Bernard Salt will speak at the Orana@Work Employer Summit at Dubbo RSL Club on May 22. Mr Salt’s biography says he is a specialist at “tracking and understanding demographic changes”. He focuses on “the evolution of consumer cultures, how the most recent generation will fit into today’s business world and how companies can get the most out of their consumer base and employees”.

The demographer said he was an optimist. He was optimistic about the future of Australia, including the cities west of the Great Divide, he said. 

The future lies in utilising resources and taking a cohesive approach to global marketing, Mr Salt said.

“The world is going from 7 billion to 11 billion people. It means there is going to be a market for agribusiness production for 100 years,” he said.

“It will be ideal for Australia and the region of Orana and it will certainly be exciting to encourage entrepreneurship in agribusiness and looking at ways of scaling agribusiness, of growing, marketing and packaging and aligning with businesses in Canada, the US and New Zealand.”

Mr Salt said he would love Australian agribusiness to be as global and aggressive as international agribusiness. The Orana region already had the greatest gift when it came to community coherence, he said.

“Dubbo is incredibly galvanised and united - that is an incredible asset to have.”

Coupled with that synchronicity is opportunity to reach greater heights of recognition.

“There is an opportunity and a need to have a centre of excellence to come out of the region and to raise the bar. Instead of being the best region, we need to be thinking globally and that is where we see ourselves on a level playing field with all the infrastructure, research centres and support,” Mr Salt said.

Tickets to the Orana@Work Employer Summit, which run from 8.30am until 4.30pm are $100. They can be booked online through the RDA Orana website.