Category Archives: Collaboration

Achieving virtual scale for our largest industry

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(This blog also appears at pastureharmonies.org)

Scale matters in exporting according to the World Bank…..so here’s a way to get virtual scale for our biggest industry.

The World Bank’s recent report ‘Export Superstars’, shows that company size matters when it comes to countries’ exporting. Little SME’s don’t cut much mustard.

Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly , in commenting on Rob O’Neil’s Stuff story that the World Bank wants us to think big, says

“New Zealand has some unique challenges to overcome in its incredibly small scale and being the most isolated developed economy in the world.”

O’Reilly goes onto say:

“one effective model is the aggregation of small businesses into groups allowing them to in some ways act like and gain the advantages of large businesses.”

Given that NZ Inc’s biggest business is the conversion of solar-derived pastures into various proteins and fats, through thousands of small on and off farm businesses (and even the large ones are mere tiddlers in the world scene), wouldn’t it make sense to aggregate if we could?

Given the fierce independence mindset of our agricultural (and other) businesses, the best way for us to do this I argue is around the shared story of our pastoral method?

After all, in an affluent consumer’s mind, the story of a product is a large reason why they do, or don’t, buy it.

No one has claimed the ‘global mind’ (nor branded it) for responsible pastoralism. By and large (with some exceptions), how we produce our protein is a pretty sophisticated use of sunshine, soil and fresh air.

Now, no one New Zealand company can claim the NZ Inc mandate.

But collectively we can.

Collectively, owning and telling our story through individuals, we can grunt up, obtain the virtual scale that the World Bank suggests is vital, aggregate around a common heritage and obtain some of these advantages of large businesses.

Owning our pastoral story would sit perfectly alongside the Collaboration Programme for Greater Farmer Profitability recently kicked off under the Primary Growth Partnership fund. In fact it would underpin the whole thing, and move us further away from the continual price fighting end of the market.

But perhaps storytelling as a concept is too big an ask for the collective brains and leadership of the agricultural industry. As a nation we’ve always been more comfortable about actually doing things, than talking about what we’re good at, what we believe.

So, even though we essentially perfected rotational grazing, the thought that we could or should name it at a global level is just too radical.

However; the opportunity to provide virtual scale for our largest industry is waiting in the wings.

We simply have to think differently about what it is we sell to the world – and that is an ideal, linked to a method.

The moment we stop thinking only production and think ‘picture’ is the moment we’ve adapted to a storytelling world – which in today’s digital age is the beginning, middle and end of selling.

We are the picture that a child draws of a farm

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A child draws a picture of a farm.

The sun is shining, the water is clean, the animals are happy.

A question could be, ‘What is the name of that picture?’

Our farms, done correctly, are that picture. There’s a heck of a lot of science to validate it as well.

But, like the picture, we’ve never given a name to what and how we do things.

Without a name, we’re undifferentiated from factory farming.

However, the moment we give our responsible pastoralism method a name, then we provide ourselves with a frame for the offer we make to the world.

It is a frame of reference, of expectation, of delivery, of allowing a consumer to connect heart and head for the piece of meat they may be thinking of buying.

It also provides a frame on which to do much more applied science – get the special bits, add lots of margin, create more value from the raw materials, reinvent products.

(This also applies to our forestry, fishing and other biological resources – our strengths, upon which we can build, make much more money).

Because what we want to do is have a relationship with consumers – they too ‘own’ our pasture Harmonies method. By naming it, we can have a conversation, with them, with other world farmers, with the supply chain, with the rest of New Zealand.

And wouldn’t it be nice to be able to positively yarn, rather than always having to be reactive.

Imagine too the competition and labelling opportunities from having children paint pictures and/or come to somewhere/something that is already named!

It all would happen by naming our story, taking control of our destiny.

Or would that be just too simple?

If we knew what we were inventing when we figured it out…..we would’ve named it

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The concept of rotational grazing has been around for so long now (but only about 60 years really) that we take it for granted.

It is ‘just’ the way we do things at the on farm level, and there’s no question that this is the best way to manage the ryegrass/clover mix that makes up a majority of our pastures.

However, the ‘just’ hides a hell of a lot of applied science, and incremental increases in knowledge that resulted in a graze, rest, graze, rest….. method of management, and as importantly, tying it all in in a systemised approach.

(As an aside, this is how wild animals/nature manages the Serengeti Plains. Lush new grazing is inundated with animals, which move onto new grazing as it grows, allowing the old growth time to replenish).

Rotational grazing, as opposed to set-stocking, was a big breakthrough.

So, imagine if back in the 1950s, as our extremely talented (and nationally known) agricultural scientists were getting their heads around the ‘graze, rest’ style of pasture management, they realised what it was going to mean.

