2026 Nuffield NZ Farming Scholarship. Apply by 17 August 2025. Read More...

Apply for 2026 Nuffield NZ Farming Scholarship by 17 August 2025. More details...

consumers

Helen France

There are ongoing and increasingly growing challenges for sustainability, environmental limits, and pressure for greater efficiencies. Emergent and developing trends in plant-based proteins are creating movements and shifts in consumer demand and food production. Health and nutrition are influencing consumer demand more than ever. Throughout this study, a greater understanding was sought in the global positioning of alternative proteins and within the New Zealand context. This was then used to identify the considerations required to evaluate the importance of alternative proteins to the Agri-industry in New Zealand.

Graeme Peter

Corporate social responsibility (C.S.R.) is maturing rapidly in modern times as a way for companies to reflect the values of its customers, employees and investors. Dairy is facing rising compliance as expectations of consumers and the public grow. Society is putting more emphasis on the impact of their food purchasing decisions resulting in rapid change for Aotearoa dairy farmers. Dairy farming in Aotearoa is a unique business in that it is non-competitive at the supplier level. Farmers are not competing with their neighbour or any dairy farm, as they are all collected by a processor.

Juliette Maitland

This Kellogg project explores how ‘ready’ we are as a sector to capture the potential value of diverse dairy enterprises across different parts of the value chain, everything from farmer or grower to consumer. There is also building pressure and urgency around finding pathways to capture opportunities such as: adding more value to non-replacement dairy calves, positioning our New Zealand Food and Fibre products away from commodities and towards products with genuine market differentiation as well as understanding the role plant based proteins will play in New Zealand’s food future.

Katie Vickers

The aim for this commentary is to create a discussion piece for our industry leaders and to help the primary sector develop a potential common goal or value proposition. I want to challenge our thinking about how we tackle the changes that are facing our industry.

Luke Futter

With increased protein demand from the agriculture sector, ever increasing compliance costs and high land prices, adding more operational layers and diversity to an existing system is an option to some businesses. This business plan focuses on integrating pasture raised egg production into an organic dairy farm but has relevance to any farming system. The … Read more

Jonny Dingle

The New Zealand primary industry is facing significant change, in particular, pressures around environment, finance, biosecurity and changes to consumer behaviour. The leadership and skills of our rural professionals will be a key component to the success of our primary industry in this changing and challenging environment. For agribusiness organisations to remain relevant and equipped … Read more

Nigel Woodhead

New Zealand produces enough premium quality, safe food to feed approximately 40 million people (McCready, Tim. July 19th 2018).  It could safely be assumed then that accessing such amazing quality food in the region or even country of production would be an easy ask.  This is not always the case. Currently New Zealand’s economy is … Read more

Sacha McDougall

This research and affiliated report asks the question: Can New Zealand Dairy farmers re-gain control of their narrative from inside the farm gate? The dairy industry is New Zealand’s largest good exports sector, contributing 20% of total exports while bringing in $17.1 billion dollars into the New Zealand economy (NZIER, 2018). As dairy has grown … Read more

Belinda Price

Our world in 2018, is one where perception is reality and the new industry buzz word is consumer-centric.  In a world where primary industries need be obsessed with their consumer it begs the question, what is the customer’s perception of their food and its production?  Highlighted to me two years ago when hosting a group … Read more

Bridget Huddleston

Tourism is now New Zealand’s biggest export earner which is rapidly growing, with close to five million tourists expected in 2023.  A large draw-card attracting tourists to New Zealand is the rolling hills, farming persona and pristine environment.  If New Zealand farmers can leverage off international tourists, and provide each of the five million a … Read more

Paul Ensor

The aim of this paper is to clearly define the Circular Economy (CE) concept and showing its potential for NZ agribusiness using mini case studies to provide insights on how we can improve our sustainability and add economic value in an ethically values-based way.  The research methods used for this report involve a literature review … Read more

Harriet Cameron

In a knowledge driven world, changes to the buying behaviour of consumers is shaping the need for New Zealand exporters to pivot towards a consumer centric model. This requires us to shape the way we produce and market New Zealand products to fit the demands of the discerning consumer. Changing consumer buying behavior and the … Read more

Helen Andrews

The aim of this report is to identify opportunities for the NZ pork producers to compete with continued and increase imported pork. The three main areas I have investigated are “WHY?” we need to compete. I investigate the reasons for the increase concentrating on pork production in relation to population data. I studied the imported … Read more

Nick Pollock

This report looks into Gisborne navel orange production and investigates why a product (Gisborne navel oranges) with world class attributes fails to deliver reasonable returns to producers, and what can be done to improve, not only this industry, but also likely to be applicable to other products or industries that may find themselves in a … Read more

Angela Leslie

Whilst travelling through Europe and China in 2015, I saw great examples of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) being undertaken by organisations, both in their countries of origin and through global pursuits. Applying this concept to the New Zealand primary industry, I questioned whether more value would be possible for business when conducting CSR in conjunction … Read more

Pablo Gallegos

“If anybody anywhere in the world can use small amounts of energy, water and nutrients to create the same quality food as we can here then why would anyone buy from New Zealand?” That’s the question that Lance Wiggs director of several New Zealand high-growth companies (www.lancewiggs.com) asked to his readers back in February 2016. … Read more

Craig Trotter

Change is constant and the change of pace for the global supply of protein and its make up is going to alter considerable over the next 20 years. Alternative protein sources such as through the rise of plant based and synthetic meat products will take place of the current traditional commodity meat market across the … Read more

David Kidd

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

Caleb Dennis

Thinking outside of the square and challenging the status quo is and will become more and more important as we see challenges to the primary industries. The changing consumer preferences and urbanisation of our communities is and will continue to erode at the traditional way of farming and growing in New Zealand, and the world … Read more

Michael McGehan

Throughout its short history, the New Zealand Wagyu Industry (NZWI) which was established in the early 1990’s with the introduction of cattle from Australia and the United States (US) via original parents in Japan has been struggling to grow.  This is partly due but is not limited to the long time frames required to breed … Read more

Grant McNaughton

With a national sheep flock that has halved in size over the past 25 years, yet maintained output the Sheep and Beef sector is bursting with innovators and top producers, full of passion and enthusiasm to improve profitability. A cornerstone that drives the profitability beyond the farm gate is the consumer’s decisions on what, when, … Read more

Mat Hocken

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

Ryan O’Sullivan

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

St John Craner

It makes sense to look at disruptive technology within agriculture when so many other industries have been disrupted. Music (iTunes, Spotify, Pandora), books (Amazon, Book Depository), travel agents (TripAdvisor), transportation (Uber, Tesla), accommodation (AirBnB), entertainment (Netflix), insurance (Trov), recruitment (LinkedIn) or energy (Flick) have all been affected. What all have in common is a lack … Read more