Sustainability was a hot topic of conversation at the 2021 Australian Grains Industry Conference, which ran online as a virtual event for the second consecutive year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

It was a recurrent theme when two high-profile grains industry leaders – GrainCorp chief executive Robert Spurway and Allied Pinnacle chief executive Rob Rogers – explored the agribusiness landscape as part of a ‘chief executives in conversation’ presentation.

Speaking from Sydney, Mr Spurway said business measures that provided the twin benefits of increasing productivity and sustainability had an increasing stake in GrainCorp’s investment strategy for its agribusiness and processing operations.

The business supplies grain from Australian growers to domestic and international customers for processing grain and oilseed commodities into food and feed ingredients.

“Sustainability needs to be good for business and business needs to be good for sustainability,” Mr Spurway said. While the company was not currently seeing any global trade pressures on this front, this is expected to change, he said.

“Agriculture in Australia is in a perfect position to take the opportunities that are there,” he said of sustainability measures in the broader trading environment.

Presenting from regional Victoria, Mr Rogers echoed this outlook in his leadership position at Allied Pinnacle, an integrated bakery business.

The company sources wheat from growers in Australia and New Zealand for manufacturing flours and commercial baking supplies, including ingredients, pre-mixes, frozen and finished bakery products.

Allied Pinnacle chief executive Rob Rogers outlined agribusiness measures to lift sustainability during a ‘chief executives in conversation’ presentation at this year’s virtual conference. Photo: Allied Pinnacle

“What is good for sustainability is usually good for business,” Mr Rogers said. “One of the biggest impacts we can have is to reduce the amount of waste, and how we handle that waste – whether it is in our flour mills, making sure all of the waste is converted to stockfeed, or whether it is in our bakeries.

“Focusing on waste is obviously good economically for us, but it is also good for the environment because we use less materials and have less impact.

“People want to know that the companies and the food that they are buying is actually making a positive contribution, or at least not a negative contribution, to the environment and sustainability overall.”

Mr Spurway said there were opportunities to combine productivity and sustainability through business innovation, citing historical industry examples such as automation of harvesting equipment and development of new cultivars with improved water use efficiency.

“Farmers are directly impacted by the climate, by the environment. Using scarce resources in a sustainable way is an absolute priority for the whole sector,” he said.

Sustainability investment

Citing examples of sustainability measures at GrainCorp, Mr Spurway said the business had invested in the FutureFeed initiative – a CSIRO-backed startup advancing a native red seaweed species (Asparagopsis taxiformis) as a feed additive to reduce methane emissions from cattle.

Five years of trials examining the climatic and environmental benefits of using the seaweed in feed showed it can reduce dairy and beef cattle methane emissions by more than 80 per cent. The new seaweed farming venture has the potential to provide a step change in the sustainability of world food supply, since livestock produce up to 18 per cent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

GRDC head of economics Terence Farrell says approximately one million beef cattle in Australian feedlots consume 700 kilograms of grain per head, so adding seaweed to feed rations could reduce the country’s GHG emissions by 7.18 million tonnes or 20 per cent per annum.

Trials also showed the seaweed feed additive can increase cattle productivity by up to 20 per cent.

“The other area that we are focused on through innovation and sustainability is alternative proteins,” Mr Spurway said. “In our business, we are already very heavily exposed to plant-based products – that is, what we handle and move around.

“We are the biggest oilseed crusher and processor in Australia, and those processes have huge analogies with the rapidly growing interest in plant-based proteins around the world.

“So, we are starting to work with partnerships and customers on how we can contribute more to that sector – both through the (plant) proteins, but also the fat components from our oilseed business.”

Mr Rogers also outlined examples of sustainability investment at Allied Pinnacle.

For instance, the business has co-funded the Cool Soil Initiative – a research-based platform that enables the food industry to support growers in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Cool Soil program aims to lift the long-term sustainability and yield stability of wheat cropping through promoting on-farm adoption of agronomic strategies to improve soil health and productivity.

Plus, Allied Pinnacle has partnered with LongReach Plant Breeders, a joint venture between Pacific Seeds and Syngenta Australia, to develop wheat cultivars with characteristics catering for specific customer preferences, as well as sustainability objectives.

More information: Register to attend the Australian Grains Industry Conference.