The Mechanics of Leadership

Suppose, just for a few minutes, that everyone could agree on a policy to reduce agrochemical use. What might the organizational leadership look like to support that goal?

Today’s Status Quo

First, let’s review the goals of current lobbying groups in agriculture and food: basically, associations and institutions. For the most part, commodity associations are funded by legislated checkoffs deducted from farmgate sales and remitted by the first purchaser. Institutional organizations (councils and commissions for example) are usually jointly funded by industry fees and government payments.

Associations and institutions in agriculture are central to policy development and industry marketing, yet more and more, they struggle to resonate with peripheral stakeholders, including farmers and food consumers. For example:

• Checkoff refunds used to be completely taboo in farm circles. Today, more are asking for their money back.

• Shifting demand patterns of younger food consumers is a sign of backlash against the ‘big & cheap’ food messaging of the past several decades.

Alternative Models

The predominant paradigm held by current agriculture and food lobbyists is underpinned by the ‘volume model.’ This is where producers optimize for yield alone and are price-takers in commodity markets.

In recent years, the drive towards economies of scale has revealed new strains. It’s hard on most farmers to run that much equipment over huge areas and to staff their operations in rural communities. And from a yield perspective, the technological advances that pulled commodity agriculture this far have stalled out. Modern agronomy either isn’t affordable anymore, or it isn’t effective anymore… or both, given steadily increasing application rates.

Amidst shifting winds in society and the markets, there are hints about where new models are needed to solve new problems. From regulations, trade restrictions and government payments, to carbon and ecosystem markets, variables are emerging everywhere that need to be accounted for to properly analyze farm economics.

Organizational Leadership

Unfortunately, existing associations and institutions are left reacting and competing, rather than leading in these conversations. Antiquated governance structures are largely to blame.

Facing today’s challenges in agriculture and food, leaders have landed in conflict of interest with their constituents, overseeing outdated mandates. They have only one touchstone of success when they would need hundreds to respond fully. Most alarming - there is no mechanism to hold today’s leaders accountable for the consequences of their decisions on society.

First let’s unpack each of these issues using examples; then, consider the structural conditions for a new leadership model to functionally provide policy direction in agriculture and food.

Conflict of Interest

There is a conflict of interest in sustainable/regenerative farm market development that is choking progress… and it has nothing to do with the lack of a definition.

Here’s how it works: the Board of a checkoff-funded farm association has a fiduciary duty to make decisions that protect the organization’s finances. If the organization tries to define or segregate some farmers from others on the grounds of land management practices, it runs the risk that farmers who are left out get upset and demand refunds.

Therefore it would breach the fiduciary duty of the director to support any new distinctions. They have to stick to traditional commodity marketing language because including everyone is their mandate. They’re handcuffed at the very top of the organization from welcoming new demand opportunities, and protecting the industry from market access threats.

Mandates

Outdated organizational mandates are particularly difficult for the institutions in agriculture and food to modernize. For example, managing risk is core to writing crop insurance and the formulas rely on historic data. On grain farms, historic rotations are mostly GMO monocrops.

Shifting into lower-yielding, more nutrient-dense food crops like ancient grains, as well as intercropping and other novel practices, represent new marketing opportunities for farms and offer compelling benefits to soil health and wildlife species habitat. But most farms can’t afford to opt out of crop insurance and the institution can’t cover them if they innovate. In order for the algorithms to safely predict the risk of crop loss, crop insurance requires a high degree of continuation of past practices.

Accountability

Accountability to society for the decisions of agriculture and food industry leaders is going to require something entirely new. Without accountability, pollution and labor violations will continue to go on as unpriced negative externalities… and this is not what anyone in society truly wants.

A new organization could be accountable to society if allowed to operate with complete sovereignty, and by leaders appointed based on merit alone. That one entity would organize all the data around different farming systems, and fit them to today’s biggest problems (food security) and opportunities (carbon payments). No baggage from the past or hidden political motives allowed.

It must be said plainly that domestic food security is an issue for the agriculture industry to solve because all food comes from land. Unless land is being used to grow food to feed people, it’s not farming.

For example, bulk commodity exports and farm-to-table are two distinctly different philosophies, solutions, and economies. They must be handled as such by those with the money to support modern agriculture and food policies.

Today there are many farmers around the world leading the way to restore healthy ecosystems across their operations, in their communities, and directly with their customers. They didn’t need an intelligent, independent, values-driven, central repository of support to fuel their passion to innovate… but most of today’s agriculture and food stakeholders will.

Not every stakeholder must change of course – some will drop off, and some will survive under the status quo. But the vacuum of leadership for those who want to change today, and don’t know where to start, is holding the whole economy back.

Conclusion

Agriculture and food have the potential to birth so many economic growth superstars and long-term environmental solutions. But it’s hard to envision it happening while the money and control rest only with entities unable to talk openly and honestly.

A new entity to inform agriculture and food policy should have:

• Merit,

• Accountability to society,

• Institutional stability, and

• A fresh mandate to tackle modern issues.