Kate Scott elected Board Chair for the New Zealand Rural Leadership Trust.

Kate Scott has been elected as the new Board Chair for the New Zealand Rural Leadership Trust, at the fourth Regular Meeting for 2021, held on the 8^th of September. Outgoing Chair, Andrew Watters, has brought a wealth of experience, and passion to his time as Chair, and through a critical period in the Trust’s growth. Andrew will remain as trustee until an election takes place for his replacement in autumn, 2022.

In vacating the Chair, Andrew has expressed, “Thanks go to my fellow Trustees and the NZRLT team, led very ably by Chris Parsons, who have made the Chair’s role a joy to occupy. It’s a pleasure to hand over the reins to Kate Scott, 2018 Nuffield Scholar. NZRLT is a leadership organisation, and succession planning is a key outcome of successful leadership. In Kate we can see the next generation of Governors leading the organisation as we seek to attract and transform talent through our world class Kellogg, Value Chain Innovation and Nuffield programmes.”

On being elected Kate said, “I am honoured by the opportunity to step into the role of Chair, and am looking forward to continuing to work alongside the other trustees, the chief executive and the team to continue to deliver on our aspiration of growing world-class leaders for our country.”

“It is a real privilege to be able to continue the exceptional work of previous chairs, including Andrew, who has led the organisation through some significant growth over the past few years.”

“Stepping into this role at a time when New Zealand’s food and fibre sector is at the crossroads of significant change and opportunity, is both exciting and important. Leadership by farmers and growers will be fundamental to how we navigate what lies ahead. I am excited by the opportunity to strengthen our collective position through collaboration and teamwork, so that we can continue to deliver people who are capable of leading the food and fibre sector in the future.”

“It is also a pleasure to be able to give back to the organisation that supported my own Nuffield journey and in doing so I strive to make those that have gone before proud of what we do for those that will come after us.”

Craige Mackenzie: Right place, right time.

Rural Leaders talked to 2008 Nuffield Scholar Craige Mackenzie about change, technology and precision farming. His business, Vantage NZ, helps remove the complexity around technology-enabled change, while
the family farm demonstrates precision in practice.

But as Craige explains, what really matters is mindset.

The foundations of a mindset.

Growing up, we knew the value of a dollar. They were hard to come by. We did the best we could with what we had. I was keen to get out and earn, so I finished school and went farming with my family. I learned early on that I enjoy pushing myself.

At 18 I travelled to the United States, instead of going to university. I saw the world for the first time, and it felt like we were all only limited by our imaginations. Coming home was a jolt back to reality. It was the 80’s and a tough period for farmers. If you have a hard time at any point in your career, the start is the place to have it. You learn how to survive early.

We took over the farm in 1984, buying it from my parents. We put in irrigation, expanded, and eventually removed all the stock from the system. We went into intensive seed production.

In 2006 we ventured into the dairy industry too, building up to 1240 cows at the peak. Then along came M. bovis. But it’s interesting, from adversity came opportunity. By having to cut the stocking rate down, we found our milk production per cow went up. We were on the efficiency journey, simply by doing the best we could in a tough situation.

Production is vanity. Profit is sanity.

In 2008 I did a Nuffield Scholarship, something I felt fortunate to receive. It meant travelling around the world for six months. My study topic was very broad, ‘Understanding the Carbon Footprint in Farming Systems.’ At the heart of it, I thought, if we cut inputs by 30% and still maintain outputs, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint by 30%, which in turn increased profitability.

While travelling I saw some intensive operations in Europe, broad acre framing at scale in the USA and Canada, through to small holder farms in China. It’s interesting to see what drives different decision-making and farming practises. Often these are influenced by subsidies and support mechanisms rather than efficiency, although I also saw some good examples of Precision Ag too.

Sometime after, I recall talking with Raj Khosla, the head of the International Precision Agriculture Association. He asked me to present at a conference, and I said “Ah Raj, we don’t really do precision.” He said, “…well you know exactly how many kilograms of fertiliser it takes to grow a tonne of wheat don’t you? You know what your inputs are. My friend, you are doing precision agriculture.”

Technology is a decision support tool, not a decision tool.

