kellogg

Farmers face adversity from a range of sources, many of which are outside their control and include: health; natural disasters, weather, and climate challenges; financial; family; and personal loss.

There are established and establishing systems, strategies, support networks, and techniques for recovering quickly from this adversity, or being ‘resilient’. However these tools don’t appear to be conveyed in the form of a simple ‘all-encompassing resilience focused’ model specifically for farmers. Such a model could be utilised by farmers when facing adversity to ask themselves, their family, and their business; “am I, or are we, living and implementing the key strategies and techniques both as an individual and as a team of individuals that we need to be resilient in the face of this adversity”. Be that a flood, an earthquake, a cancer diagnosis, or a commodity price fall.

As a farmer I’ve experienced adversity from a life threatening brain injury which saw me in a coma and suffer a cardiac arrest. Day one in hospital my family was given a prognosis that their husband, dad, and son would be dead today; best case he’d survive but spend the rest of his life in an institution. I obviously did survive, however the following six years saw me undergo many major surgeries and spend considerable time in hospital.

From this experience and my recovery I’ve been told I’m a resilient character and have been asked to give several talks to farmers on my experience and how I became resilient. This has been a humbling and surprising experience for the feedback I’ve had, however this is just one farmer’s thoughts and I wanted to test my theories.

To achieve this I’ve done the Kellogg course and this research project. Resilience literature in farming concentrates on climatic and financial resilience. Due to the apparent lack of a theoretical model for ‘personal resilience’ for farmers within the literature, I’ve taken a grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin 1994) approach to this research through the form of instrumental case studies (Stake, 1998).

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 (Figure 6):

• Purpose – this is the direction the participants are moving in their lives and why. This is the direction of the triangle;
• The middle of the triangle is keeping connected. This is the glue that holds the triangle together. This is keeping connected with other people; friends, family, and networks. These connections are the people in our lives who often buoy us up and encourage us to achieve, to rise above and have courage when going through adversity; and
• The base of the triangle is keeping well. This is ‘what do I need in my life to be well’, or to be happy and content. This is the foundation for resilience.

Within each of these three common primary strategies there are various secondary techniques that two or more of the case study participants employ to thrive in the face of adversity. Furthermore there were six common characteristics across the five case study participants; driven people, high achievers, emotionally intelligent, unrelentingly positive, grateful, and humble.

My recommendation is the model developed from this research be refined into a format that can be delivered to farmers across New Zealand; ideally by other farmers who have faced severe adversity and have thrived in the face of this adversity and become resilient. How these resilient farmers ‘live’ the model and their stories will facilitate communicating the model to other farmers.

Carbon farming at present is a hot topic in New Zealand, ongoing pressure from the government and industry leaders to be Zero carbon in all the food we produce.

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.

A small percentage of forestry integrated into a farming enterprise utilising the ineffective more contoured areas will not significantly impact stock production. This can increase income and off-set the farms carbon emission footprint.

The methodology I used in this report was a literature review where I did a lot of reading and research where similar themes became apparent. The themes are:

Forestry returns for farmers are variable for farmers but positive if well managed.

Good cash flow and also carbon returns are possible. It has enabled the ability to match the land to best use in a sustainable way.

Climate change in New Zealand is becoming more topical, with farmers needing to be accountable for their emissions and actively offsetting them.

Climate change is at the forefront of media and importance to knowing your business and environmentally farmers are needing to know their emissions with ways of accounting for them and also a straightforward ways to offset these. With the latest draft of the government’s climate change policy there is some real uncertainty and pressures for farmers. A lot of farmers will lag behind and some will leave the industry. They need support to adapt to changes and regulations to keep up with the new farming regulations.

Further education, understanding and active embracement of the impact of Climate change is, and will continue to be, required by farmers.

A lot of education is needed to fully understand emissions on farm and environmental impacts. Environmental standards are only going to get tougher.

A common theme was that forestry was going to have huge impact in off-setting emissions. When examining this we have to be careful as some opinions explore that there is not enough land in New Zealand for this to occur fully or at the current rate that it is happening.

Some of my recommendations for farmers integrating forestry into their farming systems indicates it to be worthwhile diversification, but through my research it is clear that it is key for farmers to achieve the best results they must get the correct advice from professional consultants right from the start on plantings and schemes.

With the latest Climate Commission draft we are seeing more changes with environmental responsibility and if a farmer can off-set their own carbon use it will put them ahead of the legislation, whilst also offering tax saves and including a new revenue stream.

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.

New Zealand has a reputation for being naturally beautiful, a safe place to live and work and bring up a family. Ranking 11th in the 2019 Future Brand Country Index (FCI), which is done every five years, put New Zealand in an excellent position. Quality of life and wellbeing of citizens in New Zealand was a key factor in the ranking. We can live up to the reputation where New Zealand is seen to be a great place to both work and live by taking the time to understand people (and their cultures) who migrate here to work and making a conscious effort to acknowledge this when they start employment.

