The Australian Farmer

the australian farmer

to the farm business and its bio- logical and social environments xiii . Peak industry councils like the newly-launched Cattle Aus- tralia - national peak body for the grass-fed cattle industry to provide a unified and influential voice for producers, Wool Produ- cers Australia, and Grain Growers, among others, are contributing a great deal to the future of their respective sectors by offering scholarships to develop leader- ship capabilities amongst early to mid-career people in farming. An example includes the scholar- ship by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a course that

teaches governance principles to new and emerging leaders. This creates national networks for young people in agriculture and provides them with the appro- priate skills to lead and govern their industries into the future. However, a great deal more is needed, including contributions from outside the reach of Peak industry bodies. Acceptance of knowledge diversity is a key in- gredient in improving adoption of digital agricultural innovations and transforming how farmers learn new skills to change their farm businesses.

(sometimes uncomfortable change) to existing practi- ces (how to deal with this change is within the domain of behavioural scientists).

The core message remains that knowledge diversity, and its com- munication, is needed. Further- more, whether people new to agriculture have an education in marketing, finance, chemistry, engineering, biology or any other discipline, there must be a fun- damental understanding that farming and its associated innov- ations are multi-disciplinary, thus input is required from a plethora of skills to ensure value is added

i Shiller, R. J. (2017). Narrative Economics (Working Paper No. 23075). NBER. ii Manyika, J., Ramaswamy, S., Khanna, S., Sarrazin, H., Pinkus, G., Sethupathy, G., & Yaffe, A. (2015). Digital America: A Tale of the Haves and Have-Mores. McKinsey Global Institute. iii World Bank (Ed.). (2021). World Development Report 2021: Data for better lives. iv Burwood-Taylor, L. (2021). AgFunder AgriFoodTech Investment Report 58. v World Economic Forum. (2021, September). Food Systems: Data, Digital and Innovation Levers. vi Lajoie-O’Malley, A., Bronson, K., Van der Burg, S., & Klerkx, L. (2020). The future(s) of digital agriculture and sustainable food sys- tems: An analysis of high-level policy documents. Ecosystem Services, 45, 101183. vii Pavitt, K. (1984). Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory. Research Policy, 13(6), 343–373. viii Trendov, N.K., Varas, S., & Zeng, M. (2019b). Digital technologies in agriculture and rural areas—Status report, FAO, Rome. Licence: cc by-nc-sa 3.0 igo. ix Blackburn, S., Freeland, M., & Gärtner, D. (2017). Digital Australia: Seizing opportunities from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Digital/McKinsey. x Lacoste, M., Cook, S., McNee, M., Gale, D., Ingram, J., Bellon-Maurel, V., ... & Hall, A. (2022). On-Farm Experimentation to transform global agriculture. Nature Food, 3(1), 11-18. xi Simanis, E. & Duke, D. (2014). Profits at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Harvard Business Review. xii Wilkinson (2015). Australia's dismal, bottom-of-pack performance in university-business innovation, Financial Review. xiii Robertson, M.J., Hall, A., Walker, D., Keating, B.A., Bonnett, G. 2016. “Five Ways to Improve the Agricultural Innovation System in Australia.” Farm Policy Journal 13 (1). Prof Simon Cook is leader of the recently launched Centre for Digital Agriculture at Curtin University, which develops new technologies to help shape Western Australia’s future agricultural industry. Dr Elizabeth Jackson is a senior lecturer in Curtin University’s School of Management and Marketing, and a visiting scholar at the Royal Veterinary College (UK). Prof Derek Baker is director of the UNE Centre for Agribusiness, and Professor of Agribusiness and Value Chains at the University of New England.

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