From then on, I understood what we were doing. We started thinking, how do we go faster? How do we do better? All of a sudden, it became easy to decide to invest in more technology to enable these things. So, we looked at crop sensors, moisture probes, electromagnetic mapping of soils, all sorts of new technology. But again,

the biggest change wasn’t the technology, it was our mindset.

One of the most important things about investment in technology, is profitability. The more you can reduce inputs while maintaining outputs, the more you are free to invest in technology.

You circle back around to re-invest your profit into the technology that reduces inputs. Like machinery that places a bottlecap of fertiliser on every plant. Exactly the right amount at exactly the right time. That leads to better environmental outcomes as well.

After our daughter finished her degree at Lincoln, we asked her what she wanted to do. We saw there was an opportunity to help farmers work smarter, to make more informed decisions. That’s when Agri Optics NZ was born. We’re exclusive Trimble dealers for New Zealand now too, offering a range of products under the Vantage NZ brand.

At the heart of it all is GPS technology: GPS, flow control, steering, automation, and land levelling software. GPS is the enabler though. Without GPS you can’t really do any of the other clever things that result in precision outcomes.

Is it better to go rabbit shooting with a .22 or a shotgun?

I gave a presentation in Bonn at a climate change meeting. Somebody asked me, what’s the silver bullet that fixes things? And I said, it’s not a silver bullet, it’s a silver shotgun.

We need multiple tools in a biological food production system. We need lots of levers to pull. Yes, you’ve only got short range with your shotgun, but you’ve got a whole lot of cover.

There’s no one thing that does it all though. So you need to carefully integrate all your tools into the farming system, rather than the farmer into the tool system.

Is the regulatory environment moving more arable farmers into precision?

The higher the regulatory pressure, the more people will work to get ahead of the challenges those regulations create. We need to continue to have as many tools on the shelf as possible to meet them. As tough as it’s getting, we need to be out in front of it.

I’d rather be having conversations with government and regulators, trying to constructively slow things down to help make the best decision, and create the best outcome for everyone, including the environment. To build the time needed to think about a more considered approach. There’s no advantage in putting regulations in place that are unachievable. None.

We’ve had lots of regulators here over the years. It’s hard for them to push regulation when you’re already past where they think they want to go.

If we can show we’re not leaching anything through the profile in the growing season, like water from irrigation, then it’s very hard for them to say we’re putting nitrates into the groundwater. Especially when there’s nothing getting past the roots. Having the data to show this is powerful.

Unlike GMO, is CRISPR a tool you’ll get to use?

The first thing is, CRISPR is GMO. Rob Horsch was at the forefront of GMO technology. He worked for Monsanto for 20 years on Roundup Ready, which is where it all started.

I had an interesting conversation with Rob a couple of years ago at a crab restaurant somewhere on the East Coast of the US. He said what you’ve got to remember is CRISPR is only going to make small changes in GMO technology. For example, GMO changes a normal wheat plant into a glyphosate Roundup Ready plant. Or equally, it changes a plant to being insect resistant. These are large jumps. Whereas CRISPR only makes small tweaks.

CRISPR is a bit like a pair of molecular scissors. You make small edits by cutting strands of DNA. It has huge applications for treating and preventing disease, correcting genetic defects, and improving crops.

There are changes with CRISPR that will be useful to New Zealand agriculture. Like ryegrass that reduces methane emissions. CRISPR could be a way for GMO to come in to New Zealand, as incremental, more palatable changes for consumers.

Has precision has been a way to stay competitive without GMO?

There’s two things that drive that. One, we don’t live in a country complicated by subsidies. A lot of farming around the world is. We run a business. We’ve had to make sure we are profitable. Precision practices help make that happen.

Two, when you travel like I did with Nuffield, you see the challenges that face the farming system when you’re not careful. Herbicide-resistant weeds are one of the challenges countries with GMO have steaming down the track at them.

Precision agriculture still fits even if you do have GMO’s. Because it’s really about the right product, delivered the right way, at the right time. It doesn’t matter which area of the food production system you’re in either: horticultural, arable, sheep and beef, it can fit every sector.

Will the future of farming look like the start of Interstellar, with autonomous everything?

We used to be sheep, beef and cropping, now we’re 100% cropping. Some of the crops we grow today: spinach, pak-choy, carrots, radish, have mostly evolved in the last few years because food production systems have changed.

