AGRESEARCH has abandoned elements of its Future Footprint proposal begun eight years ago and will keep its four national campuses but expand two.
The original plan was to severely downsize its Invermay campus near Dunedin and Ruakura in Hamilton with the focus on centres at Lincoln and Palmerston North.
Acting chief executive Tony Hickmott says the plan now is to retain all four sites and construct new buildings at Palmerston North, which is under way, and Lincoln.
Palmerston North and Lincoln will be the major research, science, education and innovation centres with the head office at Lincoln.
Invermay with 65 staff and Ruakura with 150 will focus on regionally significant issues. Ruakura will specialise in dairy systems and Invermay in genomics, reproduction, hill-country sheep, beef and deer systems and will also be the national centre for deer research.
A new food science hub, Te Ohu Rangahau Kai (meaning a co-operative community of food researchers) being built on the Massey University campus is to open in April.
Hickmott says it will cater for about 90 AgResearch and 30 Massey or Redditt Institute science staff and have room for post-graduate students.
The Crown research institute has Government approval to build an 8000 square metres complex on land it has bought off Lincoln University. Construction will be funded by AgResearch.
Hickmott says it will house up to 300 staff and will be a centre for land-based activities and the head office.
Plans in 2016 to construct a joint facility with Lincoln University, funded by the Government, were shelved because of affordability and commercial challenges, but both entities are planning to build their own science facilities next to each other.
“Although it did not proceed, both organisations are progressing to realise the benefits of collaboration through co-location in separate facilities on the Lincoln University campus,” the AgResearch business case states.
Hickmott says the next stage is to prepare an implementation case. If that is approved by the Government he expects work to start within a year.
The process of finding a new chief executive to replace Tom Richardson is under way and Hickmott says the AgResearch board should have a short list by early April.
AgResearch’s latest science plan says it wants to help grow food and beverage exports to more than $50 billion a year by 2030.
A 2018 report by consultants Coriolis for the Government calculated food and beverage exports were worth $29b in 2017-18 and account for 45% of NZ’s total exports of goods and services.
To achieve export receipts of $50b a year requires a shift in emphasis from commodity to value-add, AgResearch says.
“This will be achieved through influencing the behaviour of consumers by building trust that the product they purchase delivers the desired benefits via science-based verification systems.”
AgResearch has set itself two further challenges for 2030.
One is to develop technology and land-use systems to achieve net-zero losses of contaminants to waterways and net zero greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
“The challenge is to design land-use mixes and transition pathways to meet net zero losses and emissions targets while ensuring prosperous communities.”
Its final challenge is to enable every NZ farm to be profitable and to contribute to regional growth.
It has set itself seven science objectives to minimise waste, create added-value foods and bio-based products, produce fit-for-purpose plants and animals, adapt to and mitigate climate change, develop sustainable agri-food production systems, help Maori agribusinesses to be vibrant and transform agri-food systems.
The goals and challenges evolve from addressing what the AgResearch document calls five global mega trends of growing population creating a hungrier world, globalisation and climate change reshaping agriculture’s risk profile, challenges from digital technology, genetic science and synthetics, consumers being more choosy and a growing middle class.
