Quick answer
Horticulture businesses usually borrow to cover harvest labour and packing costs before buyers pay, and to build long-term assets like orchards, hail netting, irrigation, coolrooms and packing sheds. Banks and agribusiness lenders fund established growers with land. Equipment finance covers tractors, platforms and grading lines, and lines of credit or invoice finance help when supermarkets and wholesalers pay on terms. Non-bank lenders step in when timing or security doesn't suit a bank.
Key points
- Labour is often the biggest cost, and it lands at harvest, weeks before the buyer pays for the produce
- The Horticulture Code requires a written produce agreement with every agent or merchant, which doubles as evidence of your payment terms
- Since 28 April 2022, pieceworkers under the Horticulture Award have a guaranteed minimum hourly rate, so lenders budget wages at a floor
- Tree and vine crops take years to reach full yield, so new plantings need patient finance, not short-term money
Picture a stone fruit grower in the second week of December. Sixty pickers are on the payroll, the packing shed is running two shifts, and the coolroom power bill has tripled. The first pallets went to market last week. The money for them won’t arrive until well into January.
That’s the basic shape of horticultural finance: big costs at harvest, delayed income afterwards, and long-lived assets in the ground that took years and a lot of capital to establish. Whether you grow apples, avocados, citrus, berries, vegetables, nuts or nursery stock, the pattern repeats with only the timing changing.
Why does horticulture look different to a lender?
Lenders who are comfortable with grains or grazing sometimes find horticulture harder to assess, for a few reasons.
Income depends on quality as much as volume. A crop that’s marked by hail, sunburn or a pest can lose most of its value even if the tonnage is there. Two growers with the same yield can see very different returns.
Selling arrangements vary widely. Some growers sell direct to a major supermarket under a supply agreement. Others consign to wholesale market agents, sell to merchants, export, or sell at the farm gate. Each produces a different cash flow and a different level of certainty.
Plantings are long-term. An orchard or nut grove can take several years to reach commercial yield, and the trees themselves are part of the land. Lenders value them through the land, not as separate assets.
Labour is the swing cost. In many crops, wages are the largest single expense, and nearly all of it falls in a few intense weeks.
Banks and agribusiness lenders that specialise in the sector understand these differences. Where they don’t, a well-prepared grower can still make the case, mostly by showing their agreements and their history.
Your produce agreements are part of your loan application
The Horticulture Code of Conduct, enforced by the ACCC, says a grower and a trader must have a written horticulture produce agreement (HPA) in place before they trade. The HPA must state whether the trader is acting as an agent (selling for you on commission) or a merchant (buying from you), and it sets out how long the trader has to pay. A trader who rejects produce must tell you within 24 hours.
To a lender, a set of current HPAs is useful evidence. It shows who your buyers are, how quickly you should be paid and what fees come off the top. Growers who keep every HPA in order, and can show payments arriving on the agreed terms, give a lender something solid to work with.
If you supply a major supermarket directly, the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct has applied as a mandatory code since 1 April 2025 to retailers and wholesalers with more than $5 billion in annual grocery revenue. It governs how those businesses deal with suppliers, including limits on certain payments they can demand. It doesn’t fix how quickly they pay you, so you still need to know your actual terms and plan for them.
How do harvest wages affect borrowing?
The Fair Work Commission changed the Horticulture Award from 28 April 2022 so that pieceworkers are guaranteed at least the minimum hourly rate for their classification, with casual loading where it applies. Piece rates must also be set so a competent worker at average productivity earns at least 15% above that minimum.
The practical effect on borrowing: there’s a minimum below which picking wages can’t fall, and a careful credit analyst will cost your harvest at that minimum times the hours expected, rather than at a hopeful piece-rate number. Growers who employ through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme also need to budget for the scheme’s minimum hours, which are averaged over a four-week period, even when rain stops picking.
The cash flow gap calculator is a quick way to see how big the hole is between the pickers’ pay runs and the buyers’ payments. For more at funding a payroll peak, see funding staff wages. Or, if harvest is already close, put your numbers to us in a short enquiry, which leaves your credit history alone.
What growers fund, and the finance that usually fits
- Harvest labour, packaging and freight: a short working capital loan or a revolving business line of credit, cleared as each consignment is settled.
- Waiting on supermarket or wholesaler payments: invoice finance against approved invoices, where you sell under clear supply terms.