We’ve got dairy cows on the Canterbury Plains, driven by the fact that the Waikato was too expensive. With irrigation, Canterbury was seen to be the right place. We know that some of that will go back the other way. And yes, there’ll be more automation, because labour is likely to remain an issue for agriculture.

We’ve been developing bigger machines to maximise production. As autonomous technology advances, the machinery will get smaller, smarter, and run for longer. It will be about maximising profitability. A profitability mindset will be the only one worth having.

We’re all looking further ahead into the future now too. It’s like driving a car, you’ve got a large window to look out the front and a small rear vision mirror. Yes, we should know where we’ve been, but really, we’re more interested in seeing where we’re going and what challenges are coming at us.

Challenges like synthetic fertiliser and pesticide use. Like shifts in consumer food preferences. We’ve got climate change and some water challenges too. All those things are going to shape what we do. They will have a big impact on how we operate and what a farm of the future looks like.

That’s where technology and an understanding of how you use water for example, becomes increasingly important. Soil moisture probes helped cut our water use by over 35%. We wouldn’t have thought our current water footprint per kilogram produced was even possible ten years ago.

Learn from your successes and imagine the next ones.

In 2016 we were fortunate to receive the ‘International Precision Farmer of the Year’ award.

We worked hard for it, but some of our success came from the fact that we live in an environment where you can grow pretty much anything: high yield wheat, ryegrass, many crops.

We’ve got water. We’ve got access to fertiliser and technology. So compared to many places globally, we have a wealthy environment.

We have challenges, but we have many opportunities to be successful here too. I do believe we’re only limited by our imagination as to what we can do, and what we can achieve.

Follow the link to read Craige’s Nuffield report Understanding the carbon footprint in farming systems, released in 2008.

Connect with Craige on LinkedIn.

The Mackenzie Study – a view of leadership

The Otago Business School and the Department of Economics recently conducted research on behalf of The Mackenzie Charitable Foundation and The New Zealand Rural Leadership Trust.

‘The Mackenzie Study’ revealed remarkable results on the personal gains in entrepreneurial skills attributable to participation in the Kellogg and Nuffield Programmes. It is Nuffield Scholars’ broad and consistent level of achievement over time, that resonates most.

Preliminary findings are a compelling case for anyone considering applying for a 2022 Nuffield Scholarship, or looking to develop their leadership ability through the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme.

A comprehensive survey of Nuffield Scholarship Alumni was conducted in June this year, with invitations sent to all 135 living alumni.

The study had an unusually high participation rate of over 50%, especially given the flooding in Canterbury.

We’ll be presenting more results in due course, including comparisons between alumni and current cohorts. For now, here are just some of the findings demonstrating the professional accomplishments of Nuffield Scholarship Alumni.

Each result is a strong call to potential applicants for the 2022 Nuffield Scholarships, to apply before midnight this Sunday, August 15.

The new Value Chain Innovation Programme

Innovating for our fast-changing
value chains.

A recent addition to The New Zealand Rural Leadership Trust’s cache of programmes is the VIP. The Value Chain Innovation Programme delivers a truly immersive experience, created to meet a growing need for strategically capable leaders in our food and fibre systems.

It is for those who are passionate about developing their leadership style, growing their networks, and contributing to their business and community.

Driving innovation in food and fibre.

The Value Chain Innovation Programme delivers two weeks of immersive learning, focused on strategic value chain analysis and design. The programme is a facilitated journey along ten or more established, disruptive, and novel value chains, delivering a sector and pan-sector view.

It connects participants to New Zealand’s key value chain influencers and accelerates their ability to adapt to a fast-changing environment.

It expands their entrepreneurial capability.
It builds advanced competencies.
And it develops a new mindset on food and fibre innovation in domestic and international markets.

Applications are open until 28 November 2021.

The programme spans two weeks for the industries immersion. Participants then return home and have three weeks to produce a value chain innovation report.
The course structure is as follows:

Phase 1: Virtual masterclass.

As a build-up to the journey, participants attend a virtual masterclass via zoom, of 1 -2 hours. This covers the current landscape within New Zealand’s value chains and what is likely to emerge in the future.

