Asian Vegetables

Products: Bamboo shoot, Snake bean, Bitter melon, Wombok, Chicory, Chinese melon, Chinese vegetables (buk choy, choy sum, drumstick, gai choy, gai lan), Kang Kung, Kohl Rabi, Luffa, Okra, Japanese Pumpkin, Taro, Winged bean, Winter melon, Yam, Yambean

Synopsis about the industry

There are more than seventy types of Asian vegetables grown in Australia. Many of these vegetables have other common names. Production of Asian vegetables in Australia grew strongly throughout the 1990s. By 2001, the estimated wholesale value of the total Australian market for Asian vegetables was $136 million, up from an estimated $60 million in 1993-94. The estimated number of growers in 2000-01 was 1675.

Year	Gross value of Prod’n $ ‘000	Exports $ ‘000	Imports $ ‘000	Estimated number of producers
2005-2006	85,729	3,894	4,000	1675 (in 2000-2001)

Background

The geographical distribution of production of Asian vegetables in Australia largely reflects to population distribution. This suggests that the industry is mainly oriented toward producing fresh vegetables for the domestic market.  There is an estimated 16% that is exported; however, this market has not grown due to competition from China and Vietnam.

With vegetable trade intensifying in the 2000s, the value of Australian exports of fresh and processed vegetables to the main Asian markets has declined steadily from a peak in around 2000. The diffuse nature of the Asian vegetable industry makes it difficult to source comprehensive data.

Wombok (Chinese cabbage)

Wombok (Brassica rapa var pekinensis), also known as Chinese cabbage, is the most frequently eaten vegetable in Asia and one of the most commonly consumed Asian vegetables in Australia.  It is closely related to buk choy.  It is commonly eaten as a freshly cooked vegetable, for example in stir fry dishes, and is often further processed as a brined product or used in pickles. Suited to temperate regions, it is grown in all Australian states but mainly south east Queensland and Western Australia.

Production of wombok in Australia has been oriented toward the export market but there is growing demand in the domestic market, reflecting the influence of the changing ethnic structure of Australia’s population. Australian exports of wombok grew strongly in the late 1980s and early 1990s but declined in drought affected 2006-07. In 2006-2007, Australia exported 1,286 tonnes for a gross value of $1,5m.

Asian melons

Australia produces Bitter melon (Momordica charantia), Hairy or Fuzzy Melon (Benincasa hispida var. chien-qua), winter melon and other Asian melons although data on production and value for all these melons is incomplete.  In 2006, 818 tonnes of bitter melons were produced for the gross value of $4.1m.

Hairy or Fuzzy Melon is a long light green gourd with a downy, hairy skin, sometime narrowing in the centre and fattening at the end. Hairy melons are a significant part of the diet and livelihood of local communities in south Asia. The Chinese use these gourds for a range of medicinal purposes.

The fruit, leaves and flowers of the bitter melon are consumed in many Asia and Indian foods. Australian bitter melon production occurs mainly in the Northern Territory but also in northern Western Australia and the Northern Rivers District of New South Wales.  Bitter melons are consumed on the domestic market.

Japanese pumpkin

There are two types of Japanese pumpkin: Curcurbita maxima (commonly called kabocha) and Curcurbita moschata.  Japanese pumpkin is mainly grown commercially in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

Japanese pumpkin is widely consumed in Australia and is also exported, particularly to Japan. However, because of quarantine restrictions against fruit fly, only pumpkins from Tasmania can be exported to Japan.  Over the last decade, annual Australian exports of pumpkins to Japan have fluctuated around 1,200 tonnes with an approximate export value (costs including freight, Japan) of $1.7 million in constant Australian (2007) dollars.  In volume terms, the Australian share of the total Japanese import market for pumpkins has averaged less than one per cent in the three years to 2006; New Zealand supplied 64 per cent and Mexico 22 per cent.

Luffa

Luffa is a tropical or subtropical Asian vegetable. Angled luffa (Luffa acutangula) is generally used for vegetable production while sponge or common luffa (Luffa cylindrica L. aegyptiaca) is used for sponge production.  Luffa sponges are produced by allowing the fruit to hang on the vine until the skin hardens and the stems turn yellow.  Dried luffa also used as a medicinal tea.

In Australia, luffas are mainly produced in the Northern Territory (around Darwin) in the winter months, and in the other states in the warmer months.  In 2004, the Northern Territory produced 132 tonnes of luffa for a gross value of $212,000.  Australian production is consumed domestically.

Okra

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is grown in the world’s tropical and warm temperate regions of the world for its fibrous fruit.  There were 19 establishments in the Northern Territory in 2005-06 producing 317 tonnes of okra from a harvested area of 54 hectares.

