Conferences highlight growth opportunities Thought leadership from Farmlands’ Director of Growth and Innovation, Andrew Horsbrugh, on the progress that's been made and the need to maintain the momentum.
I believe the opportunities in front of us as a country are bigger than we have ever had, but the need for change is also bigger than we have faced for a long time – and herein lies the challenge. I recently had the privilege of attending or reviewing several primary industry conferences around the country. Key themes of these conferences included:
they consume have had on the environment or society. Customers do not want to just buy a “product”, they want to buy something that is having a positive impact on the world and from suppliers that are doing the right thing. The big shift to whole foods / healthy foods / food as medicine is positive for NZ provided we can prove our produce and systems align with their values.
Some attending farmers felt a mindset change due to a better understanding of what the consumer wanted. They felt more connected with their “why”, less concerned about what was coming at them and more focused on what they wanted to do for the environment. It was great to be reminded of our ability to farm in a low carbon manner – we have the lowest carbon footprint per kg milksolids in the world by almost a factor of two.
• The environment and the urgent need to reverse the alarming damage happening to our planet. There are opportunities here as well: to produce food and fibre with a low or zero carbon footprint; and to ensure wool benefits from a swing to natural products. • The disruption from synthetic alternative proteins that are forecast to be significantly cheaper than what we produce. We were told we will struggle to compete at the commodities end and must be high-end producers. • The connection the customer has with where they spend their money and the effect the products
18 | THE FARMLANDER
| There are huge opportunities in food produced naturally and sustainably.
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