Participants then submit a short PowerPoint overview on their own value chain, or one they wish to explore.

Phase 2: Value chain immersion 16-28 January 2022.

Participants assemble in Auckland on the 16th. They then undertake two weeks of facilitated field trips through the North and South Islands.

The tour culminates in Christchurch on the 28th.

Phase 3: Extramural value chain innovation report.

Work on an individual value chain innovation report. This may be submitted as a PowerPoint.

Ready to take the next step?

For any queries contact Lisa Rogers +64 21 139 6881 or email lisarogers@ruralleaders.co.nz

Nuffield five for five.

Image:Nuffield Scholars in study [supplied]

With five days to go until applications for the 2022 Nuffield Scholarship close, we thought we’d give five reasons as to why receiving a scholarship now, may represent a quantum gain in benefits over previous years. So calling all potential Nuffield Scholars, here’s some more food for thought.

There have never been so many of New Zealand’s best business leaders and innovators in the country at the same time.
There are a few silver linings to the global pandemic. One might be the number of influential people affiliated to innovation and the food and fibre sector, who have returned home. While their move may not be permanent, now is the time to meet and connect with them. Nuffield can help with that.
With a programme that has adapted to the global pandemic, scholars currently have more flexibility, closer to home.
We face many challenges right now. So, being away from family, farm and work could be tough on some. As a result of the global pandemic restrictions, the programme has adapted successfully by adding a deeper local layer, along with virtual and global input.
No matter what happens with regard to global travel, Scholarship recipients still receive $40,000 to conduct research.
Whether the borders open up or not in the short to medium term, the Scholarship funds are not adjusted. In a situation where the borders do open, your global travel component will continue, safely.
Nuffield Scholars’ experiences and enhanced skillsets are increasingly in demand.
As the rate of change in food and fibre and beyond increases exponentially, Nuffield Scholars’ exposure to research, innovation and leadership development, means their knowledge is always needed in governance and industry.
Scholars will be part of the new Value Chain Innovation Programme (VIP).
Two weeks’ immersion into more than ten of New Zealand’s established, novel and disruptive value chains.

The Value Chain Innovation Programme introduces Scholars to value chains beyond their own. It represents an opportunity to meet, draw ideas from and connect with people across many industries.

Thinking of launching a product, or adding another to a range? This is just one way the VIP can help.

Want to be part of this? Apply now.

Back to the August 2021 issue of The Rural Leader.

2021 Food and Fibre Sector Insights Report

2021 Nuffiled New Zealand Farming Scholars Insights Report

June 2021

Dead-ends or transformation - Redesigning NZ farming to thrive through change.

The environmental, social and economic contexts in which we farm and grow are changing rapidly. The pressure many primary sector New Zealanders feel is the collision of ‘business as usual’ with accelerating forces of change. Under these new conditions, protecting long-held structures and models becomes untenable. To thrive in a challenging new world, we must choose to self-disrupt and transform fundamental parts of our sector: however difficult that process may be.

This is the core insight of the Nuffield 2021 ‘World Tour of New Zealand’ – a redesigned Nuffield Farming Scholarship experience that saw 10 emerging primary sector leaders travel the length of the country to gather insights into the challenges and opportunities ahead.

This report is a culmination of those insights, as viewed through five pillars fundamental to a thriving NZ food and fibre sector:

Incentives – How the end of the ’farming for capital gain’ model is forcing us to redefine value, and restructure our organisations to capture it.

David Eade and Ben Anderson

Innovation – Mapping innovation potential across the sector to find what separates the status quo from the game-changers.

Shannon Harnett and Ben Mclauchlan

People – How leading organisations put people at the centre of what they do.

Lynsey Stratford and Edward Pinckney

Silos – How systemic silos across leadership, research and data management are restricting the potential of the sector.

Philip Weir and John Foley

Leadership – Why transformation must be led by values and purpose-driven leaders.

Tracy Brown and Daniel Eb

This report builds on the 2020 Nuffield Scholars Insights and represents the start of our individual study in chosen areas. We encourage those who wish to support our research to get in touch – our contact details are included throughout.

Finally, our sincere thanks to the many hundreds of primary sector New Zealanders who shared time and insights with us along the way. While there is a need for great transformation ahead, your pride, passion and talent are a reminder that we can and will get there.

