3-min read
You should never stop seeking to become more productive. Most food + ag businesses think of productivity as either yield, throughput, or sales. However you measure it, the topic today is increasing that measure of productivity through the one thing completely under your control: leadership.
But before I get into leadership – food and agriculture takes center stage in the news again, but this time not about climate change or logistics, but about the felled nation of Sri Lanka.
This news is important to food + ag because much is being made of the devastating effects (read: starvation) of state-mandated organic farming in the country leading to revolts of which ultimately the Sri Lankan government succumbed. Michael Shellenburger writes about it here.
An activist shouts slogans and holds up bread as he protests against rising living costs in Colombo on March 15, 2022. (Ishara S. Kodikara via Getty Images)
Whichever side of the organic movement you sit, the problem is the country attempted to go organic in 4 months. Legislation was passed in Dec 2020 and all chemical fertilizer imports were banned in April 2021.
Anyone who has attempted transitioning to organic knows it can’t be done in 4 months and especially at large scale where you lack replacement inputs.
“The lack of organic fertilizer productive capacity, coupled with the absence of a formalized plan to import organic fertilizers in lieu of chemical fertilizers raises the potential for an adverse impact on food security,” warned the USDA.
I appreciate the Shellenburger piece for pointing out the thoughtlessness of ESG investment influence in the country which rewarded Sri Lanka with over $3 billion in grants for banning chemicals but left the country unable to feed itself.
I’m tempted to think something like this only happens in developing countries. It can’t happen here, right? Or could the US be put in such a precarious situation?
Which brings me to where investment money is going in food + ag. Big tech is increasingly concerned with agriculture and see themselves as uniquely positioned to solve the future of food. Ex-Googler and climate entrepreneur David Friedberg explains this mindset in the All In Podcast:
● The biggest problem to be solved in the future is bio food as a way to replace traditional food systems including all of ag and all of animal ag.
● As an investment, it’s an infrastructure play
● We can recreate all food on earth in a few square miles and distribute those systems
● It’ll be carbon negative
● Will create jobs
● Will return billions of acres of lands to natural forms
Until then, we have crops and animals.
Back to today’s topic.
For those of you in food + ag working on achieving higher productivity, the biggest influence to productivity is team. Getting the most out of your people while engendering a harmonious team dynamic is 100% your responsibility.
Ask yourself:
Is your team moving the strategy forward or off on a problem-solving tangent?
How do you feel after meetings?
Is your timeline on track?
Whatever stage your business is in, what I’ve come to learn is productivity comes from highly functional teams with good leaders. And good leadership descends from the top.
Next week, I’ll discuss what I see as an impediment to productivity: informal norms of accountability.
See you next week.
All my best,
Jennifer