CAPACITY BUILDING –BUZZ WORD OR MISSION CRITICAL

BY DAN GALLIGAN, CEO, CANEGROWERS

Our industry has been built on the back of hard-working farming families. For over 100 years, these families have invested with confidence to not only build their own personal assets and prosperity, but to ensure the success of the industry for future generations.

They knew that they would prosper if the industry prospered. It's a sense of community mindedness, of mutual dependence between self and industry, that has made our industry great.

"It is with this understanding that CANEGROWERS is rebuilding our strong investment in leadership development "

We see such people in everyday life, in all sorts of environments and situations, working together to get things done. But actually getting things done requires decision-making, and decision-making takes leadership.

So, it is no surprise that throughout our industry we have a strong history of great regional leaders.

Leadership is not necessarily about profile either. Many of our most thoughtful leaders work deliberately behind the scenes, bringing people along with them, encouraging growth and optimism.

It is with this understanding that CANEGROWERS is rebuilding our strong investment in leadership development.

If we are to deliver on the strong prospects of a dynamic and evolving industry, we will need

to invest more in the people who can deliver it.Recent decisions by the Queensland Cane Growers Organisation Board have put in place new building blocks to support such development.

We have now hosted two excellent groups of young growers from far north Queensland, who travelled to Brisbane to meet with policy and management staff, as well as researchers from SRA and other growers in Bundaberg.

These groups were formed as an initiative of the local district CANEGROWERS companies. Knowing that there will be interest from other regions for such events, QCGO will support districts wherever we can.

Feedback from the participants was impressive, with most remarking on how rewarding and eye-opening it was to see the skills and services that are available behind the industry organisations that support their businesses.

As well as supporting emerging leaders, we also want to support industry people who are already in decisionmaking roles and want to expand their skills.

Later in the year we will be working with our districts to deliver a leadership mentoring program, a process by which we match our experienced leaders, who may carry the barnacles and wisdom of experience, and put them in a position to share this with people who are expanding their interests in leadership roles in the industry. These are exciting initiatives and there will be more to come. Some activities will be a redesign and implementation of past programs, while others will be completely new, designed for the needs of the future of the industry.

Importantly though, we understand that while there are day-to-day, and season-to-season battles for profitability, sustainability and certainty, all problems require good people with a sense of confidence in the future of the industry and a desire to contribute in any way they can.