Those same farmers might once have thought what happened on farm stays on farm – in other words it’s no one else’s business.
Those days are gone.
And in my job I increasingly see farmer sentiment shifting. More farmers are saying these are the rules now, apply them and get on with it.
That once-upon-a-time scenario when farmers could operate in splendid isolation has been consigned to the realms of the fairy tale.
Consumers are now savvy, well-informed and connected through modern technology and social media. They are also better off than their forebears, both in terms of money and time.
So they have the means and the time to worry about what others, like farmers and processors, are doing and whether retailers are on the same page.
So naturally, retailers, who want to make money by selling things, are putting the pressure on farmers to send them goods that stand up to the scrutiny of the class of people being dubbed eco-worriers.
An example is the move by Australia’s two biggest supermarket chains to audit farmers to make sure they comply with employment and health and safety laws. In other words farmers have to prove they are not exploiting their workers.
And the latest Euromonitor report, called Eco Worriers, talks about a consumer preoccupation with animal welfare and, raising its head again, food miles.
All that, Euromonitor suggests, amounts to a shift in consumer focus away from championing organic as the great saviour of the planet to concentrate on ethical foods.
There’s not much we can do about our distance from markets but we can do a lot to mitigate the food miles concerns by emphasising our positive attributes.
Could we, for instance, use the fact we don’t subsidise farmers to our advantage. Is it ethical for other countries to prop up unsustainable and environmentally unsound farming with subsidies?
The very nature of our pastoral farming means we are well positioned to address environmental concerns.
We can promote everything that comes off the land from trees to wool and everything in between and natural, free-range, eco-friendly, environmentally and financially sustainable products made with acceptable employment and health and safety practices.
And if there is a shift away from organic to ethical in describing desirable products then we can use that to our advantage too.
Organic growers have a clear view of what that word means but at the marketing end I suspect it covers a multitude of sins.
It also has a whiff of food snobbery about it.
Promoting goods as ethical means pretty much all our products from agriculture, horticulture and forestry would be covered.
Promoting goods as ethical means pretty much all our products from agriculture, horticulture and forestry would be covered.
The Euromonitor report said people have different concerns depending on where they live – suggesting we need a specific strategy for each market.
For instance, Brazilian consumers are worried about rainforests and the treatment of workers, Japanese put locally grown as a high priority and German shoppers are particularly worried about ethical issues around sustainability.