Ngā mihi nui

The 2020 and 2021 New Zealand Nuffield Farming Scholars

Download your copy here

Sophie Stanley on agri-tech, AI and art classes

May 2021

Sophie has been busy. Passionate about creating meaningful changes to the way we eat, and how that connects back to our planet – each step on her career path seems well placed to help make that happen.

Sophie’s Nuffield research paper, ‘Harnessing Social Media in Agriculture’, was followed by joining agri-tech start-up Figured, moving to Nebraska to launch it in the United States.

She returned to New Zealand in 2019 to join Autogrow and later WayBeyond, providers of artificial intelligence solutions for controlled environment farms. Sophie joined the board of the Dairy Women’s Network not long after.

Now standing at the intersection of agriculture, digital technology and innovation, we asked how the Nuffield Scholarship has helped expand her thinking.

“Before I received a Nuffield Scholarship, I was focused on the pastoral farming sector. But then [on the Global Focus Programme] you’re thrown into everything from row cropping to aquaculture. You get to see so many things. I met lots of interesting people in the agri-tech space too, from all over the world. I was exposed to a lot of diverse thinking, ways to solve problems, and to technology being used in different contexts. So yeah, the interest in agri-tech was sparked.”

On the potential of technology.

“When I came back to New Zealand, I noticed huge gaps, particularly with growers. Some hadn’t innovated for twenty years. And so, they were struggling to satisfactorily address challenges like consumer dietary preferences, traceability demands and sustainability evidence. New technology is the perfect solution to help address those things.

We can have a thriving, efficient agriculture sector using technology and at the same time achieve the sustainability and climate change goals we might have as a nation.

This is where social media is beneficial. There are always trends or signals that appear, often first on social media – signposts of the future. We need to start proactively picking up on those signals. One of my personal beliefs is to have a bias towards action – just make decisions and course correct later.

In the tech industry we have this concept of MVP, or Minimum Viable Product. It’s the quickest time you can get something of value out to a customer, so that they can try it, then you improve it.

We’re seeing the same thing across agriculture. People are asking, why don’t we just try something and see how it goes? And it doesn’t have to be solving climate change. Because that’s a big problem. It’s a very complex problem.”

We should instead ask, what is the smallest piece that we can carve off and solve? We need lots of players solving little pieces of that bigger problem. And eventually, we’ll all solve it.

On thinking differently.

“I started going to art classes recently – learning to look at problems in new and creative ways. It’s interesting to see people’s differing approaches to the same task – like painting a chair in the middle of a room. We all saw it from different perspectives – but from those perspectives you build a new picture. I like thinking about how we can apply that to the way we look at things in our industry – even just allowing me to approach my job differently.

I attended BOMA, E Tipu recently. One common thread running through many of the speakers was this idea of reframing challenges so that we tackle them from the opportunity rather than the problem.

What really stood out for me was hearing from Geoff Ross. He studied agriculture, but then he focused on creating great consumer brands like 42 Below Vodka.

He presented an aspirational and inspirational idea, something that could galvanise the primary sector. This idea was, could New Zealand be the world’s first climate positive farm? That’s an idea worth exploring. With that idea we know consumers would want to buy from us.

This ties back to my Nuffield social media research as well. Three years ago, you probably wouldn’t have heard about regenerative agriculture for example. Now, because of stories shared on social media, consumers have started to ask – is this produce from a regenerative agriculture ecosystem? Supermarkets like Whole Foods in the United States recognise this too, awarding New Zealand lamb company Atkins Ranch with their Supplier Award for Regenerative Agriculture Commitment.”

I’m interested in how we might catch the tailwind of these signals and ideas to get ahead of the curve too. I think telling better work stories can make that happen.

On Artificial Intelligence in agriculture.

“AI, the version without the gloves, is well and truly here – even still, people get scared of those two letters, AI. That it’s going to take everyone’s jobs and make us all irrelevant. For a different viewpoint, I went to TEDx Auckland recently.

There, Will Hewitt spoke about how medicine is using AI. He quoted Eric Topol who said, “AI won’t replace doctors, but doctors that use it will replace doctors that don’t”. And I think in turn you can replace ‘doctors’ with growers or farmers.

