Recognising agriculture’s contribution
(extract from Charles Stewart & Co, Spring Property Magazine 2020)
Australians generally understand the contribution agriculture has made to the nation’s wealth.
For a largely urban population though, the relevance of agriculture to their day-to-day lives has been diminishing. But times are changing and as farmers we need to be tuned in to public perceptions, for public perception quickly becomes political and business reality.
One focus of our response should be to demonstrate today’s farmer is running a large, complex business. We operate in a volatile and complex environment, managing climate volatility, market volatility, regulatory complexity and increasingly political volatility is now as important as growing crops and livestock.
At our Rupanyup based business, we think about all of these issues and managing their risks. We look to reduce volatility by varying the enterprise mix within our farm, selecting crops across a range of market use and destinations.
As demanding as running a farm is, we can’t lose sight of what is happening beyond the farm gate. There are two trends we need to be aware of.
Firstly, Australia has largely been a commodity producer in agriculture. We grow large volumes of a product and ship it out in bulk to let someone else do the value adding. As a nation, we can’t and shouldn’t continue to do this. If we only grow enough food to feed 65 million people, we can feed people who value safe, high quality food products. The food-manufacturing sector needs to be a cornerstone of the post-Covid economy.
Secondly, if we think about the value of agriculture at the point food and fibre is in the hands of a consumer, the number is many times the value at farm level. Farmers have first point of control in an incredibly valuable industry, yet a diminishing percentage of that value flows back to farms and regional communities. Influence and control along the supply chain no longer sits with farmers.
We can do something about both of these issues, but it requires us to organise ourselves. Individually farmers have little influence but well-organised, professionally managed groups of farmers can drive better outcomes for their business and their communities. It’s an opportunity we must embrace.
David Matthews
0427 855344
david.matthews@farmtradeaustralia.com.au
Editor’s Note: David Matthews is a farmer from Rupanyup in the Wimmera region of Victoria. In the early 1990s he established the Wimmera Grain Company, a pulse processing and export business. He was founding chairman of the first Community Bank in Australia, which opened in Rupanyup and Minyip in 1998. In 2010 he was elected as a non-executive director of the Bendigo & Adelaide Bank Group and subsequently appointed to the board of Rural Bank.