After three years of meticulous planning and a pandemic that threatened to derail organisers’ hard work, the 2020 East Gippsland Vegetable Innovation Days were staged in-person and virtually from 5-7 May in Lindenow. Vegetables Australia spoke to EGVID Event Coordinator and Food & Fibre Gippsland Regional Development Officer, Bonnie Dawson, about the event and how it unfolded across the three days.

One of Australia’s most productive vegetable growing areas, Lindenow was gearing up to stage the country’s biggest field day event in 2020. It was going to be extra special this year, with the East Gippsland Vegetable Innovation Days (EGVID) set to incorporate the Tenth International Spinach Conference.

Unfortunately, the two events – like many around Australia and the world – were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Spinach Conference was postponed, while the decision was made to stage EGVID predominantly online, with just a small number of industry members allowed to attend the site in-person in accordance with strict social distancing rules.

Originally the event set out to enable Australia’s top 11 seed companies to showcase their new, favourite and innovative varieties for growers and the industry at large. It aimed to provide a learning opportunity for growers and industry representatives to view exhibits from a broad range of industry service providers and research initiatives. Another major component was networking and doing business, while celebrating being a vital part of the food chain in Australia and abroad.

However, considering the pandemic, the event’s focus became solely on providing growers with access (in-person and virtually) to seed trials and agricultural chemical demonstrations.

Adapting to change

EGVID organisers responded to the pandemic rapidly and with great success.

“When we realised that the COVID-19 pandemic would prevent us from hosting the field days as originally planned – with an expected turnout of approximately 1,000 industry members – we turned our focus to ensuring that the effort that had already been invested into growing seed trials and demonstration sites wouldn’t be wasted,” EGVID Event Coordinator and Food & Fibre Gippsland Regional Development Officer, Bonnie Dawson, said.

“We offered to capture this content and results for the seed and crop improvement companies in a series of videos, which all but one of the companies accepted.”

To give growers instant access to the site, the event team scheduled and streamed live crosses from each site over Facebook throughout the three days.

“These were popular among our followers and companies have been able to share these interviews and site walkthroughs further with their own followers since,” Ms Dawson said.

The event also had the support of the Soil Wealth and Integrated Crop Protection (ICP) project. Its team live-streamed similar walkthroughs of the entire site, involving Organising Committee members and agronomists Stuart Grigg and Noel Jansz. A strategic levy investment under the Hort Innovation Vegetable Fund, the Soil Wealth and ICP project also delivered a webinar on cover cropping in conjunction with the event that involved growers from across the country.

“In the end, we were able to invite some growers to come and view the seed trials and demonstration sites in person in limited numbers across the three days. Each of these attendees was required to register in advance and in doing so, agree to abide by our COVID-19 Policy,” Ms Dawson explained.

With Victoria Police and local authorities’ permission, EGVID could have up to 50 people on-site at any one time, which presented organisers with the opportunity to invite approximately 60 growers and industry members to attend for half a day each. Most growers were from the local area, however a small number travelled from other parts of Melbourne including Clyde and Werribee.

Social distancing measures were adhered to at EGVID 2020.

Switching online

Ms Dawson said that through adversity, EGVID developed into a new format that will be integrated into events in the future and set a new benchmark for these type of industry events.

“Although nothing fully replaces face-to-face interactions, being forced to take content online has given a wider audience access to the innovations that were on display at the site,” she said.

“All of those who have been asked believe that we should include live streaming, the use of social media and video production in future events. Social media provided the opportunity for industry members ‘playing along at home’ to get in touch and encourage their industry colleagues from afar.”

Each video was viewed by up to 1,500 individuals from around the world on Facebook.

“A lot of the people who physically attended EGVID also viewed some of the videos that were streamed to get a recap of the site or to gain a different perspective,” Ms Dawson added.

There has also been an overwhelming response to what growers saw in the field, particularly new varieties. Those who attended the Innovation Days in-person benefited from having time and space for discussions with seed company representatives.

“Ninety per cent of growers who responded to the event survey have planned, or are planning, to order new varieties of seed that they saw at the demonstration site. While most were planning to order agricultural chemical, fertiliser or stimulant products that they saw,” Ms Dawson said.

“Many of the growers who were present and company representatives also commented that they valued having more time for key customers without many others around competing for their attention. Therefore, it’s likely that part of any future EGVID would also follow this structure.”

Finally, Ms Dawson would like to thank the major sponsors of the event including Zorvec™ active by Corteva Agriscience, Agriculture Victoria and East Gippsland Shire Council.

“It was a huge collaborative effort headed up by Directors Andrew Bulmer and Stuart Grigg. Thank you to all involved in making this event happen,” Ms Dawson said.

Food & Fibre Gippsland Chief Executive Officer Nicola Pero and VegNET Regional Development Officer Bonnie Dawson.

VegNET update

In others news, Ms Dawson is currently planning the next phase of VegNET Gippsland by developing a longer-term strategy with the newly-formed Regional Extension Advisory Group.

“The focus areas are likely to be environmental management, precision agriculture, improved workforce capability and biosecurity,” Ms Dawson said.

“I hope to continue on the same trajectory that Shayne Hyman established; that is, developing and maintaining strong relationships with the diverse bunch of growers from across the region so that I can respond to their individual needs appropriately. This will include connecting growers to other relevant opportunities that are offered by Food & Fibre Gippsland and others in the space.”

Find out more

Please contact VegNET Regional Development Officer Bonnie Dawson from Food & Fibre Gippsland on 0407 683 938 or email bonnie.dawson@foodandfibregippsland.com.au.

East Gippsland Vegetable Innovation Days and Tenth International Spinach Conference is a strategic levy investment under the Hort Innovation Vegetable Fund.

This project has been funded by Hort Innovation using the vegetable research and development levy and contributions from the Australian Government.

Project Number: VG19001

Field videos released on AUSVEG website

AUSVEG is now hosting seed trial and demonstration site videos from the East Gippsland Vegetable Innovation Days. Ms Dawson said the filming of these videos took place when the site was in its prime, which was the week of EGVID.

Each seed company has had 5-7 videos produced, and each crop improvement company has had one video of their product trial recorded.

The videos are available in an online catalogue format, so that different seed products can be searched and compared between different companies.

“We believe that this is a unique way to be able to research these products,” Ms Dawson said.

“The EGVID videos are also a valuable resource for growers – both those who attended the event in-person and online, and will be available for years to come.”

The videos can be found on the AUSVEG website.

Digitisation of East Gippsland Vegetable Innovation Days (VG19001) is a strategic levy investment under the Hort Innovation Vegetable Fund.

This article features in the spring 2020 edition of Vegetables Australia. Click here to read the full publication.