Extract from ABC News
Updated
The head of one of the world's largest agricultural
commodity trading companies is warning Australian primary producers to
take climate change seriously.
Olam International chief executive
Sunny Verghese has told Landline that agricultural producers and
processors need to take action now."It is absolutely a reality that climate change is going to significantly impact agriculture," he said.
"It impacts it both from the nexus it has with water, and the nexus it has with micro-climate as well, so it is probably the most important driver to future agricultural production, productivity and therefore price."
Mr Verghese was on the Gold Coast this week to address the 2014 Australian Cotton Conference.
His Singapore-based company has operations in 65 countries, and is the world's biggest trader in cashews, and the second biggest trader in coffee and cotton.
Olam International has had a presence in Australian since 2007; it owns Queensland cotton, manages 12,000 hectares of almond orchards in Victoria and has investments in the grain, wool and pulse industries.
Mr Verghese said one of Olam's initiatives to tackle the impacts of climate change was to reduce water consumption.
"We have a target that in our tier one manufacturing and processing facilities we will reduce water usage per tonne of product that we supply by 10 per cent by 2015, and in our farms by 10 per cent by 2020," he said.
"Similarly we can track the carbon dioxide emission that we generate across all our commodities in each country.
"Again we have put some hard targets of how we are going to reduce that carbon emission footprint for every tonne that we supply by 2015 and 2020.
"My view is that there is no point if I've generated half-a-billion after tax earnings, but I've depleted $200 million of natural capital from the environment.
"Because then I've got to question myself, what is the point of all this overwhelming effort if at the end of the day you've really depleted the natural capital and left a huge bill to pay for future generations?"
China at the cutting edge
Mr Verghese said China in particular faced huge environmental challenges, with 90 per cent if its water polluted. But he is encouraged by the Chinese government's response."I don't think there's any other government in any other part of the world that is investing as much money now in research to solve this problem – China is at the cutting edge now," he said.
The Olam CEO says both India and China have little chance of being able to feed their populations, and that opens new opportunities for Australia.
But Mr Verghese downplays talk of developing the food bowl of Asia.
"It would not be the right view to say Australia would be the food basket of the world," he said.
"But Australia will be the most competitive producer, Australia will set the standards on water usage efficiency, on agronomic practices, on breeding better varieties, and therefore Australia will always be very competitive.
"At the end of the day Australia will be part of the solution, but will not be the solution. It cannot be the solution because it also has constraints on how much it can produce and how much it can export."
Watch the full interview with Sunny Verghese on Landline at midday on Sunday on ABC1.
No comments:
Post a Comment