Climate change is a challenge for farmers, but it’s also a huge opportunity for them, according to an Ontario-based value chain management company. In fact, it’s one of the greatest opportunities available to farms and food businesses – if they’re ready for it, and willing to work together.

In a recently released paper, Value Chain Management International (VCMI) says players in the agri-food system could actually profit from “decarbonizing” the agri-food industry if they make a plan to put their collective minds to it.

It seems logical. Consumers and governments want the industry to be environmentally responsible. That’s made even better if farmers are in the picture. They have high public trust value that looks good on the industries that deal with them.

Internationally, VCMI says almost 200 countries and states have committed to massively reduce greenhouse gas. Importers are looking at suppliers for environmental standards that they themselves may not even adhere to.

That’s frustrating for a global exporting nation. Business sees it all as a threat and an added cost, leading to what the VMCI paper’s authors call “defensive postures and few meaningful strategies.” Farmers get bowled over by industry, by having to meet commitments that industry’s made to get a sale, but without the farmers’ best interests in mind.

Instead, VCMI calls for establishing and maintaining the collaborative relationships required to enable members of a value chain to achieve outcomes that are impossible by acting alone.

It admits a big problem is that transactional trading relationships have existed since industrialization in the 1700s.

It’s an ingrained model, but if ever there was a time to change it, it’s now.

Everyone is pointing at everyone else as the problem instead of the solution. Consumers decry grocery stores, processors and manufacturers for high prices, who decry their suppliers: farmers. Farmers decry governments for not helping offset high input prices, especially fertilizer. Fertilizer companies decry high energy prices. Energy producers decry Russians.

Is there not somewhere along the chain that people could work together instead of blaming each other?

A willingness to work together is the key, says VCMI. “The primary factor in decarbonizing the food system…is not technology,” it says, “it’s farmers’ and downstream businesses willingness and commitment to collaborate and innovate.”

That’s the starting point. Technology is often held out as a panacea for agri-food progress, because it’s so difficult finding labour or it’s so challenging growing crops and raising livestock without it.

But without trust and cooperation, technology won’t go anywhere.

VCMI points to regenerative agriculture as an example. Farmers who subscribe to sustainable, regenerative production techniques to improve their soil ultimately capture more carbon. Their approach might be less profitable than pouring copious quantities of fertilizer on their land. But they’re being responsible, producing fewer emissions and leading the way for the whole sector. That has to be worth something to their suppliers.

This would be an easier sell if inflation wasn’t raging away and the discussions about the environment weren’t clouded by economic fears. But farmers are at the front end of both the environment and the economy. It makes sense that we look to them for leadership, call on the entire industry to support them and think twice about where value is found.