Recently I was asked to participate in the Australian Farm Institute Great Debate to help share some ideas and start a discussion about and what it means for Australian farmers. The debate was all in good fun and it was a great way to examine the topic and how the Ausag industry can ensure that it’s not left behind and not excluded from the decisions being made by investors, other parts of the supply chain, banks, regulatory bodies and government.

TEST H3

As farmers, we need to make sure that our needs are being met and that any request by lenders, buyers, investors or government to measure and record data, undertake practice change and conform to any additional requirements is accompanied by the appropriate amount of support and resourcing for us – the people who already have full time jobs being farmers and limited capacity to take on extra work for no discernible benefit.

ESG in and of itself is not a bad thing, in fact most of us have already adopted these practices and goals under another name or scheme. My biggest concern is that it’s being sold to us by financial institutions and big corporations as something that WE have to do, just another cost of doing business, when in reality it is something that THEY need in order to meet their obligations. And it’s something that THEY need to resource adequately. After all, they are the ones making billions of dollars profit, while most farmers are barely getting ahead year on year thanks to interest rate increases, market fluctuations and natural disasters.

So, for your entertainment & reading pleasure, here is my part of the Great Debate. (edited slightly to make sense while being read – not spoken)

Some of you might be wondering why I was asked to join this debate, and share the stage with such high calibre company. Some might say I’m not a high-profile agricultural personality, and I am most certainly not a serious academic or powerful business executive, I don’t generally enjoy people and spending time in a large city is my own personal form of hell BUT I’m kinda a big deal on the internet & if you’ve ever seen me on Twitter you’ll know I don’t mind a spirited & robust discussion on almost any topic.

And together with my esteemed colleague Ian McConnel someone who IS a high-profile agricultural personality, President of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef AND a globally recognised expert in food sustainability, we are going to convince you that:

“ESG is an unnecessary burden for Australia’s farmers.”

Test H2

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. I’ve heard it described as the three amigos of corporate responsibility.

I asked ChatGPT to explain ESG for me and this is what I got:

So, ESG is like this fantastic carnival ride where businesses try to balance the environment, social responsibility, and good governance. They spin around while avoiding pitfalls and challenges, all in the name of being responsible corporate citizens. It’s like a wild dance party making the world a better place, one laugh at a time!

Test H4

Basically ESG is a set of standards for a company’s behaviour that is used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments.

It’s a framework that’s supposed to stop big corporations from doing what big corporations like to do best. You know – exploit their workers, drive unsustainable consumerism, destroy the environment and basically all other types of standard capitalist behaviour.

Except that when you’ve got all the money & all the power, a few politicians in your back pocket and a strong desire to keep making obscene amounts of money, then you can basically say you’re doing all the right things while still carrying on with your classic corporate fuckery.

Test H5

I’m sure that no one in this room would even contemplate engaging in that sort of behaviour but there is a massive corporation with quite a large footprint in Australia that maintains an ESG rating of 4.5 out of 5 yet is constantly under scrutiny for child slave labour, exploitation of drought ridden areas & their scarce water resources, and is one of the worlds worst plastic polluters. So maybe ESG isn’t the messiah at all – maybe it’s just a very naughty boy.

Now, imagine if you will – that you’re a multi billion dollar corporation – with almost unlimited resources at your disposal to ensure compliance with rigorous ESG standards and reporting, the capacity to implement solutions to minimize negative environmental effects, reduce resource consumption, and increase resilience in the face of climate change.

Yeah feels nice doesn’t it.

I mean it doesn’t actually mean that you’ll do anything – why would you when you can use your power and influence to ensure that you don’t have to change a damn thing but can force anyone who wants to sell to you to comply to ESG standards developed by an out of touch consultant who’s never set foot outside a major city let alone on an actual farm.

And all of this is so when a rich person – sitting next to their private swimming pool, in their carefully cultivated garden full of introduced plants, generously watered and fertilised, kept free of pests and weeds by the prodigious use of herbicides and pesticides, wearing their designer clothes manufactured in a Bangladeshi sweat shop, eating their out-of-season produce that has been flown across the world and sipping on an expensive cup of coffee made from beans harvested by small children – can look at their investment portfolio – and say “oh yes, I am a good person, I am saving the environment – I am making such a difference to the world by only supporting the best ESG rated companies.”

Now imagine you’re a busted arse farmer from the middle of nowhere just trying to keep your overdraft under control from the last bad season while praying that you don’t get flooded, droughted, burnt or eaten out by pests. You’re already signed up to your industry BMP or voluntary sustainability scheme, carbon pledge, climate neutral plan or one of the hundred other schemes developed by your commodity group, RDCs, buyer or processor. You keep detailed records, attend workshops to learn the latest production methods & make practice changes at your own expense because you’re told it will mean greater market access, climate resilience, increased yields or maybe you will even achieve that holy grail of agriculture – premium pricing.

And now tell me that ESG is not an unnecessary burden for Australia’s farmers.

Recent research revealed that WA farmers are some of the most heavily regulated in the country and if you ask any farmer from any other state they will tell you that they aren’t far behind. In addition to the myriad of local council regulations that are gradually eroding our right to farm, there are increased regulations from State and Federal governments that affect every aspect of our businesses.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m in no way advocating that we return to the bad old days of mass land clearing, unregulated chemical use and indentured servitude. But increasing the burden of adhering to and reporting against a set of lofty ideals that make big business look better to potential investors well – that sounds like an unnecessary burden on Australian farmers to me.

You see – it’s not the fact that we’re asked to be the best farmers we can possibly be – because we are absolutely smashing that – it’s the fact that big business want to use OUR reputation to make themselves look better and they don’t even have the good grace to pay us for it.

No, they want to bully us into compliance, throwing their weight around and telling us, the farmers, the ones who buy everything retail – sell everything wholesale – and pay the freight both ways that it’s OUR responsibility to uphold the ESG standards that THEY need in order to attract investors, and to meet the requirements of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking that they signed up to voluntarily – to make themselves look good (I’m looking at you – Big 4 Banks). It’s almost like these big corporations want to take us back to the bad old days of corvee labour in medieval Europe where there was an obligation for tenant farmers to perform free work for their lords and masters. Which is a really good deal for them – but an absolutely shit deal for us.

If big companies actually wanted to be good corporate citizens wouldn’t the first step be paying a fair & reasonable price for ALL of the work done for them by their suppliers? Including the compliance to any ESG requirements that they may have?

And the worst of it is – our own government, the people who already oversee our regulation and compliance – are all drinking the ESG kool aid sold to them by these massive corporations, banks and consulting firms and are ready to legislate these standards into existence to add another unnecessary burden to the lives of Australian farmers.

Tell me it’s not an unnecessary burden for us, the farmers, to make sure that the rich get richer & big business is allowed to continue to buy themselves out of trouble at every turn – while we lose sleep over wondering if getting the 14yr old to drive the chaser bin is the same as child slavery and having to choose between using extra fert to actually make a profit or staying within our scope 3 emissions guidelines & be able to meet the ESG requirements of our buyer.

You can’t and that is why ESG is an unnecessary burden for Australia’s farmers.