The end of any year is a good time to take a step back and reflect on where we have been, and where we are going, and with our Annual Meeting scheduled for later this month we will be exploring this in greater depth across all areas of the business.
BCI’s “The Environment” strategic priority has been the catalyst for a highly successful programme that recognises the importance of balancing the irrigation needs of our shareholders with sustaining and safeguarding the natural environment. We have come a long way with the environmental programme since it commenced 4 years ago, with a noticeable shift by our shareholders from ‘planning’ better environmental practices, to their ‘execution and application’ in a real sense.
We have seen significant improvements in the management of irrigation systems, and this season alone we have tested nearly 150 irrigation systems for their application efficiency. Additionally, over half of our shareholders are now using a soil moisture monitoring tool. By the end of this year, it will be a requirement for all shareholders to adopt such a tool making ours the only irrigation scheme where this is a mandatory requirement. We see this as key to achieving our goal of Good Management Practice across all our farmers, and our year on year audit results for irrigation management demonstrate the hard work and commitment of our shareholders towards this goal. We are now achieving 50% “A” grades when independently audited, as compared to 10% when we first started auditing in the 2015-2016 season. As we enter a new phase in our environmental management under new consents we have ambitious targets to ensure we are making changes necessary to mitigating the environmental challenges which go hand in hand with producing high quality food for an ever increasing global population.
BCI’s Environmental Management Strategy is founded on the principles outlined in a recent Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme report by our Environmental Manager, Eva Harris. https://ruralleaders.co.nz/strategies-for-creating-and-implementing-sustainable-change-programmes-eva-harris/
Her study looked into “Strategies for Creating and Implementing Sustainable Change Programmes”, concluding that sustainable change programmes are not about KPI’s, data metrics, regulations or indeed the desired outcome – their success comes down to people, and the most consistent theme she identified was the need to build trust. Supporting positive interactions between participants, implementers and key stakeholders will support the development of trust between all those involved; with and between farmers, with other stakeholders and with regulators. Trust in the information and tools being recommended as a solution. And the trust of the wider community as we strive to align our values, goals and measures of success.
To this end, the BCI Environmental Team will continue to support and enable our farmers to implement better farming practices by providing service, education, support and by looking at ways to make achieving excellence in environmental practices easier for our shareholders. By working together we believe we can ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’.