Do you think for a moment they would’ve hesitated to give it a name if they’d realised the multi-dimensional beast they were creating?

If, landing from another planet they’d descended straight into the technology, they would’ve been sure to have done so.

But, much as a frog placed in a pot of water with an ever increasing temperature doesn’t jump out, being so tied up in tweaking and re-tweaking the pastoral system, nobody thought to give it a handle.

There was a time when our grazing (including extensive use of greater paddock subdivision) was known as the McMeeken Method. Those in farming knew exactly what this meant.

With time, this moniker faded away.

However, it still doesn’t get around the fact that, especially and most importantly, there is no descriptor from a CONSUMER point of view. As the people who ultimately pay our agriculture’s way, they are who we need to engage with.

The story of how a lamb chop or steak (or even mince) is nurtured into life is a fantastic one (and for many people, especially those with discretionary income, several cuts above a feedlot yarn).

But, we’ve never named that story.

Until we do we’re undifferentiated.

The moment we did call our pastoral method (= responsible pastoralism) something, then an entire linkage from R&D, to the entire and wider agribusiness sector to the consumer would have a place to start.

We would give ourselves a common strategy – that mythical beast that has been talked about as being required for the past 40 years, but never cracked.

Sounds too simple…..which is probably why some people think it is impossible or crazy.

Or maybe not.

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.

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?

The way you’d farm if you farmed yourself

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Think for a moment that you’re a Western consumer contemplating buying some animal protein for dinner that night.

Faced with an array of red and white meat choices, you have a tiny thought in the back of your mind about how the animal that produced that steak or mince or breast grew up.

(Ignoring anthropomorphism) mostly, you’re going to be aware that its life was pretty confined and squashed, and bears very little resemblance to how it would’ve existed in a ‘natural’ world.

However, you’ve got to eat, and pretty much you have Hobson’s choice when it comes to the production source of the meat.

Further imagine there’s meat product that has a pH and/or a pasture Harmonies co-brand sitting alongside a marketer’s brand, a sign of responsible pastoralism.

You know the pH story.

That’s the one where a farmer works in with the seasonality of grass/clover/herb growth.

That’s the one where animals are outside, relatively free to wander, relatively free to express their natural behaviours.

That’s the one where a sustainable use of land is the goal – and where science has helped contribute to and verify that the planet’s not being harmed in the product’s creation.

That’s the one where there is an explicit invitation to VISIT – this production method has nothing to hide.

And, even though the steak or mince from the pH co-branded product costs more than its fellow chiller-mates, you appreciate there’s something more heartfelt, something more uplifting about buying it compared to the others.

All in all, the pH product ticks all the right ethical, moral and emotional boxes (let’s call it a heart) – allowing the head to follow.

In fact, such a consumer is standing there thinking, ‘if I was a farmer, that’s the way I’d want to farm’.

That, I argue, is what we ‘risk’ by owning our story.

We risk connecting with a consumer in a way that nobody else has.

We risk laying claim to a market position that others, simply, understand.

We risk putting ourselves in the position of global leaders in responsible pastoralism and providing ourselves and our children’s children with a sustainable business model beyond commodity.

All that, I argue, through owning our story…..and we’d own our story by naming it.

Is it a risk worth taking?

For want of a name our agriculture flounders

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Every story has a name – except the one which describes our agriculture.

This, I argue, is one of the reasons we struggle to tell people around the world and in our cities about what exactly is and has been the basis of our farming’s comparative advantage for the past 130 years.

Let me provide an example.

We don’t start a story with: ‘This is about a wolf and a little girl and a grandmother who lives alone.”

No, we start, “This is the story of Little Red Riding Hood.”

From that basis the rest of the story can unfold. In a sense it doesn’t matter if some of the order, the details and nuances get a bit mixed up. Everything can hover under the banner of the name of the story.

At the same time, though there may be many variations on the story (does the wolf eat the grandmother, or does he lock her in a cupboard), it is still the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It is a story of good versus bad, and a girl with a red jacket that has an inbuilt hood.

Moving into the real world, we see countries that have earned a name for something they do extremely well.

Thus, no one has an argument about the idea of German engineering excellence, or Italian design flair or a Japanese minimalist Zen aesthetic.

Even though these are a generic name, built on the products and services which reinforce the truism of the name; they reinforce the story. The story is one of clever people, applied thinking, a certain style. It is part and parcel of those particular countries’ ethos.

However, we, NZ Inc, haven’t even managed such a generic name. The New Zealand method, or grass fed, or (the meaningless) natural don’t describe, don’t resonate, don’t provide consumers with a compelling shorthand that allows them to think “ah, I know what this is, where it comes from, what it represents”.