The focus of this report is to understand the management of multicultural teams in New Zealand agriculture. The history of New Zealand agriculture has been researched with key moments reflected upon to tell the story of where the industry has come from and what the current situation is. The contribution migrants make in terms of the workforce and benefits to the New Zealand economy will be mentioned. Reports based around migrant exploitation will be delved into with some examples from various sources added. With migrant employees now playing a critical role in the production of our agriculture products it is crucial that employers have the knowledge to manage multicultural teams effectively. Culture and cultural diversity will be discussed with cultural differences and management styles explored alongside a survey, undertaken for this report, to support the recommendations.

The main findings from this report include the need for migrant staff to be part of our teams to produce our food products for the world. The characteristics of migrant staff are discussed and multicultural teams in agricultural evaluated along with how to have strong multicultural teams. Each of these points are supported with examples from the surveys and interviews conducted as part of this report.

Recommendations from this report include sharing the story of New Zealand agriculture and the importance of migrant staff, being aware of the various reports around migrant employee exploitation and improving processes and practices to ensure everyone working in New Zealand has the same rights with those employers that do not do this being held accountable, providing employers with education to up-skill themselves on how to have culturally revealing conversations with their staff and continue to gather data around managing multicultural teams in the agriculture industry to provide further insight.

This has been a very personal journey for me as I have been exploring my heritage. I’ve have always known that I had connections to Ngāi Tahu and that it was from Southland, but I didn’t know much more than that. I am a 10th generation New Zealander through my maternal grandfather, I Whakapapa back to the Awarua Rūnanga and Rakiura (Stewart Island) to Tomuri and Te Iri. 

I have in recent years discovered my whakapapa and visited Rakiura. This report is a combination of a personal and professional interest that has led me to want better understand Māori cultural values and how these can be woven into farming businesses to build resilient farm systems.

Engaging with Iwi and Rūnanga is becoming common for farming communities and yet it is still a foreign concept for many of us. Many farming communities know more about their European settler’s history than that of tangata whenua (local people). As we continue to see more Freshwater Policy being regulated on farm, there is an ever-increasing use of Te reo (Maori Language) that is not understood my many farmers and rural professionals.

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).

Weaving cultural values into farming decisions and discussion has not been regular practice in our farming communities. Some people have little or no understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) and therefore fear it as it is a change in thinking. Building understanding and knowledge reduces this fear and allows our farming communities to move forward to healthier relationships.

The information gathered to compile this report is of people’s experience of gaining understanding of Māori culture, and information that was publicly available but not necessarily known about. Te Rūnanga o Kaikoura’s Environmental Management Plan and the consultation process addresses issues of concern to tangata whenua associated with natural resource and environmental related activities and topics of importance to Rūnanga. The intention is to provide an understanding of some of the background, information and plans that are readily available to help build collaboration between farming communities and Rūnanga in the Hurunui District.

This report gives a base level of knowledge regarding the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) as it is important to know our country’s history. The Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document. It takes its name from the place in the Bay of Islands where it was first signed, on 6 February 1840. The Treaty is an agreement, in Māori and English, that was made between the British Crown and approximately 540 Māori rangatira (chiefs) (NZ History, 2021) .

Building collaboration between farming communities and Rūnanga in the Hurunui District offers many opportunities to build long, sustainable relationships. The district is split over two Rūnanga that have similar values. The recommendations from this report are:

• Have positive Rūnanga connections with Amuri Irrigation Company (AIC) and the Hurunui District Landcare Group (HDLG). Much of the farming community is connected by these two groups. There is an opportunity for these groups to form initial connections with Rūnanga to explain their purpose and values, and what they do to help and enable the farming community. It is a way to start connecting with a larger group of farmers.
• Share information regarding the Treaty of Waitangi and the history of how it was signed in the local area through community groups.
• Develop a workshop for Rural Professionals that are working within the Hurunui District about the history of the area. This could be co-developed between Rūnanga, Environment Canterbury, AIC and HDLG.
• Acknowledge the knowledge gap of understanding between farming communities and Iwi, and that in most cases it has not been intentional.
• Make connections with Māori values that align with farmer values.

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 wellbeing of employees to ensure that the industry can fulfil its potential.

Wellbeing is linked to many positive business aspects, including engaged staff, reduced absenteeism, and higher productivity. Employees are faced with the reality of various job and life demands daily.

Additionally, the kiwifruit harvest season from March to June each year see these demands escalated with increased workloads and longer work hours. Employees may experience compromised wellbeing, becoming burnout risks if these demands aren’t balanced out with job resources and personal resources.

