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

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kellogg

Investigating the impact of social media on the primary industry in New Zealand.

Executive Summary

Social media offers primary sector corporations the opportunity to leverage network effects. Rather than one to one interactions, groups of customers and stakeholders have the opportunity to support each other. Primary industry corporations can use social media platforms to facilitate these interactions. This results in increased efficiency, better brand awareness and improved customer relationships.

The primary industry is constantly in the public eye and put under scrutiny. Therefore, it is important for companies within the industry to have a voice, social media has proven to provide a platform for companies to share their voice.

This report identifies how social media is used both positively and negatively. Firstly, an overview of what social media is, who uses it, and different types of social media.

A literature review researching how social media can be used effectively has been outlined in Chapter 2. This highlights how social media can benefit a business when done right. Social media can be used to build direct relationships with customers, collect feedback, and identify new business opportunities.

Nine interviews were conducted with representatives from companies that are active in social media to evaluate how they use social media, and what their aims are by doing so. Respondents were asked how risk is managed within a team, to ensure that the right information is given and that responses have a positive impact. It was found that companies using social media generally attempt to increase engagement, educate their customers, stakeholders, and the general public. It is important that a company has a risk management strategy, to help manage any negative interactions on their media platforms.

To complement the information gathered through the interviews, a case study was done about a business that has a very low presence on social media. The goal was to see benefits of using a different platform to engage with suppliers. From the learnings found in the interviews with the other companies, it was obvious that there is value in having a social media presence to educate the public. However more resource is needed to manage the social media platforms to make it more effective.

The report concludes with an overview, discussion, and recommendations on how companies can use social media to their advantage, and be an effective tool adding value to their business.

Catchment groups: Fighting the water quality battle.

Executive Summary

There is no denying that New Zealand has a declining water quality issue that needs addressed sooner rather than later, there is no denying that both rural and urban communities are at fault. But what resources are out there to help mitigate the declining water quality?

The Resource Management Act 1991, as our main piece of legislation, oversees how the environment is managed. The idea is sustainable management of New Zealand’s resources and helps manage the natural and physical resources at a national, regional and local level.

The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is a policy that encourages New Zealander’s to have discussions about where we, the current generation, want and expect water quality to resemble for the future generations.

The way we use the land differs across New Zealand so the impacts on our fresh water, whether positive or negative, are often specific to a catchment or region. This makes it difficult to paint a national picture. It can also take decades for water (and any contaminants it contains) to cycle from the earth’s surface through the ground to aquifers, and back to surface water systems. This means some effects we see today are legacies of past activities, and the impact of our activities today, both positive and negative, may not be seen in our waters for a long time.

Leaders and organizations are acknowledging that even their best individual efforts can’t stack up against today’s complex and interconnected water quality problems. A diverse group of local leaders are putting aside self-interests and collaborating to challenge conventional wisdom and fix problems that they have a vested interest in. Often, they lack the formal authority to solve the problem and don’t have an obvious ‘plug and play’ solution. A willingness to embrace new ways of working together. This movement is yielding promising results.

Change leadership is the ability to influence and enthuse others through personal advocacy, vision and drive, and to access resources to build a solid platform for change . This is what catchment groups need to be successful.

It’s about engaging with the community; passing on information to farmers and the public about the current water quality situation and monitoring and improving water quality. Catchment management comes down to strong leadership, considering values of New Zealand’s citizens in terms of social, economic, and cultural aspects. Communication and conversations that stay ‘above the line’ creates evolved thinking to the stage of curiosity, learning, problem solving and eventually positive action.

Profitability of the kiwi dream: What are the main drivers of profitability on north island east coast sheep and beef farms.

Executive Summary

Profitability is often a challenge within many businesses. North Island East Coast Sheep and Beef farming businesses are no different, operating in a diverse and ever changing economic and climatic landscape. Currently these businesses are facing a more positive outlook, but for how long? And what are really the key drivers of profitability within these businesses? These are the questions this report has sought to answer.

