Kellogg Programme Reports

This project was intended to investigate the potential uses of remote sensor environmental data by farmers to help them improve their environmental outcomes. This could promote innovative management practices whilst making compliance easier for farmers. The concept of ‘outcome-based’ regulation as well as environmental monitoring through sensors has been explored with some good applicable literature from case studies available to study. Several common themes emerged from this literature around benefits and risks as well as the importance of the system design.

The aim of this project is to gain some insights into the realities of a person/couple in how feasible it would be for them to be able to gain a foot hold into an arable farming business. I specifically wanted to target people that were not in a position that will or may benefit from matrimony, alimony, and patrimony. Of all the people I interviewed not one example of farm ownership could be thought of that didn’t involve the three pervious terms. The methodology used in this report was literature review into the arable sector and its current situation, this was used to quantify themes present. Using both informal interviews and my own profession I explored the key themes coming out of the industries professionals that service this sector.

This report seeks to draw insights from the global response to Covid-19 and evidence from actions currently underway in New Zealand’s food and fibre sector to predict the likely future scenario for the global food system in 2030. Given this likely scenario, the report will identify areas of opportunity for New Zealand to pursue to position itself to succeed in a changed future food system. Analysis provided in this report relies heavily on a scenario mapping exercise undertaken by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2017 titled ‘Shaping the future of global food systems: a scenarios analysis.’

“Cows are easy, people are hard” This research project investigated what is being done in our industry and how we can learn from industry leading employers, and out of industry leaders. The question is, “Learning from global workplace trends, how can the NZ dairy industry design workplaces to attract the best of the next generation into our workforce?” Over the past 20 years the dairy industry has seen huge expansion, with the herd size doubling in a twenty year period. As of 2018, the NZ dairy industry workforce was made up of roughly 40,000 people with 22,500 of these being employees.

The influence of Gen Z on the workforce is only beginning and will continue to grow. This generation is very different to those before and define themselves by their values and identity. The defining issue of this generation will be climate change and the environment. In New Zealand, agriculture is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. This could be viewed as a problem to attracting Gen Z into the sector. At the same time the sector is being asked and is actively looking to understand how it can improve its environmental impact. This research has focused on how we can use Gen Z’s passion about the environment to attract them into the sector. The sector needs skilled and passionate people to meet the challenges it faces.

It feels in recent times public perception has been increasingly negative towards the primary Industries as a result of the water quality “showdown” between farmers, government and the general public. The urban rural divide has been perceived to be greater than ever, and social media has presented a new arena for robust debate about water quality. However, this project discovered that...

I have conducted many interviews over the last few months throughout the bobby calf supply chain, these have been conducted in person and via “Teams” meetings over the internet. Some of the interviews have been recorded, and others who wanted to remain anonymous I only took notes. Once I had conducted all my interviews I broke down the information into common themes to ascertain what current value these calves currently contribute to our economy and was their life a life worth living? Did that life add value?

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into rural land is a topic that most New Zealanders have an opinion on and in the past two decades has become an increasingly controversial and emotive topic. Our economy is driven from production using our land and water resources, this is seen as our competitive advantage – so the ownership of these resources is continually under the spotlight, regularly reported on and is a frequent political issue. New Zealand also needs to broadly recognise the direct links FDI has with supplying our nation with much needed capital, continued and new access to offshore markets, innovation, and technology. Contentiousness around FDI has been centred around the sell down of our land assets (and by default our competitive advantage), with less consideration given to the immediate and downstream benefits.

Recognition among our rural women and their success is a topic I don’t think is acknowledged or emphasised enough. Being able to confidently believe and recognise you make an impactful contribution to meet your values, and have a definition of your success while being content with your moral compass is essential. The aim of this project was to talk to a cross-section of rural women and then make an informed decision about the definition of their success, and how they believe it impacts over their lives and communities.

New Zealand relies on bees to pollinate crops and pasture worth at least $5 billion annually to its economy. In 2019/20, honey export value reached $425 million. In July 2020, the Government released its Fit for a better world vision. While it did not separate the impact on the New Zealand honey industry individually, the numbers infer the industry is being tasked to add $65 million in export earnings cumulatively over the next 10 years. This task falls to the 935 export registered beekeepers (about 10% of total registered beekeepers) to supply Mānuka and/or non-Mānuka honey for export. So, how well is the industry set up to accomplish this task?

The focus has been on developing a theory for how farmers become resilient and thrive in the face of adversity. I have had the privilege of interviewing five resilient New Zealand farming individuals and couples about adversity they’ve faced and how they’ve become resilient. From these interviews there have been strong commonalities across these five case study participants for how they’ve become resilient. The theoretical model developed through the grounded theory research process can best be described in the form of a three level triangle comprising three primary strategies the case study participants have employed to become more resilient.

