Leadership through the years of modern agriculture
Going after a pandemic year with travel restricted, mass gatherings banned, social distancing required, and supply chains interrupted, there is no longer business as usual in agricultural sector. The opposite, we’ve accelerated about five years ahead in our timeline and past experience must be no longer overrated if we want to successfully confront new challenges.
This is a prime time for Agri-food business modes transformation and leaders taking decisive action to change how value is created is one of the keys to surviving business in today’s geopolitical turbulence.
Realizing that sustainability is not a passing business trend but rather at the forefront, making now radical changes and go beyond baseline compliance by acting with integrity and social commitment will have tremendous performance implications. The sector had always plenty of strategies but lacked viable business models pursuit value creation and capture where everyone wins.
The market and society increasingly require fresh food of absolute quality, with modern, environmentally friendly packages, with all the healthy nutrients and with more flavour. They want it at any time of the year, to be close to their home, at affordable prices, long-lasting characteristics and with complete food safety. If all these are possible, I assure you that it is thanks to the research carried out by responsible actors of the sector with the farmers on the top.
The fundamental challenge facing agriculture nowadays is precisely that the innovation & harmony with nature should flow as added value everywhere. The leading position of many export countries can no longer be maintained solely based on price. There will always be a competitive third country that, due to its social and economic conditions, can always produce cheaper than someone else, so this is a lost battle and a waste of value in the long run. Only the creation of high-quality products meets the demand of producers and of final consumers and at the same time ensures the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the entire food chain.
In times of massive uncertainty, the mind-set of the great leaders of tomorrow will create new possibilities under high levels of unpredictability, produces added value for the community and drives action through compelling deal making. The leaders should promote collective intelligence, encourage daring attitude and experimentation which embraces imperfection and rewards good endeavours. At the end, the Green Deal is Europe’s man-on-the-moon moment. This encompassing initiative makes the difference, and it is so important, in that it creates the conducive ecosystem and the opportunities necessary for the market to move forward and gives the signal to the players to invest resiliently because attracts broad support both regulatory and financial.
Now is the time to see the business leaders really starting to put their money where their mouth is. At the end, what gets you out of bed in the morning? How can you make a big difference in the lives of others? Your purpose from the first day you are doing business has been to have a positive and lasting impact on people depended on you and society in general.