In addition to identifying the common themes driving profitability from farmers and rural professional’s, answers were also sought in regards to some underlying themes in the industry being “value add”, “collaboration” and some actual hard “financial analysis” of these types of businesses.

In terms of the value add proposition for East Coast sheep and beef farmers this has some real merit. This opinion was based solely on the MPI New Zealand Sheep Industry Transformation Project however, this programme has generated some real successes for all parties involved with much of this thinking easily transferable across and in between industries.

The theme of collaboration was discussed based on the Red Meat Profit Partnership Primary Growth Partnership Programme. The conclusion from this analysis was that while the intentions seem right with the programme, the execution seems lacking in terms of providing a real benefit back to the farmers.

The financial analysis theme was data pulled directly from Beef & Lamb’s economic survey. This is a comprehensive set of data researched every year specifically targeted to regions and land classes within those regions. This set of data lined up well with the target subject of this report. The conclusions from the analysis showed that these businesses did make a financial operating profit. However, there were significant other factors to consider around the financial viability of these businesses. Debt position was a key factor to consider further.

The main successes from this report were the identification of key themes that drove profitability across East Coast sheep and beef farms. These are summarised within the conclusion of this report but can be broken down into the following areas:

  •  What is profitability actually defined as when considering North Island East Coast Sheep and Beef farming businesses? There is more than just the financials.
  • Measure, Monitor, Manage.
  • Use outside skills where appropriate, build a well
  • Rounded advisory team t o fill any knowledge gaps you do have or to explore ideas or concepts further.
  • Adopting new technologies, aids in business enhancement and profitability.
  • Good quality staff are key to business success.
  • Take the time to work on the business rather than in it.
  • Do the basics well!

In addition to identifying the above themes it is also an important part of this research to share the learnings with the target and related communities. The next steps at the end of this report conclude this well, with this likely to involve further one on one discussions and potentially tailored presentations around the content of this report.

Again, profitability is a challenge within many businesses but none are more better placed to achieve it than North Island East Coast sheep and beef farmers.

An exploration of social innovation within primary industry education.

Executive Summary

Aim: To create a social enterprise whose social mission is focused on a perceived gap in my region. That being, Maori youth prospects in the primary industries and growing economic sustainability to create stable futures for them. I propose to do this through an innovative hybrid model of education and enterprise.

The primary industries have long been searching for an effective way to encourage more people into the sector. With the number of people required to man the industry forecast to increase dramatically, this is a very real issue for the success of New Zealand’s economy. (Ministry for Primary Industries, 2014) Another concern facing New Zealand is the increasing number of Maori people in the Not in Employment, Education or Training category (NEETs).

This research paper explores the possibility of a new method of getting people into the primary industries, while tackling the issue of Maori not in employment. My literature review has focused on targeting the Maori Youth of a small semi rural community in the region of Hawkes Bay – Omahu. Interviews were conducted to discover what the barriers were to the youth gaining educations, or jobs. Focus then was put on what other training institutes are out there, and whether or not they are catering to people of this particular group.

Social innovation enterprises around New Zealand are fast gaining popularity. I looked into enterprises that were helped to succeed by the foundation, Akina – I gained an insight into what sort of social missions are important to New Zealanders, and what they are doing to achieve them. Lastly, hybrid organisations have been looked into, as being the most appropriate model to base my enterprise on. There is still little known about hybrid organisations – most people under stand a business to be either, not-for-profit, or for-profit. Hybrid is a way of combining the two, the ideal being where they are combined and neither one can survive without the other.Based on the findings in the literature review, I have come up with a hybrid enterprise model that has taken appropriate features of different organisations, the needs of my target group and my own ideals to satisfy the requirements of my aim/mission.

Deer industry leadership: design thinking for communication and engagement.

