Nuffield Scholarship Reports

Hamish Murray – Scholar presentation (May 2020) Agriculture is awakening to the challenges of an ageing population and those entering the workforce with a new or differing attitude to work and life. That automation and technology is removing much of the mundane and labour-intensive work, outdated work structures and traditional ways of doing things are … Read more

Hamish Marr – Scholar Presentation (May 2020) In 1974 a product was developed that would revolutionise agriculture. It would go on to be the most used chemical spray in global agriculture largely due to its low toxicity, negligible soil residue and zero plant back period. That product was glyphosate and was sold under the trade … Read more

Listen to the podcast Download the report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjsXqQykm-s&list=PL_FGrpOWrfXvXSGWBr9pj48LJHnXeZeJ5&index=4 The challenge that Aotearoa-New Zealand faces is finding balance between retaining and restoring our environment, whilst achieving social and economic benefit. This is not just our challenge; it is a response to a global call for better outcomes for our planet and us. This report is targeted … Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3OYmYDhyLc&list=PL_FGrpOWrfXvXSGWBr9pj48LJHnXeZeJ5&index=1 Listen to the podcast Download the report New Zealand farmers are being confronted by the need to improve multiple environmental outcomes while still returning a profit. How the primary sector continues to evolve to deliver sustainable returns for farmers responding to increasing environmental pressures, is one of the defining challenges of our time and … Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjzbCEmvtGk&list=PL_FGrpOWrfXvXSGWBr9pj48LJHnXeZeJ5&index=3&t=0s Listen to the podcast Download the report This report explores and applies a novel methodology of standardising and quantifying energy flows within New Zealand’s primary food production chains and more widely within New Zealand itself in relation to the Zero Carbon bill. Then demonstrates the method as a critically important adjunct to economics in … Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuWnfZWIpjI&list=PL_FGrpOWrfXvXSGWBr9pj48LJHnXeZeJ5&index=3 Listen to the podcast Download the report For the 8th consecutive year World Class Biosecurity ranked the number 1 priority for industry leaders in KPMG’s annual Agribusiness Agenda for 2018. It is interesting to note that while industry leaders recognise this as such a critical focus, at grass roots level there seems to be … Read more

A paradigm shift in the way we farm is occurring, one that emphasises the importance of producing more effectively, efficiently and responsibly, with a particular focus on protecting the environment. New Zealand farmers are confronting these changes now. Our geographic isolation no longer shelters us from the global and instant communication and information networks are … Read more

The global devaluation of food in developed countries due to physical, digital and biological advances has been the catalyst for destruction of both social, cultural and economic systems and New Zealand, in the absence of an ethical humanity centred ‘whole food system’ risks the same deterioration and consequences, other first world nations are attempting to … Read more

New Zealand exported a total of $37 billion in agri-food products in 2015 – yet KPMG (2016) estimates those same products ultimately generated more than $0.25 trillion dollars in retail sales when sold to consumers around the world. The challenge was how we forge new pathways that will help us capture more share of the … Read more

The genesis for my Nuffield Scholarship research was a sense that farmers and growers have a number of significant challenges or problems, both on-farm and off that have not been solved, or we are struggling to solve. As we milk, shear, tend and harvest, thousands of farmer and grower-minds around the country turn to these … Read more

The NZ dairy industry has always historically enjoyed the advantage of being the world’s lowest cost producer of milk with our cheap pasture feed resource being the envy of the dairy industry globally. Despite this, farmers in the Europe and the US, the worlds 2nd and third largest exporters are eyeing opportunities for growth to … Read more

There is a new frontier of food and farming emerging. Its emergence is in part a response to the limitations and negative impacts of our current farm systems, and in part driven by a realisation that ‘regenerative farming’ is opening up a new world of possibility. Many of our current farming systems are being ‘squeezed’ … Read more

China is currently the most important market to the New Zealand Dairy Industry. I first visited in 2014 and soon realised there were some large differences to the information New Zealand Dairy Farmers believed to what was actually happening on the ground in China. Rapid development was occurring in the Chinese Dairy Industry and the … Read more

Synthetic food (SF) is being touted as a revolution in food production that could replace animal products. While the industry is more bark than bite at the moment, it’s rapidly gaining awareness and attracting significant funding by being portrayed as a solution to many of the global problems associated with conventional agriculture. As the pressure … Read more

Tom Skerman

We have inherited a brand. New Zealand was the last major land mass on earth to be colonised by humans, it is distant from most of the world’s population and has beautiful scenery and biodiversity. This brand is about a safe, unspoiled last paradise, or to quote a Rudyard Kipling poem: the “last, loneliest, loveliest, … Read more

NZ dairy farmers are directly exposed to uncertainty and fluctuations in commodity pricing. Over the past ten years external factors have had a significant impact on dairy farming businesses, leading to increased financial pressure, delayed investment plans and solvency issues. New Zealand (NZ) dairy farmers have been left behind. Sophisticated and diverse price risk management … Read more

This report investigates the wide variety of ways that producers (farmers and fishers) have coped with constraints. These constraints include industry restructure, market pressures and environmental restrictions. How environmental limits have been navigated, and even utilised, is a major focus of the report since this is a current issue for New Zealand (NZ) farmers. In … Read more

Changing economic and social pressures in the rural sector mean farmers need to change the way they act and react to challenges if they want to survive and thrive. Strengthening rural leadership has been identified as a key opportunity to help famers to respond and adapt to their changing environment both on-farm and with in … Read more