Wellington
Here’s a counter-intuitive notion, that if we’re smart, could allow our analogue agriculturalsystems to thrive in a digital world.
But to do so we MUST own our story.
My contention is, the more society connectsto the cloud, the more we will want to connect to the land.
Realness and authenticity is about ‘trust’. In theory most of our current farming-basedindustries should have a distinct advantage in this regard. Which is the problem when it comes toagriculture.
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Because farmers, companies and our country can only benefit by branding our key comparative andcompetitive advantage - namely our ability to grow, and knowledge about pastures.
We don’t share a brand/name/story around this, though we’ve poured billions of dollars intoits R&D over 120 years.
Now , compared to factory/feedlot farming, the way we grow pasture and raise animals -sustainably (mostly), scientifically, safely, ethically - is the way discerning and affluentconsumers would do it themselves.
Indeed, we’re the only protein production system that can happily say, ‘visit’.But becausewe have no brand/name/story for what, how and why we grow pasture, there’s no way to:
Sure many NZ primary industry focused interests attempt to put their own spin on a ‘method’we all own. However, there is no critical mass around these names, no shared story.
Equally, the plethora of names such as natural, grass-fed, free-range et al don’t describe thevalue proposition of our pastoral method, doesn’t link to consumers’ emotions, has noresonance.
Such terms don’t allow us to differentiate the animal-based products coming from our land, orenable our seed, animal genetics or stock control agribusiness to set themselves apart.
The irony is soon as we did name our pastoral method at a national level, we would give ouragriculture a position of strength in a digital future.
We’d give ourselves a platform on which to tell our shared story. Individual companies wouldhave a supporting brand/name/story to underpin their marketing efforts.
How confident am I that our farming industry can see this, make a simple change?
Not confident at all.
In spite of the fact an NZ-owned pasture brand would provide tangible ‘trust’ for globalconsumers, and enable a correctly aligned underpinning for a host of improvements in the industry,it will probably never be done.
Farming’s much more comfortable pedalling ever faster, for ever diminishing returns, thanshining a light on what we do exceptionally well.
We’re too busy fighting eachother in the market, we can’t see that there’s advantage in working together.
Naming our specialness is too blindingly obvious a thing to do to ever have a hope of beingachieved.
NZ Inc agriculture has the opportunity to stake a global claim for a methodology that works inharmony with nature, and take worldwide ownership of a natural space.
We can own a small part of the market representing realness and authenticity. We can give primaryindustry a healthy, sustainable and profitable future by being able to tell, and retell our whatmakes us special through digital storytelling.
We can demonstrate our trustworthiness.
But, all this is possible, ONLY if we name what we do best.
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