Thursday 13 June 2024 – The Australia China Business Council was proud to host the annual Australia-China Agribusiness Forum on the topic of Unlocking Australia’s Agrifood for Sustainable Trade and Bilateral Growth in Melbourne with the generous support of Hall & Wilcox.
China is renowned for its exceptional strides in AI technology. The convergence of Australia’s rich agribusiness sector with China’s cutting-edge AI advancements presents opportunities for collaboration, trade, and has the potential to strengthen longstanding relationships between the Australian agribusiness entities and Chinese tech enterprises.
The forum served as a powerful reminder of the vital role collaboration between Australia and China plays in the Agriculture and Food sector. It highlighted opportunities for trade in the Agribusiness sector and discuss the use of AI and AgTech, emphasising how this newly introduced technology could shape the future of agrifood.
The first topic was introduced by Eugene Chen, the Partner & Head of China Practice at Hall & Willcox, where the panel discussed the importance of bilateral trade between Australia and China in agrifood. The panel was moderated by Tom Mullarkey, Partner at SW Accountants & Advisors, and was joined by Angeline Achariya, CEO of Innovative GameChangers, Marc Werner, CEO of Costa Group, Ben Lyons, Director at the University of Southern Queensland and Jeff McCormack, Global Director Public Affairs for Treasury Wine Estate.
The great opportunity that exists for Australia in China was highlighted by focusing on designing your marketing and product for the Chinese market, the importance of storytelling in selling your product, and to build relationships with local engagement from the ground up. In understanding the Chinese market, it is important to understand how the use of products differs from Australians, and changes in recent consumer behaviour, with health and nutrition, wellbeing and sustainability being big drivers of Chinese consumers. Increasingly, people want to understand the deeper context and background to your brand and products, with technology driving this idea of a shared understanding, particularly benefiting the marketing of your business to new consumers. A significant takeaway from this topic was the importance of having local workforce and management in China, which is key to build on relationships that have previously existed. This is also beneficial in realising areas for growth in China and developing partnerships to sustain investment for the long term.
The second topic was centred around technology and the use of artificial intelligence in Agrifood. Phillipa Jones, Founding Partner & Managing Editor of China Policy, presented her insights into the growing regional investment in farming in China, particularly surrounding smart agriculture, rural e-commerce, rural digital finance and rural governance. Smart agriculture certainly improves yields, but plenty of barriers still exist, which were then discussed in the panel discussion. Moderated by Hall & Willcox Partner, Suzie Leask, Justin Ahmed, Director of Beanstalk AgTech, Stewart McConarchy, Managing Director of iTRAK Group of Companies, Edward Barraclough, Founder of Drone Hand, and Philippa Jones discussed the growing development of technology’s role in farming.
While agriculture is the leading adopter of new initiatives in Australia, there is still a need to change the psyche of how Australian farmers think of ag tech and farming. Artificial intelligence is increasingly versatile, with image-based learning models crucial for saving time for farmers, for example, to apply fertiliser or pesticides a drone takes one hour for what 10 people would take a week. This can also benefit sustainability on the farm; by using drones or autonomous vehicles reducing time spent in more emission-heavy farm vehicles. Measuring, monitoring and managing assets – particularly in knowing what is coming in and out is important to understand food security and therefore sustainability.
The third topic, moderated by Angeline Achariya, CEO of Innovation Gamechangers, discussed the future of agrifood and how Australia and China’s relationship can benefit the industry. The panel consisted of Pier Smulders, General Manager of Alibaba Australia & New Zealand, Philippa Jones, Founding Partner & Managing Editor of China Policy and Will Oldfield, Director Export Development Sector Strategy for Agriculture Victoria.
While policies in China focus more on household spending on housing and cars, the focus on e-commerce remains even when policies are not as encouraging, or governmental relations are low. As discussed in the first topic, health & wellness is seeing large growth on e-commerce platforms, especially products with added protein and supporting positive health. It was also discussed that the future of your product may be different in China to what it looks like in Australia, with different consumer behaviour forcing marketing and branding changes. Regulations are also playing an important role in importing into China, that are different compared to that of the European Union’s. As such, Australia needs foreign investment all throughout the supply chain, with China being a natural partner for such investment. Mutual benefit supports two-way trade and would support a robust relationship through targeted investment.
We sincerely thank all our presenters for giving us their time and sharing their expertise at this our 10th ACBC Vic Australia China Agribusiness Forum.
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