You can read Kerry Worsnop’s speech from the 75th Dinner below. It was an excellent speech that may be useful for those considering a Nuffield NZ farming Scholarship in 2026.
Take a read, it gives some great insight into what to expect.
Scholarships are open until 17 August.
Kerry Worsnop, 75th Nuffield dinner speech, Parliament.
I applied for a Nuffield scholarship at one minute to midnight on the night that applications closed in 2022, having pitched it to my husband at about 9.30 that night.
Now because he’s used to me doing random things, Marcus just rolled his eyes, sort of shrugged, told me to do what I wanted and said he was going to bed.
On reflection, had my application not been so last minute, I would likely never have submitted it. The fact that I did set in chain a sequence of events that will forever make 2023 a pivotal year in my life. And that is without accounting for the two cyclones.
That’s another story.
Now for you poor souls who have had two- or maybe five doses of my research, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m not going to ram it down your throats again. But what I am going to do, is give you a little bit of my journey and in it, hopefully you recall some of your own.
I left New Zealand like many of you will have, wondering what in the hell I was doing, feeling overwhelmed with the magnitude of what I was attempting, and amazing that anyone was crazy enough to fund it.
I had no idea how to hustle meetings with foreign dignitaries, executives, scholars and all the others whose knowledge I would need to augment my own.
But like all of you – I would learn.
I learned that every no, was one step closer to a yes. That every connection can yield three more and most remarkably, that my own knowledge would become a form of currency, the medium of exchange valued by those whose own curiosity would draw them into a room with me.
I learned the value of being able to trade in ideas, to appreciate something I can only describe as intellectual alchemy.
My questions took me to Washington, Pennsylvania, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and others. 11 countries in all.
I stayed in basements, slept in hostels – had one very dodgy experienced accidentally being the only female in a sardine can room with 7 men from all corners of the world.
I missed flights, misplaced luggage and got lost on numerous occasions – but only once did I end up in the wrong city attempting to board the wrong ferry. Naturally – another Nuffielder put me up for night on half-an-hours’ notice, and on I went.
I met people like Guy Peters, the godfather of public policy research who himself had no real reason to meet me – beyond the fact that New Zealand was fascinating to him.
I found myself in incredible situations, an exclusive cocktail party with US senators, meeting the UK’s agriculture minister, in rooms with countless officials, public servants and farmer organisations and farmers themselves.
I marvelled at how many people made time for me and the generosity of spirit that every Nuffielder I met seemed to share.
For the rest of my life I will never forget the two days I spent with Dorothy Fairburn in Yorkshire, or the lengths that Katlyn Cruiskburg went to, to host me in Canada.
Of course no Nuffield would be complete without someone being sick in a suitcase after too many vodka shots (it wasn’t me) and the painful test of everyone’s social endurance that is the GFP program.
It doesn’t matter if you visited Argentina, Ireland, Poland and France as I did, or India, China and Zimbabwe as others have, the universal truth is that our humanity and the land itself connects us.
I applaud Nuffield NZ for ensuring the GFP’s are an integral part of the journey and I maintain the ultimate test of your capacity – is can you still be talking some kind of sense at midnight when your host is still in fine form but you’re on day 26 of your GFP and it’s your turn to be leader, so you can’t go to bed.
And this is where the rubber hits the road. As New Zealand scholars, we have a clear expectation set for us and we understand our role as ambassadors for our country and for this organisation.
I expect that of all the scholars world wide, New Zealanders are the least likely to go to bed when the host still wants to talk, and we are the most likely to ask questions when someone needs to show an interest, even if it’s the 500th dairy farm visit.
New Zealand Rural Leaders Trust sets the standard and it’s Nuffield program stands alone in offering a truly life changing experience. Much like the Greek myth of Odysseus, once we have wondered the word in search of answers we can not help but return changed.
In accepting a New Zealand Nuffield scholarship you agree to explore parts of the word, and parts of yourself that you may never have reached alone.
In return Nuffield in this country defends the space for your conclusions. They did this for me, and likely, for most of you.
I can not emphasise enough the value in this.
Not every country offers this. I spent time with scholars agonising over the fact that their conclusion were increasingly at odds with the business model of their sponsor, I spent time with others for whom getting the sponsorship itself predetermined their research topic.
In New Zealand our most curious minds are entirely free to search the world for answers and when they return, they are free to speak whatever truth they find.
This is exceptionally rare in a world where research funding is thin and increasingly political and where commercial interests often guard the doors.
Our sponsors deserve great recognition and immense gratitude for their willingness to support such impartiality, which no doubt at times may have been at odds their own interests.
So my message to all those who deliver this program and to those who support it, you have created something precious and rare, and this country is ultimately the better for it.
Thank you.
