The Community Trust in Rural Industries Program is a collaborative partnership involving ten Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs)*, the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) and the NSW Department of Primary Industries. This timely capacity building initiative is designed to drive impactful, cohesive and consistent responses to the cross-sector community trust challenge.
Community trust relates to the nature of the relationship between industries and the social context in which they operate. Decreasing trust can lead to reduced industry productivity, profitability, and sustainability resulting from increased regulation, limited market access, and disincentives to invest in infrastructure, among other consequences.
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation Managing Director, Dr Patrick Hone, said the days of thinking we just need to better communicate with the community about what we do and how we do it are gone.
“Research shows we need to actively demonstrate that we share the community’s values when it comes to topics they care about most – safe food, quality nutrition, outstanding animal care and environmental stewardship,” said Dr Hone.
“Australia is a world leader in many contentious domains, such as animal welfare, environmental sustainability, the use of veterinary medicines and pesticides and labour conditions, but we know that trust can be fragile and the sector must continue to strive to do better.
“This Program aims to build a common language and collective national narrative across industry sectors around the community trust challenge. It will build on our understanding of best practice approaches to effectively engage with the community about their concerns.
“We must be proactive in understanding what influences and drives decisions around values and how industries can respond,” said Dr Hone.
According to the Program’s lead researcher, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Voconiq (a CSIRO spin-out company), Dr Kieren Moffat, trust is crucial for industry and business because it translates expectations and experience into acceptance.
“There are big implications for any industry, sector or individual business when the community rejects it or its practices. Trust is the vehicle to acceptance and what is required to avoid this risk of rejection. It’s what enables an organisation or industry to be given the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong, it provides a license for innovation and flexibility to experiment, and a general freedom to operate, ” said Dr Moffat.
