Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures projects
Find out about Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) projects that have been funded so far.
CNI Sheep Milk Collective
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $687,276
- Co-investment funding: $140,000
- Sectors: Dairy, Māori agribusiness
- Project partners: CNI Sheep Milk Collective
- Regions: Bay of Plenty
This project investigates the opportunity for a cluster of Māori landowners to create a Māori sheep dairy industry. Sheep milk has the potential to provide health, environmental, employment and commercial benefits to landowners and New Zealand. The project includes building confidence and capability to convert from bovine to ovine platforms and exploring partnership opportunities.
Collaboration Tai Tokerau
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $148,500
- Co-investment funding: $148,500
- Sectors: Dairy, Food and beverage products, Sector resilience
- Project partners: Northland Agricultural Forum
- Regions: Northland
The project aims to encourage and enable networking and partnerships across sectors within the Northland primary industries, with the goal of developing a number of collaborative, cross-sector projects for potential future funding.
Commercial Production of ZealaFoam Packaging
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $472,500
- Co-investment funding: $698,500
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Other fisheries research - miscellaneous
- Project partners: Barnes Plastics, Ngāi Tahu Seafood, Sanford, Fiordland Lobster
- Regions: Nationwide
This project aims to make ZealaFoam® available as a viable, sustainable packaging alternative for the seafood industry (and other primary producers), which currently extensively uses Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) packaging for transportation of fresh produce.
Commercial scalability trial of wool-based materials for reusable and disposable nappies
- Project start date:
- Project length: 1 year
- MPI funding: $169,600
- Co-investment funding: $254,400
- Sectors: Natural fibres
- Sub-sectors: Animal-based fibres, Strong wool
- Project partners: Woolchemy NZ Ltd
- Regions: Nationwide
In a previous SFF Futures project, Woolchemy worked with overseas nappy manufacturers to see if neweFlex, their sustainable wool material developed for personal care products, could be produced at scale using existing manufacturing technology. This new project will work on optimising manufacturing of neweFlex wool material to the desired thickness required by nappy producers and subsequent commercial testing. Woolchemy will also develop a pilot plant for washable absorbent wool textiles to enable scaled-up consumer trials and determine commercial viability.
Commercial seaweed aquaculture to reduce agricultural methane emissions
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $100,000
- Co-investment funding: $150,000
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Aquatic plants (algae and seaweed)
- Project partners: Cawthron Institute
- Regions: Nationwide
This project aimed to substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions through a seaweed-based cattle feed supplement. Cawthron Institute is continuing to research the lifecycle of Asparagopsis seaweed to inform the development of an early proof-of-concept of the production systems needed to develop the feed supplement at pilot-scale.
Methane reducing cattle feed one step closer – Government media release
Commercialising nanobubble technology in irrigated cropping industries
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $397,922
- Co-investment funding: $629,492
- Sectors: Arable
- Sub-sectors: Other arable products
- Project partners: Nanobubble Agritech Limited
- Regions: Nationwide
The project seeks to trial commercial scale nanobubble technology in a range of irrigated farms with differing soils and climates. It will do this by integrating nanobubble technology within existing pivot irrigators on-farm, and will study the effects on growth rates of pasture and water usage, as well as nitrogen leaching.
Commercialising novel products from kānuka trees to improve productivity from Māori land
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $1,900,000
- Co-investment funding: $757,500
- Sectors: Forestry
- Sub-sectors: Mānuka/Kānuka
- Project partners: Nuka Charitable Trust
- Regions: Auckland, Gisborne
This project aims to turn locally grown kānuka into high-value gourmet products, bringing new jobs to Ruatōria and giving a boost to the local economy. Nuka Charitable Trust, supported by University of Auckland researchers, will establish a pilot plant producing liquid smoke and juice from kānuka. The liquid smoke could be added to foods ranging from cheese to mussels, while the kānuka juice could be used as an ingredient in the nutraceutical industry for wellness-oriented beverages such as kombucha.
Kānuka tree products potential boon for Tairāwhiti – Government media release
Cone dryer/tumbler
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $80,000
- Co-investment funding: $107,000
- Sectors: Horticulture
- Sub-sectors: Nuts
- Project partners: Pinoli Limited
- Regions: Marlborough
This project will develop a prototype tumbler to dry pinecones for seed extraction. This new way of processing pine nuts aims to reduce the carbon and environmental impact of traditional drying methods and offer increased profitability for growers.
Creating best practice guidelines to reduce kiwifruit losses
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $78,000
- Co-investment funding: $125,707
- Sectors: Horticulture, Sector resilience
- Sub-sectors: Kiwifruit
- Project partners: Mainland Kiwi Growers Entity Limited
- Regions: Nelson
Mainland Kiwi, supported by Start Afresh Ltd, led a grower-funded storage trial to understand the implications of on-orchard storage performance. The trial found that picking fruit at optimum maturity enables maximum storage potential. It also identified good harvest practices that are critical to fruit quality. As a result of this project, kiwifruit loss in storage reduced from more than 4% to below 1% in the Nelson region. The best practice guidelines created have been shared with kiwifruit growers.
Start Afresh Best Practice Guidelines [PDF, 998 KB]
Daffodil Galanthamine project
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $87,000
- Co-investment funding: $76,050
- Sectors: Horticulture, Māori agribusiness, Nutraceuticals/medical
- Project partners: Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu
- Regions: Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, Southland, Tasman, West Coast
This project investigated whether daffodils could be cultivated in New Zealand for the production of Galanthamine, a compound used to treat Alzheimer’s. A variety of daffodils were grown in New Zealand conditions across 10 trial sites in various locations to enable a range of data points to be collected. Results from the trials have concluded that there is potential to produce Galanthamine in New Zealand conditions at a commercial scale.
