TOO often the story of rural and regional Australia is one of doom and gloom – falling populations, drought, few opportunities for young people and tyranny of distance.
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But, as we who live west of the Divide know, there are just as many, or more, good news stories, and one of those is always the annual innovation awards convened by Regional Development Australia Northern Inland (RDANI).
The awards have just been run and won for another year, with a company at Mullaley taking out the top honours for business innovation.
These awards always turn up great stories, but this year’s just goes to show in this day and age of technology advancements, a successful business can be run from just about anywhere.
And that’s not being disparaging to Mullaley either – it’s just an observation that it’s not the first place one thinks of when contemplating the location of an expanding enterprise with burgeoning international links.
Lively Linseed is the business in question, going from growers of a particular commodity to now controlling every aspect of the supply chain and selling its healthy-plus products into high-end Asian supermarkets. Such is the demand, linseed is now being sourced from other nearby farmers.
The figures around agricultural production are well-known, with an estimated $48 billion going towards the nation’s gross domestic product each year, but that amount rises to $144 billion when value-adding is taken into account.
It’s a good example for everyone, from other businesses right up to our state and federal governments.
It’s grass-roots businesses like these and the organisations that can assist them where investment in regional economies should be going.
These businesses are increasingly where job growth lies, and to which the future prosperity of our towns and regional cities is intrinsically linked.
Investment in the infrastructure that will support them now, and help them grown into the future, is key, and further improvements in telecommunications across the nation must be a priority.
Business success is by no means tied to population or location – it can occur anywhere and we should be creating an economic environment where that becomes the norm, rather than the exception.