TQA Notice Board

TQA Australia looks to greener pastures

TQA Australia is a not for profit, independent leader in quality solutions inspiring agri-business to be effective and innovative.

A new name and new staff signal the beginning of an exciting era for the 2008 Tasmanian Small Business Champion (Specialised Business) winner Tasmanian Quality Assured Inc (TQA).

The not-for-profit agribusiness service provider has changed its name to TQA Australia to better reflect the support that TQA continues to provide to agribusiness across Australia. In addition to working with agribusiness across Tasmania, TQA Australia staff can be found working with wine producers in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria, with orchardists in Victoria, and tropical fruit growers in Queensland and NSW.

‘TQA has an enviable reputation for providing quality advice, training and support to agribusiness across quality assurance, food safety and environmental assurance matters’ said Jane Lovell, Managing Director of TQA Australia.

‘Our reputation has made us popular, with TQA being sought after to provide training and project management services to industry associations, agribusiness companies and producers around Australia’.

With business booming, TQA Australia has appointed Amy Russell to the position of Manager – Environment to boost the organisation’s environmental capabilities.

Following twelve years’ experience in community, government and industry environmental management, Amy comes to TQA Australia after a five year stint with the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, where she lead the development and implementation of both the industry’s national environmental assurance scheme and International and Australian Wine Carbon Calculators.

Amy has also been involved in international environmental assurance developments as Co-convener of the Sustainability Committee of FIVS – the international alcoholic beverage trade association. Her leadership role in developing industry responses to issues including carbon footprints, food miles and the harmonization of environmental assurance frameworks is set to benefit industries supported by TQA Australia.

Amy Russell will be based in South Australia, providing an enhanced level of service to TQA Australia’s diverse client base.

Tasmanian Rural Woman of the Year

When Jane Lovell was four years old, she told her parents she would only leave her native England for Australia, if she could have a pony. She got her wish – with interest, as she is now a successful horse breeder. She is also the Managing Director of Tasmanian Quality Assured Inc, and winner of the Tasmanian Rural Woman of the Year.

“I would never have imagined when I was young, that I would end up in quality and environmental assurance for primary producers,” she said.

Jane has an Arabian horse stud of 13 horses, two kelpie dogs, a job she enjoys and a recently acquired husband and said for her, life couldn’t be better. “2008 was great, roll on 2009,” she laughed.“I love my job! I love it, because I have the independence to get out and about and do what I think, or what people tell me, needs to be done. I can be on the leading edge all the time.” Jane has been working with quality assurance for over a decade. The uptake of quality systems by producers has been mainly driven by retailers, who want assurance that food is safe and want the ability to trace food back to its origins. Internationally retailers are demanding more assurances from their suppliers, so any grower that doesn’t have a system, probably won’t have a market. In Europe on farm management systems now also include environmental assurance and ethical trade, which relates to terms of employment, rates of pay and prohibition of child labour. Jane said that these additional requirements are being driven by retailer and consumer concerns and she expects Australian markets to follow the same trend.

Jane’s project for the Rural Woman of the Year award is to simplify the environmental assurance requirements of domestic retailers. After working with quality assurance systems for so long, Jane is well aware of the negative impacts of having so many systems and systems becoming too complicated. “It’s like sitting in the starting blocks with 15 different options in front of you that you could take, but it just becomes confusing and you can end up doing nothing,” she said.

“We have seen this happen with quality assurance and we are now on the cusp of the same thing happening with environmental assurance.” Jane said primary producers do not want to be burdened with excessive paperwork by having to do different assurance systems for different products and different overseas markets. “Growers only want to do it once,” she said. “The cost of maintaining too many systems will stop the farmers focussing on the real issue, which is farming sustainably.

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