increase font size
Fonterra hopes the project will help farmers adopt biodiversity objectives into their Farm Environmental Plans and support wider catchment biodiversity goals in the process.
A new project supported by Fonterra's Living Water Partnership with the Department of Conservation will help on-farm advisors grow their understanding of biodiversity, with a view to further building biodiversity objectives into Farm Environment Plans.
'Farming with Native Biodiversity' is a 20-month project coordinated by the NZ Landcare Trust and funded by the National Bioheritage Science Challenge, Living Water, Silver Fern Farms and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
Protecting and restoring native biodiversity on farms provides clean water, shelter, shade, carbon sequestration, drought resilience and other benefits of a healthy ecosystem.
The Living Water partnership has identified that the biggest barriers to the protection and restoration of biodiversity on farms is limited access to advice and ecological expertise, along with the cost of preparing restoration plans.
"There is widespred interest from farming communities and farm advisors to protect and restore native biodiversity on farms, though expert advice is hard to come by and costly," says Trish Kirkland-Smith, Fonterra's head of environmental partnerships.
Development of a farm biodiversity restoration and management plan can cost between $5,000 - $10,000, with additional costs for monitoring.
Across 25,000 pastoral farms in New Zealand, this is over $125 million for the planning alone.
"This new partnership project trials a more cost-effective way of providing expert advice to the sector, working with over 60 sheep and beef and dairy farms to develop biodiversity plans and implement biodiversity management, then sharing the results with 6,000 more sheep and beef farms and 9,000 dairy farms.
"There is widespread interest from farming communities and farm advisors to protect and restore native biodiversity on farms, though expert advice is hard to come by and costly."
The expected outcome of the project is that farmers adopt biodiversity objectives into their Farm Environment Plans and support wider catchment biodiversity goals in the process.
For Fonterra suppliers, these biodiversity plans will become a part of their existing Farm Environmental Plans, which Fonterra provides to farmer owners free of charge.
OPINION: Farmer shareholders of two of New Zealand's largest co-operatives have an important decision to make this month and what they decide could change the landscape of the dairy and meat sectors in New Zealand.
OPINION: As CEO of the Dairy Board in the 1980s I was fortunate to work with a team of experienced and capable executives who made most of the brand investments that created the international consumer business Fonterra inherited. Soprole in Chile was the largest, but there were more than 20 countries where consumer marketing companies were established and Anchor and other brands were successfully launched.
Fonterra has delivered a fifth straight year of record organic milk price for farmer suppliers.
Fonterra says favourable weather conditions supporting pasture growth is boosting milk production.
Fonterra chair Peter McBride, fellow directors and the management team, will front up farmer shareholders next week to explain the metrics around the proposed $4.22 billion divestment plan.
A US-based company developing a vaccine to reduce methane emissions in cattle has received another capital injection from New Zealand’s agriculture sector.
Wools of New Zealand has signed a partnership agreement with a leading Chinese manufacturer as the company looks to further grow demand in China and globally.
Opportunities for Māori are there for the taking if they scale up their operations and work more closely together.
OPINION: Farmer shareholders of two of New Zealand's largest co-operatives have an important decision to make this month and what they decide could change the landscape of the dairy and meat sectors in New Zealand.
As the first of a new series of interprofessional rural training hubs opened in South Taranaki late September, Rural Health Network has celebrated the move as a "key pathway to encourage the growth and retention of health professionals in rural areas".
Farming leader and former MP Owen Jennings will represent New Zealand at the II Congreso Mundial de Ganadería Sostenible (II World Congress on Sustainable Livestock) in Spain next month.
OPINION: Dairy industry players are also falling by the wayside as the economic downturn bites around the country.
OPINION: Methane Science Accord, a farmer-led organisation advocating for zero tax on ruminant methane, will be quietly celebrating its first…
