Australians have a strong level of trust and acceptance towards the grains industry, according to a recent survey commissioned by GRDC.

The Grains Focus Study was part of a larger three-year cross-commodity study called Community Trust in Rural Industries (CTRI). It identified opportunities to strengthen the broader community’s trust in the grains industry.

The wider program is co-funded by 11 research and development corporations and the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and partners with the National Farmers’ Federation.

The Grains Focus Study aimed to examine three specific areas in which the community felt uncertain, according to the larger CTRI study:

• fertiliser;
• agricultural and veterinary chemicals/weed control; and
• Genetically modified organisms (GMO) and gene editing.

A CSIRO spin-off research agency, VoconiQ, undertook the survey for the grains industry, using the same methods as for the broader agricultural industries. It aimed to better understand the factors affecting trust in the grains industry.

The survey of 1000 participants from a representative sample of the Australian community sought to uncover  what the general community thinks of the grains industry, and how these thoughts change with time.

The survey also aimed to determine why the community thinks of the grains industry the way it does and how insights can be used to build trust in the industry.

According to Kieren Moffat, co-founder and chief executive officer of VoconiQ, community expectations of industries have had an increasing impact on the way businesses are run.

“It’s important to understand what the community is thinking because this can influence their level of acceptance of an industry,” Dr Moffat says.

“Trust plays a central role in the relationship between community experiences and expectations of the grains industry, and their level of acceptance – or social licence – of the industry.”

The high level of trust in the Australian grains industry provides an excellent platform on which to build its relationship with the general community. The best ways to build trust are by being open about the complexities and trade-offs in grain farming, building emotional connections through telling stories and putting a human face on the industry.

Industry responsiveness can build trust

The grains industry study identified the key factors influencing trust in the industry by the general community, with the strongest one being industry responsiveness to community concern – something also called ‘procedural fairness’.

Procedural fairness has two components. The first is that the grains industry listens to community concerns and that the community feels heard. The second is that the industry is prepared to change its practices based on community concerns.

The grains industry has an opportunity to build community trust by increasing its transparency on how it manages issues such as GM, chemical use and fertilisers.

Dr Moffat says it is not just a case of educating the general public about the grains industry. “The study shows us what primarily drives trust is listening and effectively taking action based on concerns,” he says.

“It’s really telling the grains industry, and growers in particular, the community are interested in the complexity of your story, but they want to be engaged, and listened to, about those areas that give them some concern – things that relate to what they’re providing their family over the dinner table.”

He says that addressing those concerns helps build trust and helps the community understand more about the grains industry and how it operates.

Community members also have a desire to learn more about the grains industry.

“It’s not just about providing information but having a meaningful conversation about community concerns. In so doing, this helps people understand more about the grains industry, its practices and the reasons for those practices.”

Environmental responsibility

Environmental responsibility was the second-most-important factor affecting trust and acceptance of the grains industry.

While almost half of the participants trusted that the grains industry manages the environment effectively, the perceptions were less favourable regarding specific issues.

More than one-third of participants surveyed felt that the industry had not taken enough action to respond to overuse of chemicals and fertilisers, compared with only 17 per cent who believed the industry had.

The grains study revealed that participants who knew at least one person working in grain farming generally had a significantly higher level of trust in the industry. This was more important than whether they lived in the city or country. Twenty-two per cent of surveyed participants said they knew someone working in grain farming.

Positive personal connections with a grain grower can generate a more-positive sentiment towards the industry as a whole and reduce uncertainty about challenging issues. Potential concerns can be alleviated with simple, authentic explanations of complex technologies by a trusted source.

Participants wanted to understand more about the grains industry and its issues. Almost three-quarters want the grains industry to engage with the community. They ranked their own knowledge of how the grains industry operates as quite low, at only 3.8 out of 10, on average. They rated their knowledge of challenges faced by the industry slightly higher, at 4.8 out of 10.

Regulation and fair share support trust

The study found that regulation of the industry was another strong driver of trust within the broader community.

An opportunity exists to raise public knowledge about how the grains industry is accountable and regulated; more than two-thirds of respondents said they did not know “how tightly regulated the Australian grains industry is”. However, they felt more confident when asked about specific issues.

This research shows that Australians generally hold the grains industry in really high esteem.

About half of those surveyed were confident that there was tight control of herbicides and use of GM technologies in Australia.

Another factor influencing trust was “distributional fairness”. The more the community perceived that rural and regional communities and Australia receive a fair share of the benefits from the grains industry, the more they accepted the industry.

Family farms growing grains had the highest trust scores in the survey, significantly more than corporate farms, demonstrating the importance of distributional fairness.

Dr Moffat says agricultural industries have an opportunity to directly invest in rural communities to build their resilience in the context of disasters such as floods, fires and drought. “I think that’s an area where grains in particular could be working to strengthen its social licence to operate,” he said.

GM concerns affect trust

Almost half of those surveyed worried about the use of GM; roughly a quarter were neutral and a quarter were not worried. The concerns seemed to relate to the potential effect on the environment and their health; people feel insecure about whether the impacts of GM are fully understood and if they can be controlled.

The results indicated that concerns with GM may be based on the perception that GM is a new technology. At the same time, more participants felt positive about GM if confronted with a trade-off – for example, if GM could help with future challenges such as climate change or chemical use.

Almost three-quarters of participants felt that there needs to be more long-term studies about the impacts of GM. More than half of those surveyed said the longer a technology had been used, the more they trust it.

While trust was low for all GM technologies, participants felt more trusting of GM technology when no foreign DNA was introduced into the plant, compared with GM using foreign DNA.

Chemicals and fertilisers

The Grains Focus Survey found that fertilisers are more accepted than chemicals by the broader community.

Most people (60 per cent) support growers using fertiliser, if it means that food is available and affordable.

The majority (70 per cent) of participants recognised that fertiliser is essential for food production, while a further 25 per cent were neutral. Most (84 per cent) people surveyed accepted the use of organic fertilisers – but only 43 per cent accepted synthetic fertilisers.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed either disagreed or were neutral when asked if fertiliser always has negative impacts on the environment.

In contrast to fertiliser, fewer than half (46 per cent) of those surveyed felt that chemicals were needed to produce enough food. Further, the survey uncovered a sentiment that “Australian farmers should find better ways than using chemicals to control weeds and increase crop yields” in nearly two-thirds of the community.

More than half of those surveyed said they were concerned about the use of chemicals in grain production – and half of all participants said they would be willing to pay more for their food if it meant less chemicals used.

On the other hand, most people (61 per cent) agreed that Australian grain growers use chemicals responsibly. More than half (54 per cent) of the participants trusted that chemicals used in Australian agriculture were safe to use but this level dropped to only 28 per cent for chemicals used overseas for food production.

Social licence comes down to trust

The study highlighted that Australians generally trust and accept their grains industry and have an appetite for a deeper understanding.

“It's really usual for people who work in an industry to pay more attention to the criticism, to the negative press and to the challenges that an industry faces. But this research shows that Australians generally hold the grains industry in really high esteem and that they see the role of the grains industry as important both in terms of export and in terms of the products that we use here in Australia,” Dr Moffat says.

“Now is the time for the grains industry to look to deepen its engagement with the community as part of growing its relationship and further build its trust – that social licence to operate – with the Australian community.”