If you missed our annual Network gathering a while back, you will have missed Navaratnam Patheeban OBE’s insightful presentation on the importance of diversity in decision making. You can watch his presentation here, along with other key speakers, including Judith Batchelar OBE on retailer mindset and Sue Pritchard on why we need to grab the opportunity this year for food system change.

Navaratnam Partheeban is a farm vet and founder of the British Veterinary Ethnicity & Diversity Society. Key points from his presentation:

• Diversity is not a new concept in agriculture: We talk about the importance of diversity for resilience in our soils, livestock, crops, and diets. “But the one thing we don’t talk about enough and we need to talk about more, is the diversity of people.”
• Diversity in people covers many things: Identity (our culture, based on things like where we were born, language, religion, food and music preferences); experiences (e.g. where we’ve traveled, our jobs, how we were brought up, what we do is our spare time); biological and physical (e.g. hight, weight, skin colour, gender, neurodiversity); education (e.g. how and where we were educated). “All these things make up an individual – we are all unique”.
• Diversity is needed through the whole decision making process: Information: Where are we getting it from? Is it all from the same sources? Is it biased or prejudiced? We can get stuck relying on the same research – 98% of all published papers in the last 20 years have come from Europe and the US – that means it has a huge Western bias. Perspectives: Are we including people with different perspectives? Are they all people with similar backgrounds to us? Criteria: How do we include and exclude people? Are we being biased in the way we form criteria for picking people? Solutions: “There are many ways to get from A to B, and if we all have a similar mindset, similar education and similar background, we’re all going to think in a similar way and our solutions are going to be very similar. But actually the quality and number of [solutions and decisions] are going to be multiple”
• Diversity leads to innovation, which leads to success: Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, Ikea, Intel, Nike, Coca-cola, Visa – are all probably the biggest companies within their own sectors: Through all the crises, these companies have remained as innovators. Their boards are the most diverse out of all companies in their sector. To stay ahead of the game they try to maintain diverse boards. “It’s all about innovation, better decision making, and therefore better performance overall”. Diversity helps us adapt to a changing world: We are going to need a range of perspectives to help guide us through what is ahead.
• Diversity on its own isn’t enough though: We need equity and inclusion (not equality). Equality is about everyone being given the same opportunity. Equity recognises that people have different circumstances and allocates resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Inclusion is about thinking of systems and ways to ensure everyone can speak and share and has a place at the table. Everyone needs a bit of ownership too. We can’t just assume that everyone will speak up or feel they have a place at the table.
• Increasing diversity is a journey: Build awareness of the need for diversity; learn from a greater range of people and sources – follow news people on social media who are different to you, go to new communities, meet those people; try to understand people from their perspective; take action, e.g. call things out as an individual, review what happens in your organisation; review the changes made and the impact of them, then move ahead again. There is never an end point – it is constantly evolving.