Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures projects

This project involved refurbishing the physical assets and digital course material of Campaign for Wool New Zealand Trust’s highly successful Wool In Schools educational programme, focused at primary level students. This programme allows the Trust to connect with and teach the current and next generation of wool consumers about the qualities of wool.

About the Wool in Schools initiative – The Campaign Wool

New-look wool marketing seeks partners – Farmers Weekly

Digitalising Wool: Campaign for Wool's bold plan to engage the next generation of Kiwi farmers – Rural Exchange

The project achieved several key outcomes, including successful reduction of production costs in various hemp processing phases, discovery of high-value markets, and a path forward for the hemp industry in New Zealand. Innovations in dehulling led to a world-first product with provisional patent and commercialisation plans. Despite reduced market prices due to imported hemp, the project prompted collaborative efforts in the industry and revealed consumer preference for New Zealand-made hemp products. Ongoing challenges include price management and meeting diverse market demands.

MPI backs project to establish internationally competitive hemp seed processing plant – MPI media release

This project developed and ran a series of workshops for farmers to examine options and solutions for succession planning on farm. After leveraging existing resources, the project assessed farmers’ needs when developing their succession plan. It identified appropriately qualified presenters to deliver the workshops. Eight workshops were held across the country, offering dairy farmers a framework for successfully navigating this transition.

This project aimed to achieve deeper and more consistent engagement with associate farmers, to support the wider objectives of the Extension 350 (E350) project. It provided value through facilitated workshops, farmer focused activities and additional associate group meetings. The project supported an independent evaluation of E350 which indicated positive outcomes for most of the participating farmers. These included increased farm profitability, and improved environmental sustainability and farmer wellbeing.

Extension 350 programme: Summative evaluation report [PDF, 1.91MB]

Meat the Need is a charitable organisation aimed at eliminating food poverty in New Zealand. The SFF Futures funding helped co-founders Wayne Langford and Siobhan O'Malley develop a non-profit framework for farmers to donate livestock to convert into meat for charities. The organisation acts as a charitable supply chain to serve existing agencies already serving the community. Since it was established, more than 1.3 million mince meals have been donated and 2.3 million milk servings. The charity is now self-supporting.

Meat the need

This project quantified the global demand trends for selected fruit value streams to help identify options for fruit that is currently grown in Central Otago but does not end up being sold or consumed by humans. The work has greatly increased the knowledge base for businesses looking to develop products from Central Otago fruit. 

Central Otago fruit loss: The unrealised potential – Central Otago District Council

This project assisted in the development of New Zealand’s first plant-based meat snack brand. It also investigated the viability of developing pea and faba bean protein concentrate growing and processing capability in New Zealand, with assistance from the Foundation for Arable Research and PwC.

Report: Feasibility of Pea and Fava Bean Protein Extraction in New Zealand [PDF, 17.8MB]

This project sought to address on-farm connectivity, which remains a significant barrier to farmers widely adopting agricultural technology solutions. It tested a collaborative delivery model for a nationwide, rural-focused LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network). The project successfully completed a network deployment and tested in-field coverage. It produced a business model for scaled development.

Boosting rural connectivity aims to deliver sustainable benefits to Kiwi farmers – MPI media release

This project set up a pilot-scale snail farm to trial 2 types of conventional snail farming in a New Zealand context. The end product was a farmer’s handbook outlining best practice snail farming. This included commentary showing landowners how snail farming can be a financially viable, sustainable, and low input land-use alternative that has a reduced environmental impact.

Snail Farming Handbook New Zealand [PDF, 3.1 MB]

This project investigated the feasibility of establishing a New Zealand almond industry. It looked at how to grow a premium quality product using sustainable agronomic practices. It researched optimised light utilisation for higher yields and quality, as well as lower water and nutrient footprint and integrated pest management approaches to reduce the use of synthetic crop protection compounds.

