Elders' chief executive officer Mark Allison outlined how his company had made such a significant impact in supporting Australian farmers over many years.
He made the statement at the opening day of the AgriFutures Australia evokeAG. 2024 conference at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on Tuesday morning.
With innovation and agriculture at the forefront of Elders' approach, Mr Allison spoke on working with Clear Grain Exchange and other partners as successful and thriving ventures.
However he acknowledged the elephant in the room - recent and hotly-debated issues affecting the agriculture industry which drew attention from the general public.
"It seems to me that society is more binary than it's ever been, in public discourse," Mr Allison said.
"Too often, the debates that affect farmers, trade, climate, land rights and innovation are being used as political ammunition to fuel an ideological agenda or argument, rather than being grounded in finding practical or real solutions without a focus on city-centric or minority group appeasement," he said, drawing a round of applause from the audience.
Mr Allison said the way agricultural issues were handled over the past 18 months showed an imbalance between passion and practicality.
"Passion is something our farmers and the Australian people have in buckets, but passion alone doesn't necessarily equate to the right answer for success," he said.
During his speech, Mr Allison shared the 'five Ps' methodology, which Elders' has used for years to achieve its goals and the goals of its clients - passion, patterns, planning, people and practicality.
"There's no doubt that passion is essential, however we must start with a clear problem to be solved and a clear reason to change and innovate," Mr Allison said.
Using his industry knowledge, Mr Allison said there was nothing more critical than finding patterns in data.
"Finding patterns in data and behaviour, and analysing them, understanding trends and then using these insights to make evidence driven decisions has been absolutely critical," he said.
Touching on the rest of the P's, Mr Allison said people power in agriculture was also vital.
"It's so important for regional and rural Australia, when towns and communities can be broken very easily," he said.
