From left field

with David Matthews

2022 crop to begin commercial-scale trials in Australia.

So it is time to expand production and to manage seasonal risk by spreading the geography.

I’m pretty upbeat about prospects for HAW, and not just from the perspective of growing a profitable crop.

With this project, the farmers are working directly with the technology owner and the customer.

We don’t need an elongated supply chain, which often distorts information flow and always disperses value.

If we get the model right, we can repeat this with other new technologies.

So after giving the HAW spiel at Devenish, I was a bit taken aback to hear a crusty cockie grunt and say, ‘heard it all before mate’.

Turns out the crusty cockie was a bloke named Ged. We both started an ag science degree at La Trobe University many years ago. He lasted one term, I lasted two.

At the time, I claimed to be twice as smart as him.

Ged countered saying he’s clearly the smartest – completed his uni degree in half the time it took me.

Either way, Ged had a point. They have heard it all before.

Farmers have been to many, many meetings where they have been told about the next beaut thing that will be great for their business.

They invest time and money into the product or project only to find in a year or two it hasn’t delivered on the promises made. How is this any different?

Contemplating this reminded me of that favourite line of Rob Hunt, ex managing director of Bendigo Bank and architect of the Community Bank model.

Rob would say a bank’s role is to ‘feed into prosperity, not off it’.

It’s not a bad filter to use when listening to a proposition and when