ABARE conference +Productivity increases are necessary to stay ahead of the game

Hi all today I spent the day at the conference again and the strong message was ,that we need to increase productivity to stay in front and research will be necessary to achieve this.. Interestingly this got me thinking about the comments that were being made a lot, over the last few days about the price of food going up. I keep wondering how farmers will position themselves to capture some of the profit from this. I asked this question of a panel of farmers and they answered,  by owning brands,  and value adding. The wheat farmers wondered how he was going to value add to his wheat crop. I wonder the same. How can all dairy farmers value add.? Ownership up the supply chain! that is owning brands and being able to value add to base commodities like milk.
I also heard from some amazing farmers who are responsible land managers, making scientifically based decisions  who are innovating and producing food and fibre that significantly contributes to the nations wealth. I reckon the very concerned community out there would be impressed to see the calibre of farmers that the education programs farmers and governments alike have been investing in for some time has produced. Its a strong culture of responsible,educated land managers we have created  Time to let people know this!!!!