In the vegetable industry’s levy-funded leadership and development missions, growers from around the country get the chance to travel overseas and learn more about international horticulture.

These missions offer participants a world of benefits. As well as the educational opportunities that come from visiting overseas industry sites, like farms and agribusinesses, growers on these missions also get to build their networks and learn from each other about our own industry.

In the latest edition of InfoVeg Radio, the R&D podcast for the Australian vegetable industry, we speak with Victorian grower Rick Butler and Queensland grower Brendan Dipple about their experiences on grower missions over the years.

In these interviews, Rick and Brendan talk about how visiting overseas industries can not only broaden your horizons, but can also give you a fresh perspective on your business back home.

They also share how their missions affected them personally: Rick discusses how the missions helped him build his networks and step into a leading role in our industry, and Brendan talks about seeing how the scale of American businesses helped him better understand trends in the Australian sector.

We also spoke to AUSVEG’s Dimi Kyriakou, who has led leadership and development missions on behalf of the industry, about how these missions benefit our sector as a whole.

To listen to this podcast, just use the embedded tool below! You can also go to our SoundCloud page to listen to previous editions of our podcast and learn more about levy-funded research and development in the Australian vegetable industry.

If you’re interested in learning more about leadership and development missions in the Australian vegetable industry, take a look at some of our previous recaps of these valuable study missions:

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 21 August 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!