Monthly Archives: November 2012

What would responsible pastoralism mean? (A strategic ‘glue’)

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My contention is, by branding our pasture method and taking that through on products to the consumer, NZ Inc would become the global custodians for responsible pastoralism.

What would that mean?

In one word, ‘glue’.

I argue that as nation of rugged individualists, the thing that has been missing for our farmers, our agritech, our marketers and our publics is a common sense of purpose.

Sure, there’s a sense that agriculture’s the backbone of the country’s economy and a worthy, if dull, image we take when we’re offshore. It’s hardly riveting though.

And across a plethora of ag industry reports and plans and initiatives of the past 40 years, the constant message is that ‘we’ need a shared strategy.

The obvious point, the obvious underpinning where we share a story and method, has never been put forward as a strategic platform.

But why would this act as‘glue’.

Firstly, in a world in which knowledge is seen as having value, it would clearly indicate that there’s a heck of a lot of knowhow in how we’ve learned to convert sunshine, soil and fresh air into fantastic products.

Branding our method would also enable farming to be a lot less defensive, and provide an underpinning argument for farmers’ contribution to our country.

Not the least, it would be a separate component, alongside the electric fences, animal and plant genetics and other agritech components that we sell overseas.

That is, instead of giving away (and implying that it has no value) the knowledge component of responsible pastoralism, we’d have a means to charge for the knowhow.

And on that overseas note, we’d also have a platform on which to partner with others.

If we enable other (world) farmers to be part of our brand, and also make more money, not only could we profit, but we’d be clearly seen to be spreading and encouraging the adoption of responsible pastoralism.

All it takes is for us to name/brand what we do.

Maybe it is just too simple?

Maybe we’d rather look for a complicated strategy that no one can explain in a sentence?

Maybe a common sense view isn’t commonsense after all?

P.S. I envisage that individual farmers would sign in/up to an as yet to be defined philosophy and statement of a sustainable responsible pastoralism. However, it probably would require no more than the current good practice, put down simply on one sheet of paper.

We all own our agricultural story…..that’s the problem

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The trouble is; we all own New Zealand’s agricultural story.

That is, the huge collective effort that went into figuring out, developing and improving the soil, pasture and plant/animal interaction that is our pastoral method: is part of our collective birthright.

Unfortunately, NZ Inc has never (and as such never could) apply for a worldwide patent for the knowledge. There’s none of it that’s uniquely identifiable. If, perhaps way back in the 1930s when some of the eminent scientists of the day were working up their theories of how to grow grass/clover better, there may have been some form of IP we could’ve called ‘ours’.

That horse has well and truly bolted these days – indeed, there’s mid-Western American universities who would attempt to claim the mantle.

However, no one has ever claimed the STORY.

No one has ever said, ‘well, we work with rather than against nature, seasonally’. If you want a comparison, it is much like the way the Seregenti ‘works’; with animals grazing then moving on to new, fresh pastures in a circular pattern that is probably as old as the time we’ve been walking upright.

To mix metaphors, this method of growing, grazing, resting pasture is a globally unstaked claim.

By that token, we, NZ Inc can and should nab it. What we’d be laying claim to is responsible pastoralism – and for want of a title/name/brand, I’m proposing we call it pasture Harmonies (otherwise we’d spend all our time debating what to call it).

I’m sure there would be a bit of a furore if we did – but so? (The only bad publicity is no publicity).

From a big-picture point of view for NZ Inc, and particularly the companies and farmers with a financial vested interest in agriculture, naming our story would provide the missing glue, the rationale to allow us to work together when it best suits.

Because one of our main challenges, identified in a host of reports over the past 30 years, is there is no NZ Inc strategic vision.

That’s because there is nothing (yet) to consolidate around.

But the moment we named our agriculture’s comparative advantage, and allowed those who wished to participate (including partnering overseas farmers and companies) to use pH as a co-brand, co-story, is the instant we’d give ourselves a non-commodity future.

The moment we said, ‘this is ours’, and named the method, is when we’d change our offer to the world.

