Zaccaria and Imas cooperation contract formed
The Pelletier Column Governments should govern
by Christophe Pelletier I wish there would be more collaboration and altruism, more curiosity beyond the business sector and a better balance between the short-term and the long-term. I also wish money would not blind us so much and that we could make more decisions about people and the environment without feeling immediately restricted by financial aspects. I am not sure that even financial priorities are always that wise. Sometimes, it feels as if we spend lots of money on the wrong things and not enough on the important things, but human nature is strongly led by self-interest in the here and now that often stands in the way of rational and sensible choices. That being said, I want to discuss in this column how, with strategic planning, and collaboration and altruism from governments we can benefit the food production system. Governments should govern. Some do. Some a bit less. Sometimes, governments seem more preoccupied with ongoing campaigning than governing, and that is not good. Opposite to that, businesses should run their businesses, but in a number of occurrences they seem as much preoccupied with being involved in governing. Governments do not choose to neglect possible concerns to the food supply. A few governments and businesses do indeed choose to do nothing, but they are a minority et we know who they are as they boast about it. Most just take a prudent (probably too prudent) approach and we lose precious time. Then there is the third group of those who are ahead and deliberately choose to change their ways, but unfortunately, they are a minority and do not have enough traction yet. My opinion is that producing better food and, at least as importantly, better nutrition is everybody’s responsibility: governments, businesses, non-profits, producers, consumers, children, parents, teachers, you name it. Why is it important? For a simple reason: a society of unhealthy people will inevitably decline, and the social cost to society is a heavy financial burden that weakens society and its members. A prosperous society that wants a future takes good care of its members. So why does this seem difficult? Once again simple reason: money. Imagine there is no money and all stakeholders of society can dream of their ideal society, do you think they would think the same as when money stands in the way, especially because of the conflict between short-term and long-term cost, and who must bear the cost differential? This is a difficult conflict to solve, and this why we need strong leaders with a solid vision that all of society will buy. There is a moral dimension that will have to be addressed sooner or later. And with morals comes the topic of rewarding good behaviour and penalising bad behaviour. This definitely sounds like a true government’s job. Christophe Pelletier is a food and agriculture strategist and futurist from Canada. Working internationally, he has published two books on feeding the world’s growing population: Future Harvests Explores the Future of Food and Farming and We Will Reap What We Sow: Reflections on Human Nature, Leadership and Feeding a Growing Population. He has a very successful blog where you can follow his thoughts at “The Food Futurist: Foresight, Innovation, Philosophy, Critical Thinking and Visionary Leadership for a Prosperous Future of Food and Farming” Email: cpelletier@telus.net Skype: christophefp Web: www.hfgfoodfuturist.com 18 | September 2018 - Milling and Grain
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mas and Zaccaria proudly announced the signing of an agreement to form a global strategic alliance between the two companies. This agreement consists of joint distribution in strategic markets, sales and promotional efforts, contributing common projects and transferring know-how to the new and existing grain milling projects. The agreement will allow both companies to combine their strengths to deliver complete solutions and adding value into the industry-leading customers, increasing influence in the global markets to penetrate new markets. By communicating and sharing technical engineers, both companies will display improved integrated grain solutions to potential customers. Imas has been manufacturing high-technology products and efficient complete projects with the Milleral brand in the grain-milling sector since 1989. Milleral has been manufacturing machinery and complete plants for milling and grain like wheat, corn, rye, oat and barley, in order to get flour and semolina for many years, with high customer satisfaction. Viteral is the brand of Imas that carries its experience since 1989 into the feed milling machinery sector by providing the production and installation of machines and complete facilities used for bovine, ovine and poultry feed production. Zaccaria, founded in Limeira, Brazil, manufactures machinery and equipment to process all type of cereals since 1925. Zaccaria has become the leader in the Brazilian milling market, reaching 70 percent of a market of 12,000,000 tons/year. Their product line also includes rice, beans and maize on a worldwide basis. Zaccaria are market leaders in Latin America, about 50 percent of paddy production there being processed by Zaccaria machinery. With the force of the Zaccaria and Imas partnership, Imas said it will move up its worldwide power by extending its reach towards even more countries, whilst adding value to its existing spread of nearly 100 countries.