Bet made with confidence

I travelled to Devenish for a grain grower meeting last week.
Devenish is a small village in northeast Victoria, 50 kilometres east of Shepparton.

Like so many small towns throughout regional Victoria, it is working hard to maintain a sense of community.

It lost its footy and netball club a few years back and the Graincorp silos have closed – but it still has a great pub.

I went there to talk about the High Amylose Wheat, HAW, project we’re working on.

Think of it as a ‘wheat with benefits’ – probably the first wheat to have clear health benefits beyond just normal nutrition.

Our first commercial-scale crop was grown last year, with farmers producing 350 tonnes. Most of it was snapped up by a company in Japan.

A domestic miller has also joined the project and will take 500mt of the 2022 crop to begin commercial-scale trials in Australia.

It is still in its testing and production stages and needs to spread 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 often find ourselves in that chain, which often distorts information and messaging.

If we get the model right, we can assist with other new grain innovations.

When I was explaining this in Devenish, I was to be taken aback to hear a crusty cookie grunt and say, ‘heard it all before mate’.

Turns out the crusty cookie 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 the smarter one.

Ged countered saying he’s clearly the smarter one – he 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 too many, many times over the years been led into the next best thing that will be great for their business.

They invest time and money into a product or process only to find in a year or two it hasn’t delivered on the promises or was held off the market.

Contemplating this reminded me of another crusty old friend Rob Hunt, ex-chairman of the Bendigo Bank and architect of Community Bank.

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

It’s not a bad filter to use when listening to a proposition and when presenting one. Will this project or product add to the prosperity of the people it touches?

Or is it just trying to tap into some of the wealth they have created in their enterprises?

I couldn’t really give Ged a definitive answer to his gruff interjection.

I could point to the CSIRO depth of the science, the capability of the breeding company developing the varieties and the co-operation of Japan’s largest flour milling company.

In the end, though, this project will only be successful if consumers want the product.

If the growers don’t have a guarantee, the only option was to make a bet.

In two years’ time we’ll know the project is not continuing and the farmers have lost the bet.

If, however, the project is a success, God shouts the bar.

But for the initial 14 farmers at the meeting, they are determined to ensure it is a success.

Apparently, Ged doesn’t shout often.

Matthews, D. (2023). From AgLife column series. The Weekly Advertiser (AgLife), various issues.