Annual world production of okra has fluctuated around 500 000 tonnes over the last decade. India supplied 69 per cent of total world okra production in the three years to 2006-07, Nigeria 9 per cent and the Sudan 4 per cent.

Snake bean

Snake/yardlong bean (Vigna unguiculata) is an annual plant producing a pod that is olive green, round, up to 90 centimetres long and very thin.  It is grown in frost-free areas of Australia, either as a dwarf bush or climbing plant.
Snake beans are produced mainly in the Northern Territory, but also in northern Western Australia and northern Queensland.  Northern Territory production of snake beans was down sharply in 2004 due to fusarium disease but reached a record 690 tonnes in 2005.  Production is sold on the domestic market and there are no imports. The restricted supplies of snake beans meant higher domestic prices.

There were 12 establishments in the Northern Territory in 2005-06 producing 35 tonnes of snake beans from a harvested area of 20 hectares.

Taro (large corm)

Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is a perennial herbaceous plant grown throughout the humid tropics and parts of the subtropics, mainly for its starchy underground tuber. The leaves and stems are also edible. There are large and small corm forms of taro;  the small corm form known as Japanese taro is not dealt with in this article. 

There are around 150 taro growers in Australia producing around 1000 tonnes a year, with a gross value of $3.5 million. This production is consumed on the domestic market.  Australia also imports around 3000 tonnes of taro a year, mainly from Fiji.  Australian imports of taro from Fiji have been growing strongly, as have import prices in recent years.  These prices are low compared to domestic prices.

Taro has been produced in Australia for many years but production has grown strongly over the last decade in response to domestic demand from migrants from Asia and Pacific Islands. The main producing regions in Australia are on the wet tropical coast of north Queensland, with other lesser producing areas in the Northern Territory, central and southern Queensland, and northern New South Wales.

Taro is an important food crop in less developed countries, particularly in Africa and the South Pacific islands. Total annual world production of taro averaged 11.4 million tonnes in the three years to 2006 and has been growing strongly. 

Sustained expansion of the Australian taro industry is constrained by a lack of mechanisation of production, harvesting and handling.  Mechanisation could reduce production costs by as much as 50 per cent, making Australian taro more competitive with imports and in export markets, leading to industry expansion.

Wasabi

Wasabi (Wasabia japonica syn. Eutrema japonica) is a spicy vegetable used in Japanese cuisine. More recently, it has found widespread appeal in western cuisine due to its unique flavour.  Wasabi can be kept fresh for around two weeks after harvesting.  Wasabi is a cool climate crop, tolerating air temperatures ranging from mild frosts to 30 degrees Celsius.  This often means that it must be grown in shaded conditions provided by trees or shade cloth.  Wasabi can be grown in soil (under shade) or in clean running streams with gravel beds.  Water grown wasabi commands much higher prices than soil grown wasabi.

In Australia, commercial quantities of soil grown wasabi have been available from Tasmania since 2000, supplying the Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart markets.  The first water grown wasabi farm was established in Tasmania in 2004.  It is believed that parts of Victoria and highland New South Wales will also be suitable for wasabi production.  In 2006, there were 10 growers of wasabi in Tasmania and one in Victoria, growing 0.15 hectares of soil cultivated wasabi.

With total Australian wasabi production of around 1.5 tonnes of stems and 1.5 tonnes of leaves kilograms, the gross value of the Australian wasabi industry in 2006 was of the order of $68 000.

The main producers of wasabi are Japan and Chinese Taipei but shortages of cultivable land limit production in these countries.  Emerging producers include the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Colombia and Canada. 

Australian wasabi yields are still low compared to those achieved in Japan, so there is considerable scope for increased production through improved cultivation practices alone.  A peak industry body, Wasabi Growers of Tasmania, was formed in 2003.

Links - Asian vegetables

• Hassall and Associates 2003, Asian Vegetable Industry: A Situation Assessment, RIRDC Publication no. 02/168, Canberra (www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/AFO/02-168.pdf), provides profiles of the Asian vegetable industries in each state and territory, and a long list of industry contacts.
• The ‘Asian vegetables’ section in RIRDC’s The New Crop Industries Handbook, pp. 15–105 (https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/04-125) provides information on Asian brassicas, bitter melon, burdock, Chinese water chestnut, culinary bamboo shoots, long white radish, edamane, Japanese ginger, Japanese taro, kabocha, lotus, luffa, Asian melon, snake bean, taro (large corm) and wasabi.
• Taro Growers Australia (www.tarogrowers.vze.com), including an industry newsletter Taro Topics.
• Vegetable Industry Carbon Calculator (www.vegiecarbontool.com.au). This website is intended to assist the Australian Vegetable Industry account for on-farm greenhouse gas emissions. The website has two elements - a  vegetable specific carbon calculator and vegetable industry carbon education, information products and extension systems to prepare the vegetable industry for operating in a carbon constrained world.