The main findings include:

• Leaders of the industry interviewed believed that the seasonal demands were the biggest barrier to enhancing wellbeing, resulting in significant impacts to work– life balance.
• The conceptual framework called The Job Demands – Resources Model can be used to predict and enhance wellbeing. It considers the balance between energy in and out energy out for an employee to have optimised wellbeing. If it is unbalanced a health impairment process can be expected.
• The culture of the organisation is what drives the wellbeing of the staff.
• Using a transformational leadership style is the most conducive style for wellbeing. More training and development of leaders and managers is required amongst the industry.
• Succession planning is important for keeping job descriptions within a reasonable scope for individuals. Along with future proofing the business, it also fosters engagement and development opportunities for employees.
• Utilizing flexible work options helps to create better work–life balance and is linked to happier and healthier staff.
• Quarterly engagement surveys help to inform management about employee wellbeing. This could be of help for the kiwifruit industry where work demands vary throughout the year.
• Wellbeing programmes can be used to educate employees around wellbeing and lifestyle habits; however staff must first be engaged for this to be of use.

New Zealand’s current protein production is dominated by meat and dairy. 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, therefore the value proprositions in the food market have to meet this demand. The current alternative protein industry is still in its infancy in New Zealand with some sectors such as Hemp and Quinoa rapidly growing. However, in general, New Zealand is behind the main growth countries producing plant based protein like Canada and the Netherlands. This presents an opportunity to take learnings and develop potential collaborations, to advance New Zealand’s progression.

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.
Key findings and discussion points raised are:

• Food production needs to increase by 70% to feed the world population of 9.7 billion in 2050.
• New Zealand has a natural bioeconomy as there is low fossil fuel use and more energy produced by renewable sources (80%) such as wind, geothermal, hydroand biomass, but New Zealand needs to move into a new bioeconomy charactarised by biotechnology and greater cross -sector thinking and actions.
• The Fourth revolution is here and characterised by building on the Third, the digital revolution, that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. The fourth is combining human and machine where technology is embedded in our societies enabling artificial intelligence, renewable energy, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.
• Sustainability is key in all aspects of food production. Using the fourth revolution and utilising plant-based opportunities to create products that fill market gaps or outperforms the rest of the world will enable New Zealand to be a global leader in food production.
• The steps that enable New Zelaand to be a global leader should concide with achieving goals in climate change (the Paris Agreement) and mitigating the affects of green house gases and the other pollution occurring like high nutrient loading in water bodies.
• “Farmers are motivated by a diverse range of drivers  and constrained (and enabled) by a range of social, cultural, economic, and physical factors. Farmers will therefore react in different ways to external drivers of change and will respond differently to encouragement, incentives, and legislation aimed at influencing their farming practice.”

From the above findings and conclusions , the following recommendations have been suggested:

• Keep monitoring consumer trends & food markets to increase awareness of markets and consumer change
• Maintain and grow our reputation/ story of being food producers of high value and highly nutritious ingredients or wholefoods.
• Leverage our competencies of current successful sectors especially as meat and dairy innovators
• Seek expertise where knowledge or skills are low and empower people to become experts in new alternative proteins.
• Encourage and develop coalitions with the government departments such as Ministry for Primary Industries, the Ministry for the Environment and farmers to provide incentives and/or support in areas where New Zealand can deliver the world’s best produce.
• Reward and support leaders paving the way for the nation and their peers in agricultural and especially in new products or production that adds value to the New Zealand Agricultural Industry.
• Develop a New Zealand plant-based food strategy for New Zealand agriculture
• Create and develop a greater understanding and technical expertise in plant-based opportunities to enable greater diffusion of adoption to farmers.

The New Zealand horticulture sector is currently enjoying a period of growth and prosperity. However, the future operating environment for the horticulture sector is uncertain and unlikely to be a continuation of the current track. There are multiple possible futures with different levels of warning, timeframes and impacts: for example, sudden deep impact occurrences such as the kiwifruit pathogen Psa1 or the Covid-19 pandemic compared with a slower burning issue such as the labour shortage. In order to be resilient and successful into the future, the sector needs to be ready to adapt to a changing domestic and global environment.

Development of plausible future scenarios is a tool that can be used at different scales to explore what the future may bring. Scenarios have been utilised by researchers and organisations around the globe for numerous purposes, for example for pre-policy research, to strive for commercial resilience, to influence military strategy and even to consider the future state of the planet.

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.

Four divergent and plausible future scenarios were developed and analysed to identify insights, risks and opportunities. They are not predictions or advice – they simply present a (non-exhaustive) range of ways that the future could plausibly play out. The scenarios were developed using group workshopping and the underpinning process was based on the general morphological analysis methodology.

