Thursday, March 28, 2024

New strategy for arable farmers

Avatar photo
The Foundation for Arable Research has aimed high with hits new five-year strategy for cropping to be New Zealand’s most sustainable broadacre land use.
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Chief executive Nick Pyke said the 2017-2021 strategy built on the organisation’s strengths as a provider of quality research and extension and on the innate strengths of NZ’s cropping industry.

The aim was to make cropping the highest returning and most sustainable broadacre land use.

“NZ’s temperate climate, quality soils, plentiful water and highly skilled farmers provide us with some key advantages over other food-producing nations.”

Accordingly, the strategy was designed to ensure FAR’s research team worked alongside the cropping industry helping it to reach its full potential as NZ’s most economically and environmentally sustainable farming system.

The strategy had four key pillars – leading research, strong collaborations, excellent communication and sustainable businesses.

“These pillars feed into our research and extension portfolio which aligns projects into four areas –  innovative products, sustainably produced feed and food for livestock industries, building better and more robust farms and improving farm viability.”

The strategy acknowledged the challenges facing the arable industry.

“Cropping farmers are dealing with a number of agronomic, climatic and compliance issues at present and FAR’s research priorities are constantly being monitored to ensure that these were being taken into account,” he said.

Research priorities included understanding and developing management strategies to minimise the risk of agrichemical resistance, measuring, monitoring and managing the efficiency of inputs in cropping systems.

Developing new crops and products to improve farm profitability, providing effective tools to manage, store and report farm practice and providing new solutions to manage crops and increase yields were all research projects.

Pyke said the strategy would help ensure cropping farmers had solutions they could integrate into their farm systems over the next 10 years.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading