What is the biggest threat to agriculture in Australia?
The biggest threat to the Australian agriculture sector is the way the sector talks about itself
We could remind people that Australian farmers supply more than 90% of the food we consume in this country
In these challenging times when ‘food security” could become “national security” almost overnight that makes our farmers very important to every Australian who want to put safe, affordable nutritious food on the table everyday for their families
We could say agriculture is an exciting industry
- where innovation, disruption and creativity are fostered,
- where careers with purpose can grow limitlessly.
We could use this language instead we default to using deficit language* and reinforcing the negative
We have some industry bodies who appear to record every negative thing anyone who dares to challenge our environmental and animal welfare credentials says and repeats their list of negatives at every opportunity
This leads to an industry culture of normalising this language and focusing on the problem instead of the solution.
Its leads to our farmers not feeling seen, heard, understood and valued
The language we use has never been more important – lets work together on a common narrative that fosters hope.
*Speaking of deficit language in some sectors the word for resilience has been replaced with anti-fragility. How does the word “anti-fragility” make you feel ?
