In a joint Government-industry funding announcement the Government and horticulture, arable and wine sectors are investing $27 million in boosting research into alternative crop treatments to develop a wider range of options for growers when it comes to dealing with insects, disease and production challenges.
Known as A Lighter Touch, the programme intends to improve the viability of next generation of crop treatments, both as biopesticides and synthetic treatments in a New Zealand market that has sometimes struggled to attract new treatments because of its lack of scale compared to large broadacre farming countries.
Horticulture NZ chief executive Mike Chapman said scaling up the development of crop treatments to a commercial production level will be a welcome outcome.
“It is a difficult process and costs a lot of money despite the size of the market here in NZ. By bringing as many crops into the project as possible really helps, particularly for biopesticides, which bring even more challenges, being live material.”
Lighter Touch programme manager Dr Stephen Ogden said the programme is long-term in focus with a seven-year funding window providing welcome time for researchers to establish some definitive crop protection options.
“Many growers are also facing situations where certain types of crop treatments are being phased out from the market and they have the challenge of what to replace them with. Some will be new types, some will be more targeted and less broad spectrum with less impact on the environment.”
He also welcoms the chance to work with big fruit exporters including Zespri to get first-hand feedback on what their consumers say about the products and how they are grown.
There is also the real possibility researchers could develop some home-grown treatments that help reduce the reliance on big offshore crop-protection companies.
“It is a challenge when new treatments come out for those companies here to set a business case for NZ and we want to work with them to ensure we are not missing out and the funding helps with that.”
NZ has had some wins in the area of biocontrol over the years, including dealing with the clover weevil with a parasitic wasp.
“But we do have a difficulty with bringing in new organisms to the country. With good reason we don’t always have the access some countries do.
“With the funding we could look more at the biological programme and see what is already here in NZ that could be applied. They may not be new controls but may have benefit to the wider number of crops now involved in this programme.”
Significant work has also already been done in NZ on the area of biopesticides. It includes an AgResearch programme on the treatments, which has just ended its funding round.
“What we want to do is to get to the end of the seven-year period having done as much as we can to push through to the next seven. Having that certainty there can also help get other funding partners on board.”
Chapman said the funding is not part of a regenerative farming philosophy that has been getting a high profile recently. Rather it is one exploring all aspects of crop treatments to help keep growers ahead of global shifts in crop protection.
Foundation for Arable Research chief executive Dr Alison Stewart hopes the innovations developed can be applied to all types of farming in way, whether they be organic, conventional or regenerative.