Executive Summary

The deer industry in New Zealand is renowned in the primary sector for its innovation and passion. Deer Industry New Zealand and the New Zealand Deer Farmers Association provide leadership and initiatives to grow the deer industry on behalf of their stakeholders. A vital facet of industry leadership is building capability through fostering a culture of continuous improvement. It is this spirit of striving for continuous improvement, coupled with the acknowledgement that the ability of an organisation to communicate effectively with stakeholders affects the achievement of business objectives, that inspired this project.

The aims of this project were to learn about the world of communications, discover what can be learned from other primary sector organisations, find out what farmers’ and other end users’ preferences are for communications from their industry organisation, and to provide a set of recommendations arising from this research.

The key learnings from this project are:

  • Communications both underpins and is overarching of an organisation’s strategic objectives.
  • To get the most benefit, communications needs to be a role within the organisation which sits at a high level and is performed by a professional with specific skillsets and specialist knowledge.
  • Content consumption habits and preferences of farmers are diverse and rapidly changing.
  •  The level of connectedness and engagement amongst the farming population should not be underestimated.
  • It is necessary to provide a suite of platforms for communications to provide choice to the diverse demographic of farmers/stakeholders, but start with a ‘digital first’ mentality, as this is, and will increasingly be, the dominant preference for content consumption.
  • Engagement is not the end goal of communication, but a live, ongoing relationship that needs to be nurtured, with effective communication being the enabler for this.
  • More than ever before, organisations need to understand social stresses and demands on farmers and other stakeholders, and place that forefront of mind, using a design-thinking approach to communications.

Summary and recommendations: Industry-good organisations such as Deer Industry New Zealand need to adopt communication strategies that are designed with the end user in mind. The content consumption habits of farmers and the way they prefer to receive information should be driving the way the deer industry communicates. Commissioning an independent audit of an organisation’s communications is valuable, especially for smaller organisations with a limited budget. In a world experiencing an exponential rate of change, how individuals communicate and consume content is changing rapidly. Focussed attention is needed to ensure organisations stay relevant to their stakeholders and communicate effectively in the future.

The urban rural divide: How can the New Zealand dairy industry better its social licence with New Zealand’s urban populations.

Executive Summary

Dairy farmer’s rights, like those of every member of society are bound by what that society is prepared to defend. This defence is called our social licence and it is the trust that has been built up over time between two parties.

The goal of this report is to identify ways in which dairy farmers can better their social licence and hopefully in doing so build enough trust with the public that allows farmers of the future a form of negotiated autonomy.

This need for a strong social licence has always been there but has come to the fore quickly over the last few years as the rise of digital media has meant people can now quickly share or find information on anything at the click of a button. Sometimes the facts of this media are not always accurate, sometimes they are but it may be taken out of context. Trust can be broken down a lot faster than it is made.

My investigation was done with a literature review on how other industries around the world have handled their situations with diminishing trust from communities and what ways they used to improve that standing. I have also conducted a survey of the community to see if any trends were obvious and used the feedback given to formulate some of my research and conclusions.

What I found from the surveys were a difference of opinions on the state of the environment from farmers to more urbanised people with farmers thinking the environment is better than those outside of farming. I also found that people are becoming more environmentally aware.

Results pointed to farmers not wanting to educate themselves at a field day as they thought they knew enough just working on the farm. I believe this is one of the key reasons we are getting a widening of the rural-urban divide and a weakening of the social licence farmers have with the NZ public.

In my opinion, the dairy industry needs to invest more into promoting its story. Farmers need to be implementing and displaying good on farm practices, principles and values. These actions need to be backed up by Dairy NZ with relatable facts to show what is being achieved on farm nationally and how it relates to the NZ public where possible.

More farmers need to play their part in educating the public. This can be done by hosting open field days, community groups and schools onto their farms to show case what happens on farms and connect the milk in the supermarket to the cow in the paddock.

A unified effort to wards improving farming practices in general needs to be done as a collaborative approach by the primary producer industry bodies. The siloed approached to public perception and social license is not effective and I believe this should be a united voice.

