Streamlining compliance
Record-keeping is a vital part of agribusiness, underpinning not only internal quality assurance (QA), but also the routine compliance audits growers undertake so their produce can go to market.
Agribusinesses that pursue certification through multiple schemes—like Freshcare, HARPS, and Fair Farms— on top of the cost of the audit itself, also incur the cost of labour and time associated with in-field record-keeping, data entry, and documentation preparation for each certification.
The question is: how can this process be streamlined and lessen the burden and cost to growers?
Jennifer McKee of Spades, in collaboration with Taylor Family Produce, are tackling this challenge with their Future Fields project, Coordinated Compliance.
The team received $13,000 through the recent Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers (QFVG’s) ‘Grow Your Field’ seed funding grant opportunity to develop a digital solution that consolidates data entry and enables agribusinesses to efficiently engage with multiple auditing schemes.
Rosy Chapman, Quality Officer at Taylor Family Produce described the many factors at play in developing a more efficient approach to compliance.
“We have people who speak many languages, are of ages ranging from 15 to 70+, and who are trying to enter data out in the field where there is limited connectivity,” she said.
“Our goal is to provide a system that anyone in our team can use so we can document our crop from nursery to field, harvesting, washing, chilling, and transport—in real time.”
Connie Taylor, Business Manager at Taylor Family Produce emphasised how important gathering this data is, especially to her husband and lifelong farmer, Ray.
“Ray is passionate about everything farming: planting, growing, earthmoving, soil, nutrition, biologicals, always hungry for more knowledge,” she said.
Refining their approach to record-keeping is a one-percenter Ray believes will make a big difference.
Founder of the Spades App, Jennifer McKee, specialises in AgTech that helps growers with compliance audits.
“There are no half-baked solutions here. We are looking to develop a complete, and well-supported approach,” Jennifer said.
Coordinated Compliance is the second of five ‘Grow Your Field’ seed funding projects we are following over the next 12 months.
Grow Your Field seed funding grants are administered by QFVG through support from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.