Importantly, the program has no stipulated minimum or maximum funding levels. Finding new and innovative ways of doing things is an important way of stimulating economic and employment growth in rural and regional communities and helping businesses in those areas boost their profitability and sustainability. It also allows farmers and other rural business people to manage change to their advantage and make better use of Australia's precious natural resource base. It's been almost three years now that I have had responsibility for horticulture matters within the AFFA portfolio. Tonight, I would briefly like to outline the importance of horticulture, both to regional communities and Australia's overall bottom line, and also highlight some recent milestones.
Horticulture is the mainstay of a number of regional centres across Australia.
In fact, some of the most famous growing areas of the Murray-Darling Basin, such as the Goulburn Valley and Sunraysia districts of Victoria, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of New South Wales and the Riverland region of South Australia, are horticulture strongholds. There are also many cities and towns along the coastal strip from Coffs Harbour to Cairns that depend on horticulture, including the irrigated citrus production around Mundubbera and Gayndah. Earlier today, I went on a tour of the Barossa Valley. And given that this conference is being held in arguably one of the most famous wine growing areas in Australia, it would be remiss of me not to mention the importance of our wine industry. Even that figure represented a 36 per cent increase on the previous year.