Speaking to over 300 members of the Royal Agricultural College’s 100 Club annual luncheon in Cirencester earlier today, he laid out his thoughts on the challenges ahead around a greetings card first published in 1995 by Copa Cogeca, an organisation which represents farmers and their co-operatives within the European Union.
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A 1995 greetings card used as a ‘prop’ by
Mr Hausmann during his presentation.
Mr Hausmann said he had received the
greetings card from Copa Cogeca, the united voice of farmers and their
co-operatives in the European Union, in 1995 just after he had arrived in
Europe from the USA
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“The picture intrigued me. Whether it represented a reality or a desire, it showed that European citizens were living hectic lives in cities and walking a tightrope to try to get to the countryside where things were orderly, clean, neat and trustworthy.”
However, shortly after this came the BSE crisis, the dioxin scandal, the introduction of GMOs, “and if that picture was the reality in 1995 it certainly hasn’t been the reality since 2000,” he told 100 Club members.
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Carl Hausmann, Global Policy Advisor for
Bunge Inc, USA (left) with Lord Henry Plumb at the 14th Anniversary Business
Lunch for the Royal Agricultural College’s 100 Club today in the UK. Mr
Hausmann was the keynote speaker along with Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe, directory
of corporate affairs for Tesco PLC
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“Today we have many more issues that we must focus on, such as grain production in the Amazon, food versus fuel, food miles, food safety, etc, and the public has less trust in the agriculture value chain than I believe is necessary.”
He said it was not acceptable for some or all of the members of the agricultural value chain to try and say that they were trustworthy while 'other guys' that may be a little less trustworthy.
“This will absolutely not do. We need trust in the whole chain. The United Nations has estimated that by 2050 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban metropolises. And many of these people will not know how you make butter let alone some of the more complex food products we have available today.”
He said consumers need not only to have trust in the agricultural value chain but also have trust in governments and in academic institutions.
“We cannot continue to have a prosperous activities and still serve our clientele in this way. We all know trust within our corporations is critical. For example, it’s critical that employees trust senior management.
“It is not just inside any one institution that we must have trust, our whole societies must be built on trust and if they are not built on trust we will not be able to meet the challenges that we face.”
Mr Hausmann says there are three essential challenges in a global sense that we must all consider:
- Global food production must be increased
- Increase the conservation of natural resources – soil, water, forests, etc
- Society must have trust in its leaders (be that governmental, private sector businesses or NGOs) to come up with ways to meet the first two challenges
In order to do that he told his audience, “We must practice greater transparency. People know anyway. Engage on all of these subjects. And we must invest in intellectual capital so that we know what we are talking about.”
He added, “We have a lot of intellectual capital in grain production and grain processing. That’s fine, but what about the whole value chain? What is so critical about the Amazon we need to protect, what are the demands of food safety downstream that consumers are looking for?”
An investment in intellectual capital is critical to our success, he adds.
“This engagement is not easy. But engage we must.” And knowledge of operation is not enough, “you have to learn a lot to be able to engage with others.”
“If this greetings card doesn’t reflect the values of today then it may well reflect the values of tomorrow. When this card was put together maybe Copa Cogeca was thinking of European residence reaching out to European farmers.
“The residences of cities absolutely live in high pressured environments, but the tightrope they are walking today leads from Shanghai back to Brazil, to Europe, to the Ukraine and to the United States. We need to understand that they must have trust in this value chain and the value chain must offer alternatives; organic, non-organic, Brazilian product, US products, lots of alternatives but they must be based on trust.
“My feeling is that if we accept that we must engage - and build trust up - we will not only be able to serve our clientele but we will find it much more stimulating to face these challenges head on.
“So, through this learning experience we will be able to reinvigorate our careers and put together a value chain that will truly serve nine billion citizens of the world from the agriculture production centers wherever in the world they are most sustainable,” he concluded.
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