resilience
Tara Dwyer
Tara Dwyer reports the New Zealand sheep sector stands at a critical juncture, requiring courage, collaboration, and leadership, with recommendations for genuine product differentiation and investment to reverse declining flock numbers and diminishing profitability.
- December 2025
- Kellogg 54
Jodie Goudswaard
NZ dairy farmers prove profit and sustainability can align—pasture smart, cost-savvy, and values-led. A balance worth backing.
- 2025
- Kellogg 53
Michele Findlay
This report by Michele Findlay examines how rural managers build trusted, high-value relationships with clients in food and fibre. It identifies attributes, leadership practices, and organisational support for high performance, highlighting trust-building, technical and interpersonal skills, and proactive insight.
- 2025
- Kellogg 53
Morgan Jones
This report by Morgan Jones tackles the financial literacy gap in rural NZ by exploring tailored, accessible education strategies for farmers, growers, and professionals.
- 2025
- Kellogg 53
Jordi Hoult
This report explores how leadership development can be enhanced for mid-career professionals in New Zealand's agrifood sector, addressing gaps and promoting inclusivity and innovation.
- 2024
- Kellogg 52
Hamish Hodgson
This research paper aims to identify the key skills that drive profitability in NZ's dairy farming sector and explore how targeted training and development can enhance farm performance and overall economic resilience.
- 2024
- Kellogg 52
Wyatt Johnston
The impetus for this report comes from the need for KiwiSaver funds to diversify their asset bases and identifies barriers inhibiting KiwiSaver providers from investing in primary sector assets.
- 2024
- Kellogg 51
Alison Bentley
This report seeks to understand NZ's small-scale growers’ integration into the landscape, ecosystems, and communities.
- 2023
- Kellogg 50
Matt Smith
This report examines how to change from a supply chain strategy to a value chain strategy and what that means for the farmer.
- 2023
- Kellogg 50
Susie Woodward
The New Zealand mohair industry is not in a place to capitalise on the global trend of increasing use of natural fibres in its current state. The industry has seen an ageing base to its producer group form. The lack of new entrants coming into the industry has meant it has struggled to remain relevant and viable.
- 2022
- Kellogg 46
Conan Moynihan
Under a changing climate our water security is under threat particularly for New Zealand’s rural communities. Our freshwater resource is at the heart of our prosperity and resilience of our communities. With increasing demand from all sectors, it is crucial that New Zealand efficiently manages our freshwater and that it is allocated to its best uses.
- 2022
- Kellogg 46
Tracy Brown
There are multiple stakeholders with various views of the world and we currently have no clear framework to understand what is going on around us. A better understanding of how we need to adapt and organise ourselves, will better position leaders to make changes.
- April 2022
- Nuffield 2020
Matthew Carroll
I investigated why catchment groups are formed, how they are formed and what they are producing. By gaining an understanding of the literature around resilience, social sense making, the social licence to farm and the legislative requirements on farmers. I aimed to seek any correlation between the above topics and catchment groups.
- 2022
- Kellogg 45
Andrew Drysdale
This project explores the evolving landscape of Northland hill country farming, highlighting the current position of Northland hill country sheep and beef farming, the significant uptake of forestry competing with the sheep and beef industry for land-use on these hills, and the opportunity for integration of these industries to collaborate in meeting both our environmental, economic, and socio-economic objectives. The implication for landowners, is that the decisions we make today, will not only initiate short-term change, but may also present long-term and inter-generational implications that necessitate a need for holistic and well-informed decision-making process’.
- 2021
- Kellogg 44
Amelia Vinnell
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.’
- 2021
- Kellogg 43
Jack Cocks
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.
- 2021
- Kellogg 43
Anna Rathe
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.
- 2020
- Kellogg 41
Michael McHutchon
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.
- 2020
- Kellogg 42
Luke Beehre
To develop an understanding of the implications of this change – the scale and breadth of it along with the potential opportunities this report looks to develop context, perspective and a deep understanding of the subject by exploring the past, present and future of the industry, understanding what influences farmer change, work through current strategies in place and then consider some of the potential pathways ahead and finally discuss some conclusions and recommendations.
This is approached via a mix of in-depth interviews, selected readings, and critique to develop the context, perspective and deep understanding desired.
- 2020
- Kellogg 41
Heath Stafford
New Zealand’s (NZ) primary sectoris facing uncertainty from all angles. Brexit and the USA/China tradewar has thrown our primary sector exports in the air and we don’t know where they’ll land. Climatechange, sustainability and natural resource management ask serious questions of the sector’sperformance and its adaptability. Changing consumer preferences along with a rise of low … Read more
- 2019
- Kellogg 40
Steve Veix
The NZ dairy sector has a history of innovation, success and development and has grown to support a significant portion of NZ’s total export earnings. Approximately 95% of NZ’s total dairy production is exported to overseas markets. During the 1990’s through to the later part of the 2000’s the sector experienced a significant growth phase … Read more
- 2019
- Kellogg 39
Jack Raharuhi
Severe storms and flooding are occurring in New Zealand more with more impact to our people and environment. How prepared for an Emergency is critical to how an event impacts your business is significant to a profitable farming system. Methods used for this report is a comprehensive analysis into regional emergency response giving the understanding … Read more
- 2018
- Kellogg 37
Kate Taylor
The school bus pulls away from the farm driveway and the already-exhausted mother sinks into a chair at the kitchen table to drink her now-cold coffee. The pet lambs have been fed, school lunches made, lost uniform items recovered, homework sorted and kids packed off to school. There’s washing to hang out, beds to make, … Read more
- 2017
- Kellogg 36
Victoria Magazinovic
Central Otago is a region where farming is predominantly sheep and beef. The profitability of these farms varies, and in the last few years lamb prices have not helped this. Nitrogen use has the potential to help farmers improve production and profitability, but the use of it also varies a lot from farm to farm … Read more
- 2017
- Kellogg 34