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INNOVATION IN PRACTICE
Five Mins Q&A with Kelly Freeman, Managing Director of Nutrien Ag Solutions
Kelly Freeman, Managing Director of Nutrien Ag Solutions – Australia, since October 2022, shares some insights around his passion for ag, the importance of managing risk, and priorities for the future of Australian ag. TAF: What do you love about your ag career? KF: I have a huge passion for ag. I grew up with rural roots in middle Canadian prairie, a 4th generation ag family. I cannot imagine working elsewhere. Like my home country, Canada, ag is very grounded in the social fabric of rural Australia – it is more than just a profession; it’s a way of life. The mental stimulation, as ag simply never gets boring, is another factor for me. With so many vari- ables and constant change in ag, the complexity of the ag industry across the whole supply chain just fascinates me. Some farmers, for example, are slower to adopt change while others are doing it faster. Many are keen to scale up while others are preparing for a succession plan. And there are so many new clever tools and farming practices that growers have available to them now, which can improve their returns. More than in any other time historically, there’s so much coming at the farmer this decade and the next. Understanding and deal- ing with this complexity is what makes the job so interesting and fun for me personally. TAF: What should Australian farmers be priori- tising this decade?
KF: The economic equation farmers have historic- ally been faced with has broken down to two simple things: increasing productivity and marketing well. This, with good reliability, has for centuries deter- mined what happens with farmer prosperity. Grow- ers today, however, have a third dynamic to contend with: addressing the range of threats to their farm- ing operations. This means exposure to risk whether it’s drought, climate variability, biosecurity, global competition, or consumer preferences related. A competency in managing risk is therefore a key factor in grower success in the 2020s and beyond. Finding quality agronomists to support the grower’s knowledge needs, a key input for managing risk, is
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