He urged farmers attending to move from participation to active involvement.
“Just start on the journey and learn as you go.”
In his keynote address he said he believed the culture of leadership was more important than ever before.
“There’s downward pressure on the prices you’re receiving because of supply and demand and intense retail competition,” he said.
“It’s a complex world that we live in.”
There was also upward pressure on costs onfarm as well as within the dairy industry. This came from the demand for sustainability, water scarcity, increasing labour costs, climate variability, and traceability, food safety and security issues.
The leadership challenge as he saw it was to produce more, produce it better and at a higher quality with lower inputs of time, resources and costs.
Van der Heyden said the good news was dairy nutrition was good for humans. Products were easily stored and transported and had a variety of uses.
The dairy industry played a role in feeding growing populations and clean and green dairy products from NZ and Australia were sought out around the world.
“But that is no longer enough,” he warned.
“We need to do things differently.”
Current strategies were running into limits in a resource-constrained world. This meant balance was needed between efficient food production and environmental concerns.
He believed developing a culture of leadership was part of the solution. Farmers needed to understand the challenges and opportunities they faced while establishing a clear vision for the future. They also needed to share that vision with others so they would follow willingly, then they needed to translate that vision into a business strategy and plan.
“Be prepared to do things differently,” he said.
That relied on providing the information, knowledge, tools and technology to realise that vision as well as keeping all stakeholders connected with that vision.
Van der Heyden suggested to lift governance, farmers needed to take independent and strategic advice. They needed to put in place a three- to five-year business plan focused on growth, forecasting and budgeting.
Greater transparency would be achieved by establishing information systems and more attention needed to be paid to succession planning and risk management plans.
He championed Fonterra’s GlobalDairyTrade (GDT) auction platform, saying it had established the first objective market price for milk.
“GDT gives full transparency and accountability for all of those in the industry,” he said.
He touched on product innovations for customers, saying in developed markets $1 out of every $2 spent on food went on eating outside the home.
“Forty percent of urban people in China eat in a Western fast food outlet once a week,” he said.
“In Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1.5 million pizzas are made every day.”
Farmers also needed to think about how much milk was consumed in milkshakes, ice creams and cheeseburgers around the world.
He also urged them to use technology to a greater extent.
“Technology allows remote farm management,” he said.
Not only did it give real-time visibility, it provided a fact-based platform and allowed farmers to keep their properties in their family.
To conclude he quoted two great leaders; Indian National Congress leader, Mahatma Gandhi, who said “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”, and more recently United States President Barack Obama, who said “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”/
Five top opportunities for developing a leadership culture
- Have a clear vision and strategic plan that sets a future direction for you and everyone you work with and use this to guide priority-setting and decision-making every day.
- Put a robust governance framework in place that builds into your business risk management, long-term budget planning and resilience for a complex and challenging environment.
- Understand your end customer and what is most important to them, and make sure you are delivering it better than anyone else.
- Seek out new ideas and innovations. Talk to others, find out what is working for them. Borrow and adapt ideas.
- Use technology to help reduce input costs everywhere that you can.
