Productivity: The nation's sheep flock has halved since the 1970s, yet we are exporting more products than ever. Photo / Supplied
Productivity: The nation's sheep flock has halved since the 1970s, yet we are exporting more products than ever. Photo / Supplied
"We've got to do things differently", says Rabobank NZ chief executive Todd Charteris. "Doing nothing is not an option."
Charteris says that by 2050 there will be 10 billion people to feed — that's 30 per cent more than today.
The extra mouths will challenge food producers but on top of growing more, they are also faced with the prospect that to contain global warming they need to increase production while cutting emissions.
Charteris believes this is achievable: "New Zealand's farmers are in a strong position to set the standard for the rest of the world to follow".
Rabobank has highlighted focus areas where farmers and food producers can push ahead. Innovation is at the top of his list.
Charteris says rather than a few big projects, the goal should be to create a 'swarm of innovation'.
"We need to create an environment where innovation can thrive. Innovation is inherently uncertain, not all ideas will work. It is also incremental; progress is often made up of lots of small things that add up to something greater," he says. " Once a new idea, best practice or innovation is recognised we need to encourage food producers to use it, so I want to see a way of creating more visibility about the sharing of ideas and collaboration.
"This is already happening, but we need more of it."
Charteris says New Zealand's government has been great in terms of funding agribusiness innovation. But he wants to see policymakers and regulators to open up and let innovators go the full distance.
To a degree New Zealand is already on this path. The national dairy herd has fallen in numbers in recent years, but developments in breeding has seen fewer cows produce more milk.
Likewise, the nation's sheep flock has halved since the 1970s, yet we are exporting more product than ever.
"The productivity gains have been massive both in terms of lambing percentages and yields. If you compare this with other industry sectors, the progress is a standout," says Charteris. "This should give us confidence we can meet the challenge of increasing food production while reducing carbon. With the right focus and incentives around it, we can continue to make productivity gains.
"The current environment is inherently uncertain with regulatory changes and that brings with it a number of concerns. But it's worth thinking about where we have come from and where we still have leverage, this gives me optimism about moving forward."
For Charteris a key to stepping up the swarm of innovation lies in the link between the scientists and being able to test new ideas on a commercial scale quickly.
Photo / Michael Craig
There's a role for his bank in this.
Rabobank is the world's largest specialist financial services provider for the agribusiness sector and has been active in the industry for a century. "We need to bring our knowledge and understanding of what is happening in other markets and what we are hearing from consumers around the world. A bigger role for us would be to help create and foster knowledge networks and when we see successful innovation elsewhere sharing that information. It's something we can do on our own, but we are able to work with others.
"We have a global team of highly qualified agri-analysts and a research team that gives us powerful insights we can pass on to our customers. When China went into lockdown and there was an impact on food markets in that country we had people on the ground who could feed accurate information back to help farmers make informed decisions," he says.
Precision agriculture
Precision agriculture is a relatively recent innovation that has made the kind of difference Charteris is looking for. The technology allows farmers to apply nutrients square metre by square metre instead of over an entire paddock.
He says the high cost of synthetic fertilizers has made precision agriculture an essential farming tool for some producers, but he now wants to see the technology applied on a wider scale. "We can use precision agriculture based on soil types or on slopes, so an individual farm's characteristics can be mapped. It means we can minimise the environmental impact and not waste precious resources.
We can also deal with more fragile soil types and reduce run-off."
While precision agriculture is not a silver bullet, Charteris says it is an example of the incremental techniques and technologies that make a small change on their own, but when combined with other technologies become part of a huge cumulative impact.
Supply chains
One area that Charteris identifies as needing work is the supply chain and logistics of food production. He says there's a danger that the natural resources, energy, water and labour that goes into food can be wasted if the produce ends up in a landfill, not on people's dinner tables.
"It's a double whammy because when food ends up in a landfill it rots and ends up contributing even more to greenhouse gases," he says. "There's research that shows a staggering amount of food is wasted, much of it at the household level.
"It's not a problem that farmers and food producers can solve on their own, it needs societal change.
"But first we have to stop overproduction at certain times and get acceptance that food and vegetables don't have to look perfect to be edible. The ugly ones taste the same so why waste them?
"This is an area where we have to change everyone's mindset.
"About a third of all food produced in the world is wasted. There's a disconnect between this and the challenge we have with food security where people may not have enough to eat. We could produce less food if we wasted less."
While much of the logic behind a transition in how New Zealand produces food is about combating climate change, those changes are bringing a different transition as changing conditions affect what can and can't be grown in locations around the country.
Charteris sees more grounds for optimism in this: "Our farmers, food producers and growers have been managing climate forever.
"The climate has been changing for a long, it's not new.
"Some crops will need to move into new areas and in areas, we'll be able to farm new crops. The big issue is that we can't afford to see temperatures continue to rise. They are rising and that's having a detrimental effect on a global scale.
• Rabobank is an advertising sponsor of the Herald's Agribusiness and Trade report.
