In February Potatoes NZ adopted a new strategic objective of zero net emissions by 2050.
It is now one of three central objectives for the sector including doubling export value by 2025 and increasing domestic value by 50% by 2025.
Communications and engagement officer Gemma Carroll said PNZ is focused on reducing emissions while continuing industry growth.
In September PNZ launched the Emissions Taskforce, underpinned by a multi-workstream project knows as the Emissions Project PNZ 79.
Earlier this year the project expanded and became the Sustainable Vegetable Systems Project (SVS) to reflect its relevance to the whole vegetable sector.
It included the expansion of industry stakeholders to include leafy greens, onions and brassicas and adjusted the focus of some workstreams with the goal of eventually extending the tools and outcomes to all in the vegetable sector.
With Onions NZ, Vegetables NZ and Horticulture NZ on board with a funding contribution, PNZ is in the process of seeking for MPI Productive Sustainable Landuse Funding.
“The SVS project is a multi-stream nationwide project that will transition crop production to more sustainable land management practices while growing resilient communities and economies.”
The project data will inform industry and MPI on practices and help develop new system strategies and tools to manage leaching.
The project will analyse nitrate uptake and nutrient leaching, investigate nutrient modelling and validate Overseer predictions for potato and vegetable crops.
“This will result in a suite of tools to help growers implement good management practice and provide leaching assessments to regulators.”
It might also involve adapting existing tools, such as Overseer.
“We will build on existing management practices in industry codes of practice and further equip growers with the tools and capabilities to address nutrient management risks identified in farm environmental plans.
“This will help growers transition to a more sustainable future and maintain farmers’ licence to operate.”
Carroll said Overseer is not informed by empirical data specific to NZ vegetable crops, growing conditions and management practices used by growers of potatoes, onions, brassicas and other field crops.
“This lack of data limits the ability to reliably use Overseer in these systems and in turn affects the trust that growers and regulators alike can have that farm practices are environmentally and economically sustainable.”
The outcome of this project will be a greater understanding of nitrate and nutrient management and an informed means of measuring environmental impact based on sound scientific data.
“This will help growers improve their nutrient use efficiency through the adoption of best management practice.”
Plant and Food Research will be the primary research provider with trials already under way.
“Plant and Food will also provide modelling expertise and we will work with them to ensure research is translated into real impact for our industries.”
Carroll said the potato industry has a strategic goal of doubling exports from $130m to $250m by 2025.
“To do this we need to have a social and regulatory licence to increase the area planted by 30%.”
The industry’s expansion is driven by the increased export of frozen French fries, a value-added market where NZ is the ninth largest exporter globally and is growing in emerging economies and regions such as southeast Asia.
To meet the market growth farmers need access to another 2500 hectares of growing land and need to increase productivity.
Suitable land access is not permanent with rotational cropping the best practice for pest and disease management.
“Potatoes NZ has observed the push to transition to more sustainable production practices and we’ve not sat on our laurels.
“We predicted that these new sustainable practices would require data-based decision systems and support to enable local and central government to develop policy that supports and sustains industries.
“Our project will enable growers to make sustainable decisions economically and environmentally and ensure government targets are met,” Carroll said.
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