'Green goals easy on a full stomach': analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon recommends long-term view at Nuffield conference

Senior commodities analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon travelled to Tamworth last week to attend the Nuffield Australia conference.

She told ACM that green credentials have stepped back in significant in the short-term, but they'd return as a global market priority soon.

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"You can purchase on the basis of sustainability when your stomach is full very easily, it's much easier, you can buy all of the credentials of sustainability when you've already satisfied your basic needs," she said.

"In this global environment, there are a lot of people that are paying higher prices, and have potentially lower incomes coming in. And that squeezes consumers."

In the short-run, she emphasised the need to improve on-farm storage as a hedge against shipping bottlenecks and global pricing problems.

With the conflict in Ukraine driving up the price of fertiliser and other inputs into the sector, the investment dollar may prove more difficult to come by, she said.

"So, in my mind, this high-price environment with recession potentially, on the way in some of our key global economies means that there's less capacity to roll out new announcements and new commitments in terms of how sustainable the world will [get]," she said.

"And it challenges the consumers resolve to base to buy sustainability when they have lower real incomes."

But most of the world's countries - and businesses - remain committed to environmental goals like reducing carbon emissions, and the promises will ultimately come home to roost.

She said what will prove a short-term reprieve should be an opportunity for Australian agriculture to "catch up".

"Yes, it does put it in the back seat, but doesn't make it go away."

Ms Kalisch Gordon said the biggest short-term risk to Australian agriculture is shipping bottlenecks at port, but the urea shortage driving prices higher remains a threat.

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