Figure 1: An overview of the food and fibre industry good landscape

Figure 2: Industry Good ‘good’

The Common Ground would likely have a Board of Trustees made up of industry leaders, Taumata (Māori) and independents. Appointments would be based on skillsets needed for the future and could be nominated by Common Ground partners.

Communities of Action would have their own leadership groups, chosen on personal experience and mana regarding an issue, over specific roles or organisational affiliations.

Yes. Each organisation participating in The Common Ground or a Community of Action would retain its autonomy and determine for itself the right level of funding or other support for an initiative. Partners would also remain free to focus on industry-specific issues separately from The Common Ground.

For example, the Common Ground wouldn’t create a Community of Action around a specific tomato fungus. That would be best led by the relevant industry organisation(s). That same organisation may however consider contributing funds and capital to a pan-sector Community of Action on water quantity and quality – leveraging the resources of other Common Ground partners to get drive the most impact on that wicked problem.

The Common Ground would not be limited to industry good organisations – food & fibre businesses aligned to values and issues of a Community of Action would be welcome to join. This would open-up alternative funding options – like targeted government investment, public-private partnerships or foreign investment. The AgriZeroNZ joint venture on emissions reduction is a good example of how collaboration can open up new funding mechanisms and there are multiple international examples of ‘co-opetition clusters’ where partners financially contribute towards shared goals.

• Funds directed at cross-sector issues are pooled from across the value chain, including producers, processors, exporters and others. This relieves the funding burden from producers, limits duplication & inefficiency and opens up new funding mechanisms.
• Funds are not ringfenced to specific industries, gathering instead around cross-sector Communities of Action targeting shared mega-issues. This will shift the focus onto broad sector good, instead of impact in a specific industry silo.
• Leadership will be appointed rather than elected.
• Membership will be a long-term commitment. There will be no ‘annual opt-out’ to ensure long-term decision making and investment.

Figure 4: The Common Ground: System and stakeholders

Figure 5: The Common Ground: How it works

The Common Ground may undertake select advocacy where Communities of Action identify a need for it e.g. promoting the food & fibre sector as the best place to work. By their nature, Communities of Action would provide a clear point of engagement for government, reducing the need for duplicated lobbying and advocacy in these areas.

In other areas, organisations would continue to advocate on regulatory policies relevant to their industry.

In the long-term, The Common Ground would help foster the kind of collaborative, proactive behaviour and problem solving that would head-off regulation or market changes before they emerge. As an example, the New Zealand wine industry self-organised a sustainability programme decades before any government or market requirements – a result of strong market insight and internal partnership.

During conflict, partners would be directed back to the platform’s underlying principle – prioritise the broader sector issues over industry-specific interests. This would be set in a charter or other founding document, alongside other principles like a commitment not to disagree publicly or to spend more time discussing similarities than differences.

That’s a fair point. We tried to find a middle ground with the Common Ground – between calling for a more forceful structural change (like a revision of the Commodity Levies Act 1990) and yet more talk - and little action - towards genuine collaboration. The Common Ground sets up a proposed structure for industry good organisations to start to practice collaborative behaviour and build trust over time, starting with the issues where it makes most sense to work together. Over time, and as this sense of trust and collaboration becomes embedded in the sector, it’s plausible that some industry organisations might naturally consolidate.

In short, less wasteful duplication and the chance to invest more of your levy or membership dollar in solving the wicked issues threatening your bottom line - now and into the future.

Many producers currently pay levies and membership fees to multiple industry organisations, who at times work in opposition to each other or duplicate work. An approach like the Common Ground would support the industry good system to better align with the diversified food & farming business anticipated in the future.

Once the ground rules are set, the best way to build trust in the system would be to focus on issues with broad agreement across the industry good ecosystem, like Biosecurity or learning how we might best apply AI. As trust and the collaborative muscle grows, Communities can form around more complex issues.