Shared value of ‘turf’

For a long time, agriculture has been the mainstay of many rural communities.

And it’s a fantastic industry — the only one I can think of that makes new wealth, year after year after year.

Increasingly, though, we’re seeing other industries looking to share the same ‘turf’ as farmers.

And if the new arrivals don’t engage in a constructive manner right from the beginning, it regularly leads to mistrust, delays and sometimes abandonment of a proposed investment.

The first example I recall of this was CRA’s discovery of large mineral sands deposits in the Wimmera in the 1980s.

To be fair, farmers and miners probably began from a position of mutual distrust in those days.

But this wasn’t aided by what the farmers viewed as a disrespectful attitude by a large corporate in the way they engaged with family farms.

I felt like the corporate strategy was, ‘we’ll listen politely for a while, have a couple of public meetings, then get on with the job’.

People who don’t understand the country way can often mistake polite listening for acceptance of the spiel.

They underestimate our ability to sense when engagement is disingenuous.

More recently, a wind farm developer learned this the hard way as they rolled out plans to build turbines in south-west Victoria.

In their blueprint there was obviously a heading, ‘community engagement’.

The community liaison officer duly arranged the public meeting at the local hall. The company heavy weights arrived to give their pitch.

I suspect they thought it was going pretty well and were especially pleased with announcing the $4000 grant to repaint the hall; and didn’t sense the country folk would think $4000 in a $300-million investment would look a bit skinny.

But things deteriorated from there when, after 30 minutes or so of quite reasonable questions about land impact, access and ongoing farming operations, the head of the construction company became a bit impatient.

“Look” he said. “We’re really busy and have a tight schedule for this project. We’re happy to consult landowners but we just have to get on and build this wind farm.”

That went down well.

Pleasingly, though, some companies get it right.

The mineral sands deposit between Minyip and Donald is getting closer to full-scale development.

The company involved engages well with the community.

It provides regular detailed updates which incorporate commentary on everything from economic impact to radiological assessment, to impact on endangered plant species.

This open communication, even with the potentially controversial issues, builds trust.

You feel this company will be a good citizen and readily co-exist with the farming and broader community.

And it’s in our collective interest to embrace new, compatible industries.

We know continued consolidation in the farm sector is likely to threaten the viability of many rural towns.

We know climate volatility can create large fluctuations in revenues flowing into the rural economy.

Diversifying the economic base in rural Australia has no economic upside.

So for the next project that may impact the existing land use, there’s a few things we should expect.

Engage early, openly and honestly.

Don’t just think about shareholders; think about shared value.

And have a mindset to feed into the prosperity of our regions, not off it.

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