Almonds a new high-value nut to crack – MPI media release

The project delivered a science strategy to grow mamaku and develop high-value applications for mamaku extract. Three Māori landblocks were surveyed and provided a best practice guide for growing mamaku to establish supply. Digital tools were also built to establish the provenance, authenticity, and traceability of supply.

This project confirmed the presence of several thousand exotic plant species in New Zealand, by adding resolved names to the BiotaNZ database and making submissions to the EPA. Part of this work involved combining – for the first time – nearly a quarter of a million collection records from botanic gardens and arboreta. This project helps address major knowledge gaps of what cultivated plants are present in New Zealand for faster, more informed plant importation and regulatory decisions, and improved access to new germplasm for plant production/breeding. Better documentation of our exotic flora will enable more effective management of biosecurity, pest plants, disease and biocontrol vectors, and living collections.

This project built a pilot whitebait production facility in Bluff, demonstrating that it is feasible to continuously produce whitebait to service domestic demand. The facility is scalable, and a market and price points have been identified.

Land-based commercial whitebait farm launches in Bluff

This project succeeded in its aim to develop a scientific methodology for training detection dogs to reliably detect the infectious bacterial disease American Foulbrood (AFB) in beehives, by creating a ‘scent picture’ of the disease. The researchers found that dogs can reliably detect the presence of AFB spores at varying concentrations inside a sterile lab environment with the presence of beehive components. These results have the potential to change the way AFB is managed in New Zealand.

Training dogs to save the bees – YouTube (3:24)

Training dogs to save the bees – MPI media release

This study assessed the potential for biological control of Silybum marianum (variegated thistle) in New Zealand. It conducted a field survey to determine the extent that current thistle biocontrol agents attack variegated thistle and a literature search to determine known potential biocontrol agents. The researchers also developed a population model to help determine which biocontrol agents would be most effective in New Zealand, and consulted with the herbalist community on their views on the importation of biocontrol agents. The study recommended establishing a multi-year, practical project to assess the efficacy of a range of biocontrol agents.

This project aims to investigate the feasibility of a micro-processing plant that can connect consumers with fresh produce grown right on their own whenua. This project focuses on providing Māori Agribusiness with the option to procure, process and provide environmentally sustainable red meat-based products to its targeted consumer base. Aspects of circular waste management systems, mātauraga Māori and other key values will underpin how the plant will operate.

This project monitored the impact of highly diverse pasture on milk quality, soil root penetration, animal behaviour, pasture composition and soil organic matter/soil biology. The research took place at 5 different sites across 4 different dairy farming properties in North Otago and South Canterbury. Overall, the trial results suggested that pasture diversity, regardless of management actions, has a positive impact on soil biology, including soil carbon.

The research project focused on developing a system to help farmers manage their farm data more effectively and efficiently. Based on feedback from extensive stakeholder engagement, a concept prototype of a digital enterprise farm wallet was created. This enables farmers to create trusted, verifiable farm environment planning data that can be easily shared with multiple third parties from a single source.

Digital farm environment planning to simplify admin for farmers – Government media release 

The project demonstrated the use of aerial drones and artificial intelligence to gain a greater understanding of Māui and Hector’s dolphin habitats and movements. New surveying methods and communication tools have been developed to inform industry of the dolphin locations and enable data-driven decisions to better protect them.

Drone project to aid protection of Māui dolphin – Beehive

Māui Drone Project – using technology to save the Māui dolphin – YouTube (3.34)  

Drone monitoring project gains ‘beyond visual line of sight’ aviation approval to help protect Māui dolphins – MPI media release

This project set out to demonstrate the benefits of a grid-tied solar array system for augmentation of spring-fed streams. Solar arrays are a good source of renewable energy for irrigation and many environmental projects, because of their correlation between solar radiance and evapotranspiration. The research found that installation can provide gross return on capital of 8.7% - 11.7% per annum, with payback periods of 8.5 - 11.6 years.

Eiffelton TSA Business Case Article [PDF, 285 KB]

Eiffelton Performance Report III [PDF, 750 KB]