AgFirst is excited to be a key leader in new project in the Hawke’s Bay investigating the impacts of tile drains on horticultural land, to provide valuable information about their effect on freshwater quality. Horticultural tile drains are used to divert excess moisture from the soil. This can help waterlogged land become more productive. This …
In Brief Global Issue No. 447
In this edition of In Brief Global we discuss the upcoming maturity testing season, the influence water quality has on fruit quality at harvest and an orchard variability investigation. View the newsletter here.
Drivers and Barriers to Land Use Change
Land use change has been a significant feature of the New Zealand landscape since European settlement, largely driven by economic factors, and has been a strength of our primary land systems. Over the last 25 years, the most significant land use change has been a switch out of sheep and beef farming, with an increase …
Mitigating GHG on Māori Farms in New Zealand
This report covers a project to assist the Māori pastoral sector to improve its collective capacity to increase resource efficiency, farm productivity, while reducing GHG emissions. The project was based around the establishment of a network of 29 Māori farms, and intensive modelling on four of these farms to investigate and demonstrate the impact of …
Calculating the Economic Thresholds Between Farming and Forestry
AgFirst were asked to provide a view on the place of forestry on pastoral land and an overview of the economic advantages of planting production forestry on behalf of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company. We analysed a series of farm case studies in the Hawke’s Bay region focusing on the relationships between land quality, …
Numbers Drive the Business- Matt Buckley on increasing bull beef production using FARMAX
In the latest edition of Country Wide NZ, Matt Buckley discusses how he is increasing production of his bull beef business with the help of software tools and an AgFirst facilitated group dedicated to benchmarking and the numbers. This year he expects production to reach 345kg/-ha a big increase from the 260kg not product/ha generated …
Financial Survey 2020: Central North Island Hill Country Sheep & Beef
This report summarises the results of a financial survey of sheep and beef farms across the central North Island, carried out by AgFirst through June 2020. The key points explored in the report are: The main aspect of the 2019/20 season was a severe drought, which adversely impacted production and profitability on most farms. This …
Financial Survey 2020: Waikato & BoP Dairy
This report summarises the results of a financial survey of dairy farms across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions, carried out by AgFirst through June 2020. A description of the model farm is at the back of the report. The key points of this report are: The 2019/20 season was again mixed climatically. The …
Achieving Zero-Carbon Act Reduction Targets on Farm
Our consultant Phil Journeaux and Scion scientist, Tanira Kingi have produced a report covering the results of the modelling component of the Farm Systems Modelling for GHG Reduction on Māori Farms project, a project funded by the New Zealand Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Research centre (NZAGRC). A major component of the project was to model four …
Future Farming Strategies Trial Approved
Northland Consultants Kim Robinson and Chris Boom are heavily involved in the new 5 year Future Farming Strategies Trial in NDDT. Read the overview here or contact Kim or Chris for more details.