BASF boss flags need for farm sustainability to consider regional communities

For the head of agricultural solutions for Australia and New Zealand for chemistry giant BASF, maintaining sustainable communities was often overlooked within the wider narrative.

With farm consolidation reshaping Australia's farming landscape, the flow-on effects to rural areas can't be ignored.

Mr Jackson said there were almost 100,000 fewer farmers in the past 25 years, a trend that would continue.

That population decline will have a significant impact on the fabric of a lot of regional and rural communities, according to Mr Jackson.

"And obviously there are sporting clubs merging; we see shops closing; we see consolidation of towns almost in some areas; some of the really small towns are almost shutting down and people are moving into the next larger town nearby," he said.

"Now that doesn't happen overnight, but all of the sudden you look back and think, well, things have changed and as that continues, we're going to see fewer people in regional and rural communities and then that ties in with sustainability and new technology."

Those two phrases, sustainability and technology, are key elements to BASF's business plan.

TECHNOLOGY will be key to keeping agriculture, and the towns it supports, thriving, Mr Jackson said.

"Ag tech will be an enabler. As farms get bigger, farmers will need to analyse their data, look at the implications of what that data means, interpret it and then make decisions," he said.

"But it's so much data and how do you make decisions?"

That's where artificial intelligence (AI) will come in, according to Mr Jackson.

"I think generative AI is going to be the thing that transforms that or the innovation that transforms that is being able to then analyse, interpret and make decisions," he said.

Digital farming platform HortiAI is an example of a decision-making support tool helping tie technology and application such as nutrition management and spray technology.

The company has also invested in ground rig spray technology with its BASF/Bosch One Smart Sprayer that utilises cameras, super fast computer processing and generative AI to spray individual weeds in the crop.

"And beyond that there is laser weed control that similarly uses cameras and AI to target individual weeds and zap them with a laser beam," Mr Jackson said.

"This isn't science fiction. One of our local vegetable growers has recently purchased this laser weeder and is using it right here in Victoria.

"We are seeing robotic harvesters, drone scouting and application and autonomous vehicles and these are all here now. "

Vital to much of this technology however, is a reliable internet connection.

It's a concern farmers have directly relayed to Mr Jackson when talk of new devices comes up.

But, in his view, new solutions are available already, such as Starlink.

"So, Elon Musk has come to the rescue," Mr Jackson said.

Of all the sectors that demonstrate a willingness and ability to dive into new technologies, horticulture was right up there.

"I think in horticulture we see a lot of that adoption of technology faster because it's more intensive," Mr Jackson said.

"The areas of land we're talking about aren't as large and often they're closer to decent mobile service and decent internet service, so a lot of dynamics."

He said as farms increasingly adopt digital methods, there will be a balancing act between younger growers who are comfortable with it and more senior producers who are happy to contract it out.

"My grandkids are better at tech but I can outsource it also, and as farms get bigger they will outsource this," he said.

"There are family operations in WA that are cropping 40,000 to 50,000 hectares. They can't do that alone. Labour is a limiting factor, getting over the ground is a limiting factor, so they need all of this technology to be able to farm efficiently."

Consumer demand for all-year-round produce will be another driver for horticulture properties to expand and embrace farm automation and data decision-making.

It will be up to industry leaders to show the way when it comes to doing things differently, according to Mr Jackson.

"I'm a big fan of change, personally and in business, and I think it's incumbent on our leaders to," he said.

"If you're not changing and keeping up with things, you're actually going backwards."

LARGE chemical companies have been in the spotlight of recent years, particularly with the international court cases over Bayer's glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides.

With its slogan, "we create chemistry", BASF seems a potential target for accusing fingers and fault-finding eyes.

Yet it's not an area of concern for Mr Jackson.

"I talk to people across a wide range of fields and it's not a topic of conversation much outside of our country," Mr Jackson said.

"Certainly within agriculture, we're ultra-sensitive to anything that occurs on the global stage,

whether that's some of the challenges that happen in Europe with the Farm to Fork strategy... but we watch all of these things and try and stay in front of it.

"But outside of agriculture, unless someone is touched by it or is directly impacted by anything, there's no discussion.

"There's so much going on in the world today."

Mr Jackson said he has a lot of friends not involved in agriculture and they are not even aware of it.

He said in a world where information is instantly available no matter what, it was another challenge of the future with generative AI and technology.

"We're focused on delivery innovation, we're focused on our research pipelines and I know over the last few years we've just ploughed on through," he said.

"We continue to focus on developing new seeds and traits, developing new chemistry and we have a fantastic pipeline of new products we're focused on, on the technology side of it, how that will tie us together."

The lengthy timeframes required to develop a chemical product mean companies need to be thinking long term, including anticipating any regulatory changes.

"What we're launching today started 10 years ago," Mr Jackson said.

"Thirty, 40, 50 years ago before my time even, the first decision making process when a new compound was discovered was; is it a herbicide, insecticide or fungicide?

"Because we're just screening hundreds of thousands of compounds.

"Now it's become understanding the chemistry of all these molecules, what they do, and modelling how we show them better, and then we fully understand the environmental profile of all of these.

"So for 10 years into the future, what we're developing today, we need to have an understanding of one; what will they do; two, will they have a favourable profile that can get registered in 10 years time, not today.

"And the first decision making point is; do we think this will be able to be registered, is it sustainable in 10 years?"

THIS year marks 10 years since BASF re-entered the Australian agricultural market.

In the Asia Pacific, BASF had previously focused on Japan.

But 15 years ago the strategy for Asia changed with the region flagged as an area for growth in agriculture.

"That was the catalyst to come back to the market," Mr Jackson said.

"And we did. And 10 years ago, it was a start-up.

"We had people, a very small team of people. We've taken some of our older product back, but there was that hiatus of being able to develop new products.

"I mean, we had to start running, then get our new pipeline of products into the market as quickly as we could.

"We've launched 25 products in that time, we've grown from 12 or 13 people to 130 people."

In 2023, BASF posted sales of about $662 million in Australia and New Zealand, serving key industries in the agriculture, coatings, manufacturing and mining sectors.

Mr Jackson said he was particularly proud of the diversity within the company across gender, culture and age.

In the past decade, the company's vegetable seeds team has brought 89 new vegetable varieties to growers in Australia and New Zealand including innovations such as the tearless onion and the melon ball in partnership with Woolworths.

And there are no signs of it pulling back.

"We will continue to invest around $2 billion each year into R and D, already our pipeline is set to deliver 35 new products in that time in addition to new canola and vegetable seed varieties," Mr Jackson said.

In turn, that will be good for regional communities, even the footy club.