I think using on farm certification schemes is a significant way to encourage farmers to go over and above industry requirements. More promotion and adoption of these initiatives will also go a long way to building trust of the public sector. Examples of these programs are Synlait’s “Lead with Pride” and Miraka’s “Te ara Miraka.”

Although change may be painful and costly for some i  the short term, embracing the requirements of the social licence in a positive way may be the most effective way for farmers to receive continued support from the community.

Deer Farmers attitude towards benchmarking and data recording system requirements.

Executive Summary

Deer Industry New Zealand is currently involved in a Primary Growth Partnership and levy payer funded project called Passion to Profit (P2P). The overall aims are to improve market returns and on-farm productivity for deer farms. One of the contributing projects to P2P is the definition and recording of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and industry benchmarks.

Data recording and benchmarking is important for business growth and a feature of higher performing farms. Benchmarking requires real-time management of data within an electronic database. Use of electronic data storage can be considered a “new technology” on farms which have traditionally kept pen and paper records. Adoption of new technologies follows a well described pattern amongst populations.

This study aimed to determine the attitudes of farmers towards data recording and benchmarking and the system requirements to encourage uptake of digital data recording technology.

The study design was an online survey of seventy eight farmers using SurveyMonkey. Of these seventy five responses provided useful data. Questions related to demographic information, current practices, attitudes towards data recording and benchmarking and requirements and impediments to the use of digital data recording systems.

Deer Farmers have a high level of interest in setting targets, recording production and benchmarking. They consider previous performance on their own properties and on farms similar to themselves as the most important factors for determining what their targets are.

Respondents considered that it is not adequate to solely focus on own performance and that comparison with other farms within the same year is also necessary to help them set realistic targets and identify potential areas for improvement.

The level of uptake of digital recording of production is low and manual records using paper and diaries are the most common method. Data are more likely to be formally recorded when there is a mandatory requirement to do so. For example financial accounts for tax return purposes.

There are a wide range of reasons for limited uptake of digital production data recording and benchmarking. These reasons vary between farmers. Relative satisfaction with current systems probably provides inertia for change along with the perception that current systems on offer will not provide a significant level of advantage, are too complicated to use or have other limitations.

The most important factors for achieving a high level of uptake are a simple system that is easy to use with good support. It needs to be reasonably priced, integrate well with other systems and give immediate feedback on the situation on the farm by comparing year on year and generating graphs and printable reports. The system should be accessible to all farmers and thus allow for offline use in situations of poor internet connectivity.

A wide range of privately managed digital recording and management options exist. These are not well integrated with each other, except perhaps for FarmIQ and data is not directly comparable or accessible between the systems. There is a relatively small number of deer farms in New Zealand so a high level of participation in a single platform will be required for adequate benchmarking. The deer industry should investigate whether a nationally managed collectively owned database is appropriate similar to those provided by Beef and Lamb NZ and Dairy NZ.

Releasing our future.

Executive Summary

This report aims to identify a pathway for dairy farmers to move from land farmers to land owners. In this report, I single out a pathway known as lease farming and analyse the feasibility and financial pathway to farm ownership over a ten-year time frame.

To begin I set the scene on trends formed over the last decade in our dairy sector. I analyse milk price, land price, debt levels and track the statistics behind the decline in Herd Owning Share Milkers or HOSM.

Within this report is the numerical and financial data of an example lease contract I have created. This example has been designed for this report and is not currently in use. I have analysed varying examples of ‘in use’ lease contracts and have create d a contract that suits the objectives I have set out.

The key fundamental to this report is for land ownership transfer from lessor to lessee. This can be measured by the lessee’s equity level being greater than 25% of the total dairy business at year ten. I have factored in the ability to maintain relationships with farm owners as well as rural professionals, being an under lying benefit to the lessee to take ownership at year ten.

I conclude by addressing the need to look towards the future when determining our next pathway through the dairy industry and how we can make the current environment work for ourselves.

We produce food in an ever-changing world but one thing remains the same, we need to retain our land in our hands because we are the only ones who do kiwi.