- Tractors, picking platforms, sprayers, forklifts and grading lines: equipment finance secured on each item.
- Hail and bird netting, irrigation, frost fans: term loans or secured business loans, as these become part of the land.
- Coolrooms and packing sheds: usually a land-secured term loan, sometimes with refrigeration plant on equipment finance.
- New plantings or replanting old blocks: long-term land-secured finance with interest-only years, because returns take seasons to arrive.
- Buying more land or water: bank agribusiness loans, or business loans against rural property from non-bank lenders.
Risks lenders price in
- Weather events. Hail, frost and heatwaves can wipe out a crop’s value in minutes. Lenders ask about netting, frost protection and insurance.
- Biosecurity. Fruit fly, new pests and disease outbreaks can close markets or force quarantine treatments that add cost.
- Water. Irrigated growers depend on allocations and water prices. Lenders look at how much water you own versus buy each year.
- Price gluts. A big season across the industry can push prices below the cost of picking.
- Customer concentration. A grower supplying one supermarket or one exporter carries more risk than one with several outlets.
Our page on business loans for seasonal businesses covers how lenders treat uneven income more generally.
Paperwork that strengthens your application
- Current HPAs and any supermarket or export supply agreements
- Packout and return reports for the last two or three seasons
- A harvest budget showing labour, packaging, freight and expected returns
- Financial statements and lodged returns for recent years
- An equipment and infrastructure list with any finance owing
- Water entitlements, allocations and lease arrangements
- Planting records by block: variety, rootstock, age and expected bearing
- Your ATO portal statement and BAS lodgement history
Example: hail netting over an apple orchard
An invented scenario. A family orchard in the Granite Belt grows apples across 40 hectares. Hail damaged a big share of the crop in two of the past five seasons, pushing much of the fruit into the juice market at a fraction of its value. They get a quote of $1.2m to net 25 hectares of their best blocks.
Their bank sees the logic but wants to stage the work over two years and approve it only after this season’s results. The netting contractor has an install slot before spring that won’t come again for a year. The family takes a land-secured loan from a non-bank lender for the first 12 hectares, with an interest-only period through the next harvest, and agrees with their bank to refinance the whole project once both stages are complete and the netted blocks show their improved packout.
Talk to someone who gets seasonal cash flow
Growers are used to waiting: for trees to bear, for fruit to colour, for markets to pay. Finance shouldn’t add to the wait when a harvest is starting or a contractor’s slot is about to pass. If your bank is ready and able, start there. If it isn’t, there are lenders who understand horticulture and will look at your agreements, your packouts and your land.
Filling in our form is about sixty seconds of effort, and your credit report stays exactly as it was. What you tell us isn’t shopped around to finance companies, so there’s no barrage of unknown numbers on your mobile during picking. Someone from our team reads it properly and phones to talk about the crop, who buys it and when you need the money. Precise answers on hectares, packouts and existing loans help us land on the right lender at the first try.
Frequently asked questions
Can I borrow against what a supermarket owes me?
Often, yes. Invoice finance or debtor finance can advance part of what major retailers or wholesalers owe you, then collect when they pay. It suits growers selling under a direct supply agreement with clear invoices. Produce sold through agents on consignment is harder, because the final price isn't known until it's sold.
Do lenders care whether I sell through an agent or a merchant?
Yes. Under the Horticulture Code, a merchant buys your produce at an agreed price, while an agent sells it on your behalf for a commission. Merchant sales give a lender a firmer income figure. Agent sales are common and fine, but lenders will look at your average returns over several seasons.
Can I finance hail netting?
Usually. Netting is often funded with a term loan or property-secured loan because it's fixed to the land. Some lenders treat the structure as equipment. State governments have offered netting rebates in the past, so check what's current in your state before you budget.
How do lenders treat a new orchard that isn't bearing yet?
Cautiously. They want to see the business can service the debt from other income until the trees reach commercial yield. Interest-only periods, staged drawdowns and land-secured loans are the usual tools. Short-term or unsecured loans rarely fit a planting that won't pay for itself for several years.
What if my bank won't fund the harvest wage bill?
A business line of credit, a short-term working capital loan or a secured facility from a non-bank lender can cover a harvest peak. Keep the term short and match repayments to when your produce is paid for, so you aren't still paying for this harvest when the next one starts.