State support for Maori farmers

Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor says the Government is backing a project to support Māori landowners to invest in the sheep milk sector.

"We are backing the Māori Agribusiness Sheep Milk Collective, which has to ambitious goals to have multiple farms milking about 25,000 sheep and potentially employing more than 100 people by 2030," says O'Connor.

He says global demand for sheep milk and sheep milk products remains strong. Exports of New Zealand sheep milk products were valued at $20 million in 2020.

The Government is injecting $700,000 into the Collective to help it explore the potential of sustainably producing sheep milk at scale, create jobs and further grow this emerging export market.

The collective is made up of 20 Māori land trusts and incorporations that own more than 24,000 hectares of land stretching from the wester shore of Lake Taupō to the Hauraki Plains.

O'Connor says those sheep could initially produce more than 6 million litres of milk, or 1 million kgMS.

The collective was set up through the Ministry for Primary Industries' Māori Agribusiness Extension (MABx) programme, which has been allocated $12 million over four years to provide farmer-to-farmer support to Māori landowners and trustees.

The investment is part of the Government's Fit for a Better World roadmap, which aims for food and fibre sector exports to earn an extra $44 billion over 10 years.

The Government is also supporting wider industry research to capitalise on growing demand for sheep milk.

"MPI is funding a $12.56 million six-year project with the aim of building a high-value and sustainable sheep dairy industry in Aotearoa New Zealand," says O'Connor.

"Last year construction and development was taking place across several new sheep dairy farms in the greater Waikato and a new infant formula was launched as part of the project."