With Mike Manning, Ravensdown General Manager - Innovation and Strategy.

Most Ground Effect readers will be well acquainted with the reasons that New Zealand’s primary producers lead the world, optimising productivity while striving to safeguard long-term sustainability.

Farmers and growers make decisions based on science, research, and market signals. Their continuing mission is to weigh these factors alongside each other, to reach a practical and profitable formula for their own land use. This is without the subsidies that cushion most of their counterparts elsewhere in the world. Responses are often finely calibrated, engaging innovation that yields measurable benefits.

Given the quality of food we produce, our sustainability credentials are among the best in the world, which makes continuing improvement a demanding challenge. Where future gains will be made is in the connection between these factors: how can science and research be best applied on farm in ways that both enhance productivity and minimise environmental impact.

Connections between people are what makes this work. Connecting a researcher with a farmer who can implement the results of research into practical use on farm, crystallising the environmental and production benefits.

This issue of Ground Effect, which is the publication’s 15th edition, highlights connections and collaborations, potentially also providing a forum to initiate further engagements.

N-Vision NZ, Ravensdown’s seven-year $22 million research and development programme, relies on growing those connections between science and practical farming.

Eastern Bay of Plenty farmers Fraser and Katherine McGougan are showing how careful analysis and the use of key technology are the practical connections to their farming philosophy – that you don’t have to push production to be profitable.

Single superphosphate is another connection between productivity and reducing the on-farm carbon footprint.

Culverden dairy farmers Kevin and Sara O’Neill epitomise the connection between optimal production and the four ‘R’s of agri-nutrient application: the right product in the right place at the right time and the right amount.

ClearTech and EcoPond are outstanding examples of the connections between proven science and improved on-farm environmental outcomes.

Ground Effect contains plenty of examples of innovation and collaboration that focus on smarter farming for a better New Zealand. We publish Ground Effect to recognise, stimulate and encourage opportunities to improve information sharing between farmers, growers, researchers, scientists, agronomists, advisors and policy makers. We endeavour to provide food for thought. If you have an idea, or want to find out more, we would love to hear from you.

 

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