The timeframe selected for the scenarios was 2040 – 20 years from the present day. Each of the scenarios is able to be interrogated by an individual organisation or business through their own lens to determine what opportunities or risks each could present. However, at a high-level the common themes across scenarios included:

• The power of public sentiment and opinion and the resulting impact on a sector
• Consumer preference influencing not only the final product, but all aspects of production
• The culture and cohesiveness within a sector and how that can influence the perception of those outside the sector
• The importance of environmental sustainability as a foundation of a sectors prosperity
• The power of a sector that lifts performance across the board and works together to improve
• The influence that the diversity in operator scale and approach can have on the sector as a whole
• The ability of a sector to adapt is critical
• Storytelling is important

The insights identified that would be more relevant to an individual business were primarily around competition, market expectations and the different domestic and export dynamics.

The insights identified that would be more relevant to an industry body were primarily around sector cohesiveness, ability to advocate and key issues for growers that require support.

It is hoped that the scenarios and analysis will help those involved in the horticulture sector to acknowledge that the future is uncertain, and encourage them to incorporate flexibility and resilience into their planning and decision making. New Zealand needs a successful horticulture sector that is fit for the future, whatever the future.

High quality agricultural science underpins New Zealand’s primary sector, economy, rural communities, and wider society. The science capability of New Zealand’s agricultural sector is largely responsible for our competitive advantage in the global food market. The ability to produce safe, healthy food is highly dependent on robust science, technology, and innovation.

NZ agricultural scientists do an outstanding job of translating their research to farmers. This can be measured through the productivity gains we have seen over the past few decades in pastoral farming systems.

There is a disconnection of the public’s understanding of what happens to our food and fibre, through the supply chain, from pasture to plate. 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.

Fifteen semi-formal interviews were undertaken with farmers, industry personnel and scientists who work, or have worked, in the public and/or private sectors. Key themes were identified for discussion through thematic analysis. Qualitative data was labelled, collated, and reviewed to identify patterns with a shared meaning.
There were several key findings from this research. Firstly, the research suggests that our primary industry does not communicate our agricultural science effectively to the New Zealand public.

The link between the science community and the public need improving to ensure science messages are understood by the urban community. The primary sector needs to communicate simple, consistent messages, which are objective, fact based, and are packaged to resonate with the public and support strong story telling. To find some common ground with our urban counterparts, we need to outline the health, social and environmental impacts of our products, and align this to their values and beliefs. As well as providing information to help people understand the ‘why’ about our different farming practises.

Respondents’ views were divided over who is responsible for agricultural science communication. Some thought scientists, industry, and farmers should individually be responsible – but a collective co-ordinated effort is required. It was evident the primary industry would benefit from having more Honest Brokers (Pielke
Jr, 2007) to communicate our messages to society. Honest Brokers are trusted scientists who engage with the public and can provide a wide scope of information to help the receiver make a well-informed evidence-based decision.

A pattern emerged that agricultural science needs political leadership, without politicising the science content. Policy makers need better connection with farmers to understand how farm systems operate. Respondents were of the opinion that central government does not support the primary sector enough through science
investment and that the current funding model is not working. Given the importance of agricultural science and innovation to the New Zealand economy and society, this should be a central focus for our government to address.

There is an opportunity for a national conversation about targeted science communication. Several recommendations were drawn from this research. Given the link is missing for scientists to communicate agricultural science to the public, a strategy needs to be built to get agricultural science into mainstream media. This requires a collective working group with individuals from different areas of the industry supply chain, scientists, media, as well as central government. MPI and CRI’s could also develop specialist communication units to transfer science messages to the wider public, not just to farmers, academics, and stakeholders. A further proposal was that the primary industry needs more government support, through
funding for agricultural science and a revamp of the current funding system.

The recommendations could start with The Royal Society or the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science (NZIAHS), working in conjunction with selected Honest Brokers and the primary industry
to have a national conversation on effective science communication. Central government’s influence, with a top-down approach, can also have a positive flow on effect, where society sees the value of our industry and especially our agricultural science capability.

My recommendations are:

• To achieve the vision and strategy of “Fit for a Better World”, we need leadership to not only verbally accept the document. Leadership needs to be visible by having a Primary Sector Council structure and governance that has both the sector and government working together.
• Our farmers and growers will need further support with Farm Environment Plans so that the entire primary sector can benefit from raising the standard of reporting. The government needs to see this as a necessary investment in making the shift towards achieving price premiums. Engaged farmers and growers should be backed by a trusted Farm Assurance Programme to brand New Zealand premium products to the export markets.
• Change is a human problem, so messaging and support is critically important to those both implementing and being affected by change. Seeing farmers/growers are already contributing so much towards change. I believe those that have an increased capacity to better support are both media and the government. The role they have to play in changing the narrative and funding the support services to the rural sector.