Instead, our wonderful products, the result of applied science to sunshine, soil and fresh air, are lumped with all the other commodity meats and fibres.

And all this because we have never given what we do a name or brand (which is merely shortand for the story).

This is why I argue that the moment we name our method is the instant we totally reposition ourselves in the minds of consumers, and give ourselves a strategic platform to upsell everything from animal genetics to electric fences (as well as the method itself) to other farmers around the world.

From that point on, we allow ourselves to play a completely different game.

But maybe I’m talking through the proverbial hole in my head. Or am I?

If we imagine beyond the actuality of how we produce….

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Science has served New Zealand agriculture extremely well. It should and needs to do so in the future.

It is also that pragmatic rationale approach that has delivered and developed a wonderfully integrated on-farm representation of responsible pastoralism.

Put another way, we’ve engineered a farming solution that makes best use of the temperate climate and relatively thin, bony, young soils of New Zealand.

We are one of the few countries in the world where farmers aren’t peasants.

We tend to take it so much for granted, that what we have, what we project from (most of) our farming, is ‘normal’. In doing so we forget what it looks like.

Now, while some tourists and travellers may complain our countryside looks like a giant golfcourse, in a way it is a bit of a backhand compliment.

Our farms, from Northland to Southland, from the coast to the foothills and high country, look looked after. They look as if someone intelligent is at home and the land, environment and animals are being cared for.

It looks almost bucolic. One of (many) definitions of bucolic is – of, pertaining to, or suggesting an idyllic rural life – which while a large stretch of the actuality, is a pretty good image or association to have.

The fact, supported by billions of dollars of spending over the past 120 years, we have science to utterly back up the picture.

However, this is a synergy we’ve, (I’m arguing) never exploited.

But first and foremost though, we need to control the imagery of what and how our farms and farming looks in the big picture.

pasture Harmonies can truly represent the idea and the ideal of responsible pastoralism.

By inviting consumers to visit, we can also take part in a conversation.

For example, consumers will (probably) always want a standard that in practice is impossible and/or uneconomic to achieve.

If, when we stake our claim to the rotational grazing territory we initially discovered, then we can take part in a conversation, instead of always defensively reacting .

One of our current challenges, is agriculture attempts to defend an amorphous idea.

When we give that idea a name, we are in a much better, stronger position.

Our farming is about much more than the sum of all its parts.

We are picture (almost) perfect.

Let’s start believing, living up to and improving that picture. To which end, let’s name it, and with it the science behind the image.

(Or, is our image something we should just let look after itself, and by default decay?)

Standing for nothing does our agriculture a big non-favour

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If you stand for nothing; does that mean anything is acceptable….or not?

This is the dilemma for NZ Inc agriculture as AgResearch announces the recent success of ‘Daisy’ a cow genetically modified to produce milk with much less beta-lactoglobulin (BLG). This is a milk whey protein known to be allergenic to some people. See the NZ Herald version of the story here.

I’m not commenting on the clever science behind GM Daisy – essentially using two microRNAs and RNA interference to knock down the expression of BLG. AgResearch next want to normally breed from Daisy and see if the same non-BLG milk is produced by her daughters – a several year exercise.

At its core, Daisy is a world first, and it really is (in my opinion) excellent applied science in creating her.

What’s of greater issue; especially given the pro/anti GM stirrings that resulted from AgResearch’s announcement, is the lack of ability ‘we’, as NZ Inc agriculture, have to figure out where Daisy and her ilk could or should fit in our offer to the world.

This is because we don’t own our story.

We don’t own our story because we’ve never named it – that is, we’ve never given a title to the rotational grazing technologies and grazing in situ we perfected over the past 100 years.

It means that we have no strategic big picture notion of what we ‘offer’ the world.

In ‘standing for nothing’ we do ourselves a huge disservice.

Is it no wonder that young people, the very lifeblood for agriculture’s next generation, are turned off. It is such a shapeless industry, who can blame them for avoiding education in it in droves.

It is no wonder that urban NZ only sees and hears grizzling cockies, polluting producers and sellers flogging commodities.

It is no wonder that tourists to New Zealand (or the vast majority of Kiwis for that matter) never appreciate the complex science behind what they see out their bus window.

Which may seem a long way from a debate about a genetically modified cow on an experimental farm?

But it is the other side of our unnamed story.

NZ Inc has the opportunity to name/brand our country’s core comparative advantage – and in doing so become the global custodians of responsible pastoralism.

The moment we do, is when we’d provide ourselves with the ability to debate Daisy, determine if such genetically tweaked beasts can fit into what we proffer to the world.

Non-BLG milk could indeed be part of a suite of ‘clever’ biologically-derived products that we produce.

But, getting back to the opening sentence – by standing for nothing, we can only have a nothing sort of debate.