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TL Tracey Lefroy On Agtech - So What?

“It's about the governance systems. Have we specifically designed these governance systems to allow for good? If renewable infrastructure in agricultural regions can be utilized such that it drives down input costs, supports regional processing, and enables fertilizer production locally, it's a genuine transformation. And it's something that mining didn't capture. I think mining was all about extraction. How do we change the renewable energy transition from feeling like an extractive process to a collaborative process?”

Agtech - So What? · Alternative Proteins · November 2026

“It's about the governance systems. Have we specifically designed these governance systems to allow for good? If renewable infrastructure in agricultural regions can be utilized such that it drives down input costs, supports regional processing, and enables fertilizer production locally, it's a genuine transformation. And it's something that mining didn't capture. I think mining was all about extraction. How do we change the renewable energy transition from feeling like an extractive process to a collaborative process?” — Tracey Lefroy, Agtech - So What?

Context

Asked whether Australia is learning from the coal seam gas era or repeating it. She says outcomes depend on how projects are governed, and contrasts mining with a chance for farming regions to keep more of the value.

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Transcript

Agtech - So What? Around 30:04 into the episode
Tracey Lefroy

…ready for 200 workers to come into your community and then regional value capture. So how are you going to capture the value from these workers actually come in? So there's been a massive focus on getting ready. There hasn't been a massive focus on how do we retain and keep that value long term.

Sarah Nolet

…and that kind of piece. It seems like we've been through this before in Australia with coal seam gas, that there's been conversations around land use transition and intersection of energy and agriculture. Do you feel like we're learning from those examples or is this a little bit of groundhog day?

Tracey Lefroy

Sometimes I feel really optimistic. They're going to nail this. And then other times I feel less optimistic. But for me, it's about the governance systems. Have we specifically designed these governance systems to allow for good? Have we designed them such that we can capture this opportunity? An example, when we spoke about the nitrogen fertilizer stuff with 60% of the cost of nitrogen being energy linked, if renewable infrastructure in agricultural regions can be utilized such that it drives down input costs, that it supports regional processing, that it enables fertilizer production locally, it's a genuine transformation. And it's something that mining didn't capture. I think mining was all about extraction. And how do we change the renewable energy transition from feeling like an extractive process to actually a collaborative process where if we get the governance right and we can capture the benefits, then we'll get decent regional development. We will get community benefits and there will be a significant legacy as a result.

Sarah Nolet

Governance is one of those terms where I do feel like people think it's boring and yet it's so important. I keep going back to this question, I guess, of the frustration I hear from landowners and from regional communities about some of these projects and how they've gone and how the communities…

Tracey Lefroy

I think there are some operators out there who are purely extractors, but I feel like they are the ones we meet with opposition because if you don't take the time to build the relationships with your landowners, with your regional communities, there's going to be a lack of trust and there's going…

Sarah Nolet

paper on the question. It did,

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

More from Agtech - So What?

“What struck me first was the asymmetry in the approach. There were three people who came at first. This was a team who had done this dozens of times. They'd approached multiple families over multiple years, over multiple projects. We'd never done this. That gap in knowledge and experience and even in project literacy was real and huge, and you start feeling a little bit like you're on the back foot.” — Tracey Lefroy, Agtech - So What? “I'm not pro-development, I'm not anti-development, but if development is coming, how do we leverage it to the best of our ability to have that legacy impact? If you can find the pieces of the puzzle that are common to everyone, you're going to have more constructive conversations than trying to say to someone you have to host renewable energy transmission lines because it's good for the environment. That's quite a hard sell.” — Tracey Lefroy, Agtech - So What?