Friday, March 29, 2024

Big challenge for pasture project manager

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If just 10% of farmers regrassed 10% of their farms a year they could increase their income by $1.6 billion, Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust project manager Rachel Donald says.
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That rate of pasture renewal would increase farmgate returns by 16.4% a year, Donald said.

The pastoral industry makes 12.1% of the country’s GDP.

It is estimated it contributes $20.5b to the country’s GDP, with the direct contributions measured at the farmgate being $10.2b.

Donald’s new role is getting the message out to farmers about the benefits of regrassing for both them and the economy.

 “Most farmers are aware that they should regrass. It’s now how do we push them to the next level of actually doing it. I have to find new, relevant ways to spread the same message,” Donald said.

She would be putting her communication skills to work and will do everything from “rocking up to field days to chat to farmers” to using social media to get the trust’s message out.

She said the Government also needs to push the benefits of regrassing.

Part of her role would be engaging with various ministers to get that on to the Government’s agenda.

She would also be encouraging the 14 sponsors, mainly seed merchants but also farm advisors, to better use the trust’s resources because it does a lot of research.

Having four other part time jobs did not deter the yoga teacher from taking the extra part time job.

She would continue to run her own communications consultancy agency, she was also the Asia Pacific director of DeLorme, which sells satellite communication systems, and was the chief executive and business development manager at Science Haven which had commercialised the biotech intellectual property developed by the company.

The latest census results show 370,000 hectares of the eight million hectares of farmed land are regrassed regularly.

4% of farmland is being regrassed – that's about 8% of dairy farms but only 2.3% of sheep and beef farm land.

The trust wants to increase that to 10% of New Zealand's pastoral land being renewed every year.

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