Engagement: If you’re going to do it, do it properly
After more than a year of research, one thing is clear to the Currie team – how essential farmers and farming communities are to the clean energy transition.
It started, as most interesting work does, somewhere else entirely.
Currie had been leading a project looking at renewables and their transmission from a global perspective.
With a long history of working at the cross-section of agriculture and climate, we knew a clean energy transition was an essential part of mitigating the worst impacts of climate change.
In this context, Australia was a mere case study in a much larger body of research. From our experience engaging with farmers, we knew that despite the importance of the transition, there were many ways in which it wasn’t working. In fact, we were seeing poor engagement drive opposition.
With a new appreciation for the macro, we wanted to know more. So, we delved deeper. The result is this report.
Why are farmers so important?
Over half of Australia’s land mass is in the hands of farmers. That means we cannot transition to clean energy without them on board. Not only that, but farmers are also hugely influential. They are trusted in their communities, by Australians at large, and hold sway in Australia’s political arena too.
We knew this firsthand. In her former role as CEO with Farmers for Climate Action, Fiona had seen politicians from all sides make space to meet with farmers and farmer groups, as well as the effect advocacy from these groups could have over broader political dialogue.
But we struggled to describe the innate trust we had seen in action at the community and cultural level – so we decided to test it.
We partnered with Researchscape to survey Australians and find out where their trust lay. Of 11 groups, Australians chose farmers as the fourth and fifth most trusted for climate and renewables respectively.
Plus, while negative interactions between farmers and developers were getting lots of attention, research was telling an entirely different story. With up to 70% of regional Australians – even those living renewable energy zones – in support of the renewable energy transition.
Is it really about engagement?
Good engagement goes beyond information sharing. It’s a two-way street, which means listening as well as telling.
So yes, engagement has a very important role to play in the transition. Farmers, and farming communities deserve to have access to all the information, so they can make the decisions that are right for them. But they also deserve to be listened to. Farmers and their communities are experts in their local areas. They understand the environment, limitations and what the area might be missing resource-wise.
And we can see effective engagement models already out there. In Denmark, the Middelgrunden wind farm is 50% owned by 10,000 cooperative members, ensuring local benefits. In Australia, initiatives like Hay Shire Council’s partnership with RE-Alliance demonstrate how community co-design can set strong, positive foundations for renewables.
Benefits for all
Seeing different models from around the world helped us understand that while benefits are not everything, in the right context they can lift up our rural communities. Benefit sharing allows financial gains to be rolled out fairly, removing the risk of creating winners and losers. Which in small, close-knit towns, can split communities.
Instead, benefit-sharing sees not only host farmers receiving compensation – but also some mix of broader community benefits too. Examples we’ve seen internationally include neighbour payments, energy bill reductions and investment in the community – that crucially, the community itself gets to decide on.
Tailored solutions
Ultimately, what our research showed us is that each farming community is different. A tailored, consultative approach is critical to ensuring that the shift to clean energy delivers economic and environmental benefits while maintaining trust and support from those on the land.
A prescriptive approach won’t work. That’s why we didn’t try to create one.
Instead, we developed questions for engagement professionals, and even developers, to ask themselves. Because it allows for the uniqueness of every community, and development, to be accounted for.
By the end of our research, we knew that:
By getting engagement right, we can unlock a future where farmers are not just participants but leaders in Australia’s clean energy transition.
