Who, what and how to develop supply chain collaboration for exporting perishable commodities from Northern-Australia?

As the world’s population is projected to reach about 10 billion by 2050, maintaining an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable agri-food supply chain is very important for the agri-businesses and the consumers around the world. Collaborations among the agricultural producers, processors, distributors and retailers are very important for their business sustainability. This study aims to examine who will be in a team of collaboration, what activities that they should perform and how such collaboration would be occurred for exporting perishable commodities. A representative stakeholder collaboration workshop designed with information about content and context of collaboration, individual and group tasks, was used to addressing these above questions. This study used three commodities i.e.., mango, lychee and avocado in northern Australia. Twenty eight stakeholders from federal, state and local governments, farmers, industry, export enterprises and experts attended this workshop. This study found small and medium scale farmers eager to make collaboration with other parties but they are afraid about the transparency within the collaborative system. Collaboration models or mechanisms could vary among the commodities, and both intra and inter-regional collaborations require among the growers in the Northern Australia to make a longer term supply to the international markets. For example, mango supply over a six month period in a year for Asian markets would give better competitive advantages for Northern Territory and Queensland mango farmers compared to their competitors in the Africa and South America. Because importer are looking for a certain volume of supply over an extended period from the trusted suppliers. Also, most stakeholders agreed to have vertical collaboration between the farmers, processors, genetics companies and exporters while governments could works as enablers in this system. This findings have local, regional and national policy implications how to promote and develop supply chain collaboration for perishable agricultural commodities.