Daily Catch (Covid 19 Response)
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $320,640
- Co-investment funding: $504,358
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Other seafood/aquatic products/research
- Project partners: Snap Information Technologies Ltd
- Regions: Tasman
This project aimed to develop an online platform to support innovation in the supply chain and support local produce sales during Covid-19. The concept was to enable local producers to trade food they had available rather than it going to waste due to the loss of domestic trading opportunities.
Decreasing the lameness impact on NZ dairy farms
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $450,108
- Co-investment funding: $337,617
- Sectors: Animal health and welfare
- Sub-sectors: Other animal dairy products/research
- Project partners: VetEnt Research
- Regions: Nationwide
This project investigated lameness in dairy cows across the country. It aimed to define the problem, identify preventative strategies and improve lame cow treatment. The study was the first of its kind to report the prevalence of lameness from dairy farms across the country. It investigated farmer barriers and motivators to lameness control, and provided a systematic review on claw-horn lameness treatments. It was the first in the world to investigate a lameness control treatment in pasture-based heifers, and used unique methodology to look at lameness duration.
The project has successfully raised farmer awareness of lameness on dairy farms and options for reducing its impact. It has resulted in veterinarians and farmers actively working together to identify lameness on-farm and making plans to reduce it.
Delivering sustainable benefits for the primary sector through a rural focused IoT network
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $120,000
- Co-investment funding: $149,500
- Sectors: Agritech, Biosecurity
- Project partners: WISPA Network Limited
- Regions: Nationwide
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
Developing FLUPSY-based nursery culture to reduce spat losses in the Greenshell mussel aquaculture industry
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $472,000
- Co-investment funding: $318,000
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Farmed - marine shellfish
- Project partners: Coromandel Marine Farmers’ Association
- Regions: Nationwide
This project will build on previous research to scale up a system for nurturing mussel spat in floating upswelling systems (FLUPSYs). FLUPSYs are barge-like nurseries for rearing spat to larger sizes to reduce spat loss when they are seeded out to mussel farms.
Developing high-throughput image-processing tools for seed testing
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $100,000
- Co-investment funding: $110,000
- Sectors: Agritech, Arable
- Sub-sectors: Other arable products
- Project partners: Seed Industry Research Centre Inc, AgResearch Ltd
- Regions: Nationwide
Seed quality assessment based on hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is transforming the global seed industry. This project aims to evaluate the use of HSI imaging and modern AI technologies to identify weed seed contamination of seed lots. These technologies will be used to detect wild oat (Avena spp.) seeds within ryegrass, wheat, and barley seed samples.
Developing new generation products from sheep pelts
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $650,882
- Co-investment funding: $976,277
- Sectors: Meat
- Sub-sectors: Other meat products/research
- Project partners: Alliance Group
- Regions: Nationwide
The project will develop new extraction methods and technologies to convert sheep waste-streams into products suitable to supply existing and emerging premium markets. Project outputs include a prototype suitable for scale-up and commercial readiness.
Developing nitrogen management indicators for multi-grazed summer-fed forage brassica species
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $350,000
- Co-investment funding: $510,000
- Sectors: Meat
- Sub-sectors: Beef, Sheepmeat (including lamb)
- Project partners: Plant & Food Research; PGG Wrightson Seeds Limited; Beef + Lamb New Zealand; Forage Innovations Limited; Otago Regional Council; Environment Canterbury; Hawke's Bay Regional Council; DairyNZ
- Regions: Canterbury, Hawke's Bay, Otago
This project will provide information and knowledge to support New Zealand sheep and beef farmers to produce more reliable and better yielding summer-forage brassica crops. This will increase resource use efficiencies and reduce environmental pollution, including nitrate leaching and nitrous oxide emissions.
Development of a farmers’ handbook for best practice snail farming in New Zealand
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $69,993
- Co-investment funding: $38,192
- Sectors: Alternative proteins, Meat
- Sub-sectors: Other meat products/research
- Project partners: Aroha Snails New Zealand Limited
- Regions: Nationwide
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]
Development of a multiplex immunoassay for detection of various bovine diseases and pregnancy diagnosis
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $404,040
- Co-investment funding: $606,060
- Sectors: Agritech, Dairy
- Sub-sectors: Other animal dairy products/research
- Project partners: Pictor Limited
- Regions: Nationwide
This project will develop an affordable multiplex assay (test) to detect Johne’s Disease and pregnancy from a single milk sample. The project aims to encourage dairy farmers to increase testing to ensure more proactive and sustainable management of disease on-farm.
Development of an autonomous low emissions tractor for trellised orchard systems
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $622,360
- Co-investment funding: $945,520
- Sectors: Agritech, Horticulture
- Sub-sectors: Viticulture
- Project partners: The Smart Machine Company Limited
- Regions: Hawke's Bay, Tasman
This project aims to develop a hybrid autonomous vehicle for multi-implement use, in a horticultural trellis system growing environment. The deployment of autonomous vehicles will address some of the increasing labour pressures and improve the sustainability and productivity of operational tasks. This project will take the learnings from successful testing in the vineyard environment to further develop and deploy the technology in the pip fruit market.
Driverless, low emissions tractor in development – MPI media release