Farming in the family with positive succession planning and governance.

Executive Summary

The fundamental drive behind completing this research is to identify various key procedures and initiatives that successful New Zealand family businesses instrument to ensure their achievements and wealth are passed down through the generations successfully. I was also concerned in clearly recognizing some of the common issues which arise in family succession strategies and methods in which these matters may be avoided.

This project will benefit the rural community to hopefully provide an insight into farming families to think about the big picture and long-term viability of their business. I want the project to benefit farming families and professional advisors by also providing some context around governance and effective structures which have been planned. I hope the rural industry will relate to this report and understand that all families are different and not one plan will work for everyone. I want this report to provide guidance around communication and when and how to remove the elephant in the room, leading to successful conversations and positive outcome for all parties involved.

Succession planning is the progress of a strategy that ensures transition of the family farm, from one generation to another with minimal disruption. Succession planning can often be a living document to safeguard all family relationships and future ownership of assets, aspirations and involvement in the farm. Rushed or poorly planned and implemented succession strategies can have major impacts on family relationships along with extreme financial implications on the business.

What I relished most about putting this research paper together and gathering the required data was the chance to spend time with farming families who had extremely successful industry knowledge; and sit around the kitchen table with them and speak openly about their own businesses and experiences. They each happily shared with me the issues and barriers they had challenged along the way, and what they had learnt along the way from any mistakes. These people have been there and done it and could share their real stories with passion; their experiences and knowledge in my opinion, is considerably more valued than any other material source obtainable. I enjoyed this part of my research to be extremely exciting, and it reiterated to me how much I enjoy the Agriculture industry and what a joy it is to be involved in.

From gathering my data for this literature report I have made three recommendations for effective and successful farm succession of the family farm.

  1. Start early with conversations to avoid any assumptions or expectations which members of the family may have. These discussions should start at an early age, as young people’s interests do change, along with abilities and skill set. A poorly executed plan and approach can often be put together at short notice with damaging effects to family relationships.
  2. Open communication to stimulate a range of sophisticated thinking throughout the farm succession process will help to get an enhanced understanding of all family members’ idea and vision for the family farm. In my opinion both farming and non-farming family and spouses should be involved in this communication. It is also essential to seek independent advice from a succession facilitator, and have other trusted advisors involved including Bank Manager, Accountant, Lawyer, and Farm consultant.
  3. Document everything with a completed business plan which is handed to all family members. Consider including minutes from meetings, farm succession strategy including timeframes, roles and responsibilities, goals, and updated wills.

Understanding student awareness of primary sector career opportunities.

Executive Summary

According to the UN, food production must double by 2050 to meet the demand of the world’s growing population. Innovative strategies are needed to help combat hunger, which already affects more than one billion people in the world. (un.org 2009)

The world is changing and I believe the historical poor perceptions of the primary sector are no longer acceptable. There are students out there hungry for knowledge. My goal is to be proactive and help plant the seed of primary sector interest in their minds.

My rationale behind tackling this subject is the unacceptable, ill-informed opinions that our school leavers are still being exposed to.

My aim is to understand school leaver knowledge and awareness of primary sector career diversity.

My research was gathered via an 18 question questioner surveying 20 students, an interview with three ASB Future Leaders and an interview with two teachers.

Key findings;

  • Historical poor perceptions by parents, teachers and career advisors that are effecting knowledge of modern primary sector career options.
  • Our youth are very interested in knowing more regarding New Zealand’s primary sector, there is strong interest in finding careers that help New Zealand’s economy prosper.
  • Creating interest is only the first step, nurturing that interest right through to employment is lacking.
  • Tying together social media, technology and emotional marketing are the key to creating change.

Recommendations and action list;

  • The creation of a national curriculum tailored to New Zealand’s key economic drivers.
  • The use of cutting edge technology on a national scale to expose our students, parents and teachers to modern, world leading primary sector opportunities.
  • Create a concept that follows initial interest all the way through to employment.