The Beef Co-op founder advocates social media to boost collaboration

Emma, fresh from speaking engagements at the Young Beef Producers Forum and the Queensland Rural Regional and Remote Women’s Network conference, both held in Roma in recent months, remains passionate about giving producers power in the supply chain since her announcement as the recipient of the 2016 RIRDC Rural Queensland Women's Award.

Her aim of creating opportunities for producers interested in collaborating to create greater scale, efficiency and profitability has seen her speak with lots of people throughout the year, on what she describes as an “evolving journey”.

“The Beef Co-op is an exploratory group looking for opportunities, and people have called back saying they’d like to work with us,” she said.

“There are opportunities in Asia with custom kills, and in Australia with performance data, and getting leverage from that.

“Cluster fencing groups could work together in various ways, aligning paddocks – it brings partnership models.”

Emma told the QRRRWN annual Westpac Business Breakfast that producers need to be ‘part of’ rather than simply ‘sell to’ the supply chain.

“The supply chain is increasingly controlled by those closest to the consumer, not the person producing the product, so farmers need to be either satisfied driving production efficiency or be prepared to look for ways of creating new value beyond the farm gate,” she said.

Emma said while the food industry was one of the most consolidated in the world, consumers were increasingly interested in connecting with farmers and understanding where their food comes from.

“Producers can help tell this story and get greater leverage from the currency of family farming.”

It’s where she sees social media and data generation making a contribution.

“Collaboration won’t be about long meetings in a dusty shed but rather will be about about good data, shared value and leverage,” she said.

Undertaking a Winston Churchill Trust Fellowship researching farmer cooperatives in the UK, USA and Canada last year showed her plenty of examples where farmer collaboration is working.

The US is home to some 20,000 agricultural cooperatives, and most primary producers would be part of three or four groups.

“There is some research that suggests Australian farmers don’t collaborate became we are too isolated, independent and introverted.

“But we can cooperate online quite effectively, even if we can’t drive there.”

Since launching The Beef Co-op, Emma has been flat out talking to industry about the project and says a growing number of producers are interested in this approach.

As of next year she will be rolling out a program, giving people access to supply chain experts and group training opportunities through Farming Together, a federal government initiative.

“Cooperative approaches are having a resurgence as small businesses question how they fit in an increasingly globalized and consolidated marketplace,” she said.

“While it’s nice to think government can fix our supply chain challenges, I believe these challenges are better overcome by looking to create new value and reframing the traditional producer/processor relationships.

 “If you want incremental improvement, compete, but if you want exponential improvement you are going to need to collaborate.”