NZ Catchment Groups Thrive with ‘Source to Sea’ Approach
The most successful catchment groups in NZ are those that have 'a source to sea' approach.
Thirteen research projects have received funding approvals totalling $3.1 million through MPI’s Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC) research programme.
SLMACC supports new climate change knowledge generation in the agriculture and forestry sectors for adaption, mitigation, and cross-cutting issues.
Ministry for Primary Industries Director General, Martyn Dunne says it's essential to invest in research to better understand our future operating environment and how we need to adapt.
“We set research priority topics each funding round based on themes areas we want to investigate further for the benefit of primary industries. We consult internal and external experts to determine those topics.”
This year there were 12 priority topic areas under the three themes:
impacts of climate change and adaptionmitigation of agricultural and forestry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionscross-cutting issues, including economic analysis, life-cycle analysis, farm catchment systems analysis, and social impact.
“We received an extremely high calibre of applicants and were very impressed with the proposed research topics,” says Dunne.
“Each project will take up to three years to complete, and the findings will help researchers, government, and farmers better understand, adapt to and mitigate climate change effects in New Zealand's primary sectors.
“At each project's end, the full report will be made available on this website and the Climate Cloud website, and user friendly summaries will be made more widely available.”
While the District Field Days brought with it a welcome dose of sunshine, it also attracted a significant cohort of sitting members from the Beehive – as one might expect in an election year.
Irish Minister of State of Agriculture, Noel Grealish was in New Zealand recently for an official visit.
While not all sibling rivalries come to blows, one headline event at the recent New Zealand Rural Games held in Palmerston North certainly did, when reigning World Champion Jack Jordan was denied the opportunity of defending his world title in Europe later this year, after being beaten by his big brother’s superior axle blows, at the Stihl Timbersports Nationals.
AgriZeroNZ has invested $5.1 million in Australian company Rumin8 to accelerate development of its methane-reducing products for cattle and bring them to New Zealand.
Farmers want more direct, accurate information about both fuel and fertiliser supply.
A bull on a freight plane sounds like the start of a joke, but for Ian Bryant, it is a fond memory of days gone by.