The purpose of this report is to understand the ongoing factors and importance carbon farming has in New Zealand agriculture now but more so in the future. To understand the opportunities farmers have in making a more profitable business and farming more sustainably through planting trees in low productive land. Forestry plantings are driven by farmers for many reasons. These include reducing carbon, utilising unproductive land, additional avenues of income, and helping with succession. These opportunities are not just limited to farmers utilising land for off-setting carbon. On a larger scale the commercial sector are actively looking to off-set their main business in carbon for example Air New Zealand, Contact, Genesis & Z are in partnership, who are trying to convert on marginal productive land.

The agriculture industry has grown from early Maori, the first settlers in the 1800s through to our second largest export (pre COVID-19). Due to the growth in the industry, roles have been created that cannot be filled by New Zealanders because of a skill shortage. To solve this problem, many businesses now employ migrant staff, from all over the world, to help them run their operations.

The aim of this report is to help farmers and rural professionals better understand Māori cultural values and to see how collaborative relationships can be built between farming communities and Rūnanga in the Hurunui district. There is common ground between Māori and farming because of the connection to land. The Hurunui District is covered by two Rūnanga of Ngāi Tahu. Te Rūnanga o Kaikoura, also known as Ngāti Kurī, cover north of the Hurunui River and Te Ngāi Tūahuriri Rūnanga, centred on Tuahiwi, to the South of the Hurunui River (Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu 2021).

This report explores ways that well-being can be enhanced in the post-harvest kiwifruit sector. The kiwifruit industry has expanded substantially over the last few years and is expected to continue with exponential growth. It is more important than ever to focus on the well being of employees to ensure that the industry can fulfill its potential.

I explored the ways that we can get dairy farming women into New Zealand boardrooms to see better outcomes for our businesses and economy. This is not about men versus women or disregarding the importance of experience, it is about what we need to do to be closing the gender gap on boards, having diversity of thought around the boardroom and avoiding ‘group think’. It is about the individual having the confidence to bring their true self to the table and express their views.

The aim is to understand the current plant breeding technologies and compare them to the controversial genetic technologies which have recently become available to New Zealand, such as genomic selection, marker-assisted selection, genetic modification, and gene editing.

The aim of this project was to explore how plausible future scenarios can be used as a tool to better prepare the New Zealand horticulture sector for what the future may bring. The project objective was to develop scenarios to help to consider what the future operating environment could look like for horticulture in New Zealand, and what challenges and opportunities different plausible futures might present for the sector.

The objective of this research was to understand how New Zealand’s primary industry can communicate the importance of agricultural science more effectively to the New Zealand public, and who should be responsible for doing this. Understanding how the rural community views current government support for agricultural science and science funding is also important. The aim here is to determine how best to ensure that there is a better appreciation of the value of agricultural science to New Zealand’s bioeconomy.

This report aims to raise awareness of the importance of having a balanced and supportive approach to change. Making change can be separated into three buckets: imposed, collaborative, and change by choice. The clear difference in the change buckets comes through the perception of having control. Being in complete control is found in the change by choice bucket.The perception of increased imposed change for NZ farmers/growers is something the primary industries need to be wary of, given the effect this change type has on mindset and profitability.

This report investigates whether the dairy industry has a labour transience problem and what it truly costs a business to lose and retrain a new employee.

Internationally increasing soil carbon in agricultural soils has the potential to offset greenhouse gas emissions. This project evaluates the role of soil carbon in relation to farm greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand. Agricultural soils in NZ have naturally higher levels of carbon than those overseas because they are typically younger and our practices include more restorative pasture and animal phases. Therefore we may not be able to increase soil carbon in the same way as international studies suggest. The aim of this project was to examine the role of soil carbon in NZ and in relation to farm greenhouse gas emissions and policy. Key groups industry stakeholders were identified and interviewed. From the results themes were identified and analysed to answer the study questions.

It is important to measure the current level of financial acumen to understand what the barriers are impacting one’s ability to upskill, and what the implications are to farmers and their wider support networks. From understanding the barriers and implications we can then conclude with recommendations to where and how farmers, rural professionals, industry-good organisations, software providers and government bodies can help improve and upskill one’s financial literacy to create resilient businesses and a stronger economy.

The New Zealand arable farming industry faces a number of issues as it attempts to remain profitable in a world of increasing public scrutiny and environmental regulation. This report investigates whether the integration of a hazelnut orchard into an existing Canterbury arable farm could provide a profitable alternative, a lower nitrate-N leaching profile and an opportunity to sequester carbon on-farm.