The agrifood industry is filled with competing initiatives that frequently lack coordination or clear focus, often because there is a lack of clarity over what is meant by “sustainability”. The Hutchinsons Sustainability Advisory Council (HSAC) seeks to create a cogent position for the term and address key challenges strategically, collaboratively, and with measurable impact. Our aim is to balance ambition with practicality – ensuring our work is valuable to the agrifood sector, engaging for government, and beneficial for farmers, the food chain, the environment, and the public.
Our overriding principles are:
Commercially Realistic | Practically Deliverable | Scientifically Based | Sustainability Driven | Economically Grounded | Socially Beneficial
"…a cogent position for SUSTAINABILITY and address key challenges strategically, collaboratively, and with measurable impact…"
Affordable, available and safe food
Commercial and economic sustainability/viability for food producers, allied industries and rural communities
Food production through the lens of national security
Resilience of our natural and commercial food producing assets
National economic growth – delivering real GDP improvement
The role of scalable science and technology to mitigate environmental impact (inc. the effective use of data)
Effective knowledge transfer channels to ensure that research and development findings are communicated, understood and implemented at farm level.
The adoption of farm practices commensurate with food production that can benefit the environment
Realistic and universally agreed targets/KPIs for farm profitability, food security, carbon, nature recovery and natural capital
Effective communication to the ‘key audiences’ that better explains the complex dynamics of farm practice/economics, ‘agriscience’, and the environment, across:
Government/policy making
Regulatory departments
Industry colleagues
Corporates
Consumers/taxpayers