…AI won't replace doctors, but doctors that use it will replace doctors that don't. And I think in turn you can replace that word with growers or farmers.

At WayBeyond we find AI is most useful to growers for modelling six weeks ahead, to predict how many tomatoes they’ll have to meet their commitments to supermarkets. They’ve got thousands of data points, from temperature, from plant growth measurements, from colour change, so many things. That’s a lot of complex data for a human to process. They might get to 80% accuracy in a model.

Now, if you can use AI, you can continuously look at these data points and at the correlations between them. You go from 80% to 90% pretty quickly. The impact of that could be millions of dollars to the bottom line for large scale growers – and hugely reduced food waste.

There’s plenty happening within an operation that a computer just isn’t going to see though. You still need to walk the greenhouse. There are tweaks the grower needs to backfill with their experience.”

So, AI is a support tool for people to make better decisions, not the end of all our jobs.

On the next big leaps in agri-tech.

“They’ll be around solutions that are focused on sustainability. Because it’s something that consumers are driving and it’s important in terms of our shared planetary goals.

We’re going to see more around planetary accounting and carbon, things like that. Consumers want produce they can feel good about, produce that contributes to their morals and ethics.

We’re starting to think about how we can be more sustainable in aquaculture and commercial fisheries. We heard a bit about that at BOMA as well.

We’re in the very early stages of where we could be with artificial intelligence and neural networks. There’s likely to be many more technology applications here.”

…creating a digital twin of a plant or even a cow, would mean we can model and predict so many possible outcomes.

“Things like creating digital twins* of biological systems, and plants too. Digital twins have already been used with aircraft engines and other complex machines. Bringing it into a biological space and creating a digital twin of a plant or even a cow, would mean we can model and predict so many possible outcomes
– like the impact of disease. It’s something we’re looking at within controlled environment growing.”

On making good things happen.

“We’re really focused on return on investment for our grower customers – being able to show the benefits of an innovative change. The innovation must provide value back to them. So, whenever we’re doing a proposal, we’re always showing what the return on investment will be – to the bottom line and to the environment too.

Real industry-wide change will only happen if we hear those stories. Stories about the leaders breaking new ground for the rest of us to follow. And again, social media is key here.

At the end of the day, our customer is that person on the other end of the tweet, or the Instagram post. They’re buying our products, especially when we’re using all the technology at our disposal to do things better, not just by the environment but by future generations too.

I want to help make meaningful change in the way we eat, and the way that connects back to the planet. I’d like to be part of telling the stories that help connect and create solutions for change.”

I think by tackling little parts of big problems, using technology and sharing the stories that inspire others to act, we’ll get there together.

*A Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a physical object or process. It enables the testing of scenarios under varying conditions.

Associate Member for Owl Farm Management Committee

Owl Farm is located near Cambridge, Waikato; it is a 144ha (effective) demonstration dairy farm set up through a joint venture between St Peter’s School and Lincoln University.

A primary goal of the farm is to develop and share world-class resources, information, and on-farm practices with the dairy industry, particularly in the Waikato. We are doing this by applying proven research and extensive monitoring so that Owl Farm becomes an exemplar in production, financial, environmental and people performance while remaining focussed on building and maintaining high people and animal welfare standards.

The on-farm team is supported and guided by the Farm Management Committee, an experienced group of advisors with a broad range of skill sets representing our industry partners: DairyNZ, Fonterra FarmSource, Ballance Agri-Nutrients, PGG Wrightson Seeds and Westpac, together with farmers, St Peter’s and Lincoln University.

The Farm Management Committee also seeks to provide opportunities to grow and develop governance skills in young farming leaders, through an Associate Member position. This position is for a period of 18 months, and the successful applicant will be supported as they learn the principles of governance.

Applications are currently being sought from farmers in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty area. They should be already demonstrating leadership capabilities, and looking for an opening into governance, whilst also helping Owl Farm achieve its goals.

The application form FMC Associate Member Application 2021 gives more information. If you are interested in this position, please complete and return the form via email to jo.sheridan@owlfarm.nz before Friday 30th April.

The Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme has been developing leaders for the rural and agri-food sector since 1979.

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The Nuffield New Zealand Farming Scholarship is one of the most valued awards in New Zealand’s primary sector.

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