We’d also make more money.

Or, is making money something we shouldn’t aspire to?

What does our agriculture offer?……..romance and reassurance

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I’ll be the first to admit that the frilly, intangible, non-scientific aspects of what and how we produce our agricultural products can be a tricky little number to get your head around.

Much of what we’re good at doing as a nation is hard-edged, ‘proven’ – be it across on and off farm technical performance, engineering disciplines, the All Blacks even – all those things that you can measure and monitor.

But, for a moment let’s just sit and accept these quantifiable aspects.

What else does our agriculture offer?

In a word (and now it may get really uncomfortable) – ROMANCE.

That is, in a world that for most people (especially the ones with discretionary disposable income) is urban, concrete, and pressured, we represent an ideal.

We represent an image that is matched by a reality. We are both olde world and modern; a ‘place’ where you have to work alongside nature using modern (including digital) tools, that still involves the type of honesty inherent in getting your hands dirty (literally).

And, in a modern working world that mostly occurs inside a building, the thought of working outside, producing physical outputs by combining a range of inputs (climatic, prices, scientific, gut-feel) is a wonderfully beguiling thought.

Put another way, (modern, as opposed to peasant) farming, the way we do it, offers a back-story for the piece of meat in a supermarket, that very few other products can.

It is an image and reality that resonates with the heart.

But the fact that we haven’t named this (back) story means we can only deal with the cold, hard facts of matter.

That’s all head stuff – and at that level all you’ve got to compete with is price.

My argument is, at an NZ Inc level, the moment we publicly and globally claim the mandate as being the world’s best at responsible pastoralism by naming our story, we provide ourselves with a completely offer to the world.

We would, in fact, step out of where we are now, and like the best movies, offer romance. That we back this elusive romantic notion with the reassurance of science is totally synergistic, completely non-commodity.

But maybe the idea of romance is naïve and unrealistic for our agriculture.

Are we therefore doomed to remaining stuck in the mud?

Our agriculture’s much more than the sum of its parts

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Too much, arguably all the time, we look at all the individual components of our farm production systems……and beat ourselves up about them.

We could use less fertiliser, our use of water isn’t that optimal at times, occasionally there’s animal welfare issues, and as for degradation of waterways……

And that’s just on-farm.

Get off-farm and meat marketers are continually giving a figurative fingers to each other, the ever-declining wool industry’s in(ward)-fighting continues and everybody wants to take a pot-shot at Fonterra – including sometimes Fonterra itself.

Meanwhile, back in the city, farmers and farms and all things associated with them are fair game for all and sundry to have a go at.

We can’t see the wood for the trees.

It is as if instead of standing back and looking at the whole picture of say the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, we go in with a magnifying glass and try to check it out.

‘Oh, messy brushstroke there’, ‘could’ve used a different shade of skin tone here’, ‘that eyeball’s not quite even’.

But then we never pull back and contemplate its beauty, its completeness, its balance.

Luckily, from art’s point of view, it is only art historians and art archivists and art lovers who get that close – but all the time they appreciate the big picture.

We, we never give ourselves the opportunity to ponder that, wow, we (mostly) wisely use nature’s resources and sunlight and produce fantastic products.

And seeing as I’m on an art bent, even if we stand back and look at the big picture, we’ve never given it a name. We can’t even begin to describe the components of the picture because there’s no start point.

da Vinci didn’t call his masterpiece ‘Picture of a reasonably pretty, enigmatically-smiling woman’ (though at least it would’ve been a name).

My argument is; over the past 100 years or so, we’ve painted a great picture, provided it with a stylish frame.

But, because we’ve never named it, (and getting back to the main point) it is as if our wonderful picture competes with one completed by a house painter.

Because we’ve never given a name to responsible pastoralism, we’re undifferentiated, unable to precisely say why our produce should command a premium.

But, the whole of our agriculture is more than the sum of its parts.

Or maybe it’s not.

Perhaps our inability to stand back and think romantically about our total offer means we deserve to forever be in the downward spiral of commodity produce and prices?