WHAT WE DO
Farm Trade Australia seeks to partner with organisations and companies that add value to our farm businesses and rural communities.
We work with organisations that will feed into our prosperity, not off it. If a market is working effectively, then we will work with it; if a market is extracting too much of the value created by our activity, then we will find ways to correct this. FTA will work across four key areas:
AGGREGATION
INTEGRATION
ADJACENT MARKETS
SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE
AGGREGATION
Aggregation of our activity will be across both the input and output side of farm businesses. Currently, buyers of farm produce and suppliers to farm businesses can only act when the farmer makes a decision. In isolation it’s difficult to utilise this natural advantage of being a primary producer; however collectively we can do just that. This is a key focus of Farm Trade Australia: working together for a better outcome for farmers.
Farm Trade Australia is committed to, where possible, working with local businesses. It is not our intention to damage or replace effective local businesses. Our intention is to ensure a competitive and efficient marketplace exists for both our inputs and our outputs.
INTEGRATION
Farming in Australia is, for many, a commodity business. We compete against other farmers from all over the world, most of whom enjoy both a lower cost operating environment and a more stable climate. To survive, we increase our own operating scale and rapidly adopt new technologies. Whilst this has been successful for many Australian farms, the value created and captured at the commodity level is only a fraction of the value of farm products at the consumer level. Added to this, is the unfortunate consequence of population decline seen right across rural Australia due to the increased scale and new technologies.
FTA will identify opportunities for a greater capture of ‘consumer value’ for the benefit of both our farm businesses and our rural communities. This may be through improved co- ordination of grain storage and transport activities already conducted by many farms, through to new investment in downstream processing and distribution. Where possible and commercially sensible, we will locate value adding activities in rural areas. Investing in rural communities is at the forefront of our philosophy.
ADJACENT MARKETS
Farm Trade Australia will look for opportunities to diversify farm income by participating in activities related to, but independent of, farm production.
Data - FTA will initially focus on ways to derive value from the immense amount of data we produce as primary producers. Data relating to planting intentions, crop and animal production, capital expenditure plans, and technology use all have commercial value. As the originators of this data we should be the ones who capture the value.
Renewable energy – Participating in renewable energy development will be another early focus of FTA. The aim is to capture an alternative income stream for farm businesses irrespective of seasonal conditions whilst also reducing the energy cost of operating the farm business.
SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE
Farming is now a complex business. Farmers need to focus on both the operations in the paddock, as well as being across the running of the business in the office. It is difficult for a farmer to possess all the skills required to operate a modern farm business. ‘Buying’ the skills is often difficult; they are not always available in rural areas or, simply, not affordable.
FTA will identify and develop solutions for the greatest areas of need for training and business support. This includes the areas of Workplace Health and Safety and Human Resource Management; a critical area of farm businesses that is often not managed as well as possible, leaving the farm business in an exposed position. FTA is looking to engage skilled resources to work with farm businesses in managing this aspect of their operations.