Women in Horticulture

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:27): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Minister, how is the state government recognising women in horticulture?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:27): I thank the member for Reynell for the question. Of course, women are so important to the entire agricultural sector here in South Australia, and we support them across a number of different ways in terms of promoting the work they do and making sure that we can hold up the women who are currently there as beacons so that those girls going through school now have something to aim for to get a job in the agribusiness sector which employs one in five working South Australians.

Last night, I was at the AUSVEG industry awards dinner. I was very pleased to present on behalf of the government the Women in Horticulture Award, which was won by Zurriyet Braham who is a capsicum grower on the Northern Adelaide Plains. Of course, this week the Premier was out in the Northern Adelaide Plains announcing a $110 million commitment for the Northern Adelaide Irrigation Scheme. It is a great project, one where we are working very closely with the commonwealth. It was terrific to have Senator Anne Ruston at the dinner last night. We both spoke at the awards function and we mentioned how we are working collaboratively. The member for Hammond and the opposition spokesperson, David Ridgway, were also at the dinner. It was great for the industry which has done such a good job in the past few years in collaborating.

You could see the work that we were doing here at a state level and also with our federal counterparts for the good of the whole horticultural industry in South Australia, but particularly for the northern region of Adelaide where we know at the end of this year Holden will be closing and people will be looking for jobs. This NAIS program will create 3,700 jobs.

Ms Braham runs Braham Produce with her husband, Andrew, producing more than 200,000 kilograms of high-tech, soil-grown capsicums per year. To hear her talk last night about the passion that she and Andrew put into that business and the way they want to innovate and make sure that they can grow not just capsicums but grow the markets where they sell those capsicums was terrific. Ms Braham is actively involved in the horticulture industry. She is the deputy chair of Hortex Alliance and has participated in numerous overseas trips to further her business opportunities and export produce to international markets.

Ms Braham has demonstrated a willingness to share knowledge with other growers and to be a leader in the Northern Adelaide Plains region. She is very proactive in applying new research and development in the business and is committed to expanding knowledge in the local community. Ms Braham has been instrumental in demonstrating and applying R&D, including a National Landcare-funded project investigating water and fertiliser management, acting as one of the first adopters of integrated pest management in capsicum production, utilising advanced poly houses and implementing computerised irrigation, fertigation and climate control.

The state government's sponsorship of the Women in Horticulture Award through PIRSA aligns with our economic priority of premium food and wine produced in our clean environment and exported to the world. I congratulate Ms Braham on her award win, as well as the other award winners: Mr Henry Liu, who was Grower of the Year; Mr Chris Musolino, Young Grower of the Year; FarMate, the Industry Impact Award; Matthew Stein as Researcher of the Year; and Bill and Emmanuel Cafcakis, who won the Environmental Award.

The winners of the AUSVEG South Australian Awards for Excellence are now in the running for the national awards for excellence to be held during the Hort Connections 2017 conference here in Adelaide from 15 to 17 May. It is going to be great to have the national industry here in Adelaide next month for that conference. There was one other winner, but he doesn't go through to the Hort conference, and that was the member for Hammond. He picked up six bottles of Pepperjack red in the raffle, so well done, member for Hammond.