We often engage in time-consuming discussions focused on whether a certain innovation, or disruptive start-up, is going to make traditional Food and Agriculture companies obsolete. There is no simple answer, but we believe that collaboration will be fundamental to define the food systems of the future.
We know we need to feed 2 billion more people, to improve nutritional quality, to adjust to new dietary requirements, and we need to do all this while limiting the impact on the planet and sustaining rural economies. While previous cycles were driven purely by competition, a collaborative mindset will be necessary as we all have more in common when looking to the future.
Collaboration has historically brought together competing stakeholders to define solutions to highly complex problems, like the US, UK and Russia getting together in Potsdam in July 1945 as both allies and ideological antagonists. We believe that the current challenges faced by the Food and Agriculture sector, together with the pressure from consumers given a stronger voice by social media, are going to require a collaborative approach between the different stakeholders.
On one hand we need closer collaboration between the public – represented by consumers, academia, the third sector or Governments – and the private sector.
A prime example is the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a landmark agreement signed in 2006 by farmers, the food industry, NGOs and the Brazilian Government to eliminate the conversion of forest into soybean crop areas in the Amazon Biome that prevented 9,000 km2 of deforestation over its first decade and “one of the great conservation successes of the twenty-first century” (Nature, Heilmayr, R., Rausch, L.L., Munger, J. et al. Brazil’s Amazon Soy Moratorium reduced deforestation, 2020).
The creation of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the global, CEO-led organisation dedicated to accelerating the transition to a sustainable world, represents another step in the direction of collaboratively building impactful coalitions and networks that facilitate sharing of knowledge, adoption of standards and developments of inputs for common policies.
We will need more of these collaborative efforts as we address critical global issues such as food labelling, traceability, biofuel policies, land preservation, food waste or carbon credits.
On the other hand, we also need collaboration within the private sector and not only between players in different stages of the supply chain but also between competitors, the coopetition.
We already see the tremendous growth of sustainability-linked loans where the financial sector collaborates with the industry to provide more favourable terms when companies achieve certain sustainability targets. In terms of coopetition, Covantis, the company founded by leading agricultural commodity players to modernize trade is a prime example of the new technologies driving a different approach, where fierce competitors join forces to develop solutions that will unlock value through collaboration for the benefit of the entire industry. Another prominent example from the fundraisings of recent years are the investments made by traditional Food and Agriculture players of the animal protein sector in innovative ventures focused on alternative proteins, even though these companies can disrupt their own legacy businesses.
There is a growing recognition that collaboration is required to address the different customer needs and tastes that will be needed to create solutions for a diverse, dynamic and complex Food and Agriculture sector.
Unleashing the power of collaboration is not simple and will require a different mindset from leaders. The transition to more sustainable food systems calls for leaders with global perspective, with strong cultural awareness and with an inclusive approach to develop systemic thinking and multi-stakeholder solutions.
N.B. We are proud to have supported and participated in both the Amazon Soy Moratorium and Covantis initiatives referenced in this article.