exit strategy. The proportion of growers actively considering exiting has jumped from an average of one in three since the survey in January 2025.
A lack of operating profit for capital improvement, expansion and innovation; compliance burden; input cost increases; poor retail pricing; and increased labour costs have again been identified as the key issues leading growers to contemplate their future.
These challenges are contributing to declining profitability across the industry, with 62 per cent of surveyed growers in July indicating they were financially worse off compared to 12 months ago, and 53 per cent expecting to be worse off in a further year.
With the growing burden and cost of compliance regularly identified among the top productivity and profitability drains for Australian vegetable growers, the organisation commissioned Corporate Value Associates (CVA) Australia to examine the current compliance and regulatory landscape in the vegetable industry, the impact on Australian vegetable growers, and recommendations to address these increasingly urgent issues – laid out in the Horticulture compliance and regulation: reducing the burden by 2030 report.
Through examination of the operations of large and small vegetable growing businesses across the country, the report has identified that the cost of compliance across the vegetable industry is estimated at $213 million, or 4 percent of a vegetable growing businesses’ average operating costs.
This equates to 42 per cent of average vegetable industry earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of approximately 9 per cent, illustrating the significant burden of compliance on vegetable growing businesses’ productivity and profitability.
AUSVEG CEO, Michael Coote, said Australian vegetable growers have increasingly called out that overwhelming compliance burden is taking an unsustainable toll on their productivity, profitability and future viability, as well as their mental wellbeing.
“For the first time now, we have a true measure of those pressures. Compliance isn’t just about government requirements, but also the raft of audit, certification and other obligations imposed by service providers, supply chain partners, retailers, regulatory bodies and industry codes of conduct. These have continued expanding in scope, volume, and complexity, leading to duplication and snowballing time and cost pressures,” said Coote.
“Vegetable growers accept that certain compliance is necessary, particularly around food safety and the wellbeing of consumers, employees and themselves, but with the burden of compliance now equating to an estimated 42 percent of vegetable growers’ EBITDA, it is clear that even moderate compliance efficiencies will have material productivity and profitability benefits for vegetable growers, who operate in a typically low margin, high volume industry.”
A summary of key findings includes:
- The cost of compliance for vegetable growers has ballooned to an estimated $213 million per annum across the industry.
- Compliance costs account for four per cent of total average vegetable growing business costs, against average earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of approximately nine percent (42 percent of average vegetable industry EBITDA).
- A 25 per cent reduction in compliance costs would equate to savings of approximately $53 million per annum across the industry, representing a meaningful opportunity to improve profitability and productivity for vegetable growers across the country.
- Compliance and certification requirements for Australian vegetable growing and on-farm packing have increased significantly in number, scope, and complexity over the past 30 years, with compliance now covering around 50 separate areas of business operations.
- Almost nine in 10 growers reported negative impacts of compliance audits on stress levels and mental wellbeing.
- More than four in five growers reported opportunities for improvement across key compliance areas.
The report identified 34 actionable recommendations aimed at reducing duplication, improving efficiency of certification and audit processes, moving towards more results-focused compliance, and a streamlining of government processes and support services.
“Lifting industry productivity has been a keen focus of the Government since the federal election,” said Coote.
“Our latest Industry Sentiment Report shows vegetable growers currently rate their productivity as ‘average’ at best, and 72 per cent say reducing compliance burden would provide them with a key boost, so moving now to implement the report’s recommendations is just common sense.
“Growers need to be spending less time filling in forms and doing repeated, time-consuming audits, and more time getting on with their real jobs, producing the world-class vegetables that Australians depend on. The warnings in our Industry Sentiment Report are clear – unless we see smarter, not harder, compliance regimes in the vegetable industry, and the key issues facing growers addressed, more and more will leave, supply will drop, and veggies will cost more for consumers.”
AUSVEG stated it is now working to urgently establish an industry taskforce to implement these recommendations as a crucial step to addressing the crisis in sentiment among the growers Australia depends on for 98 per cent of the fresh vegetables consumed in this country.
