New year, new opportunities

BY DAN GALLIGAN, CEO, CANEGROWERS

It is certainly a good habit to take stock and review what we have learned from the year just gone before we make plans for the year ahead.

It doesn’t matter if you want to promise yourself you will give up beer, take up a gym membership or be focused more on family and less stressed about work. Making a promise to yourself about what you hope for the year ahead is a good idea.

We do similar things here at CANEGROWERS . There is plenty to be learned from last year. In fact tragically for some districts the stress and challenges of last year are dragging themselves into this year. But even without that, the anxiety, frustration and anger in many of our districts and growers is palpable. Equally, an honest assessment of the state of the industry could be summarised by saying that despite our significant potential, and given relatively high commodity prices, we are struggling to meet our potential in many areas (not all) and equally most growers do not feel like they are seeing the returns they deserve from their efforts.

Therefore, planning for 2025 is a huge task for CANEGROWERS . We will be focusing on supporting our people, not only the current but future leaders and members.

We have the CANEGROWERS elections, Sugar Cubed 2025 and Next Ratoon programs all within the first half of the year and they will all build capacity and celebrate our people.

Our work at the industry level must re-double. The issue of industry viability is a hot topic and it’s something that CANEGROWERS is already working on. We have completed an analysis of our collective performance from last year and we a working on partnerships across the industry with leaders who want to come together and find solutions. Solutions that are built on a good old-fashioned relationship of trust and honesty.

We have tremendous potential with a booming bioeconomy that needs feedstock and the global sugar market that wants our high quality, sustainably produced and reliably delivered sugar. But if growers don’t have confidence in this future and don’t see how this will secure their productivity and profitability that in turns underpins their business then what is the point?

So, the challenges may be perennial but the solutions we provide in the year ahead will be different. We are an ever-resilient industry and CANEGROWERS has the capacity and talent to be as resilient and persistent as the growers we represent.

We hope for a better year this year, for everyone in the industry but hope will not get us there. We look forward to involving you all and sharing in our work to bring about these better outcomes for the benefit of all.