In June this year, I was chosen for one of two teams attending the 2024 International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) Case Study Competition and Conference in Almeria, Spain. The theme of the conference was Food Security Through Innovation & Sustainability. We were then invited to attend a weeklong food and agri-innovation tour to Bologna, Cologne and then through the Netherlands.

I am lucky to have been in a team with four clever individuals from across the New Zealand Agri-Food sector. Our team included Dan from Silver Fern Farms in Dunedin, Fatima from ANZ in Auckland, Braydon from Perrin Ag in Rotorua, and Katie from Auckland University. We brought a diverse range of skills to our case study analysis, as well as a diverse range of opinions and perspectives on agriculture.

We were incredibly excited to learn that we won first place in our division, with the other New Zealand team coming in second place. Not bad for a little country at the bottom of the world!

While travelling together after the conference we were able to explore food provenance and food culture in Bologna, agricultural research and development in Cologne, and agricultural and horticultural innovation in the Netherlands. We will all be spending the next few months digesting what we have seen, discussed and learnt, and how our experience links to food production back here in New Zealand.

Many thanks to LandWISE (Dan & Phillipa) for allowing me the time away to learn, grow and explore the agri-food sector at a global level.

Applications are open!

Applications are open for the 2024 STAMP intake so if you have talented young people in your business (under 27 at the time of application), encourage them to apply! Click here for more information. Applications close 31st Aug 2024.

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Alex wins in Spain

LandWISE is delighted to have supported our Project Manager Alex Dickson to be part of the 2024 IFAMA case study competition held in Almeria, Spain in June.

We were even more delighted by an immediate result, as Alex posted in LinkedIn:

“I’m thrilled to share that we have taken out first place at the IFAMA 2024 Student Case Study competition in the Early Career Professional category. I’m so proud of my unbelievably talented teammates Katie Henderson, Fatima Imran, Dan Ryan and Braydon Schroder. It came down to the final two, made up of both NZ teams. It’s brilliant that NZ took home both first and second place in Spain this year!

The case study explored the global seed industry, from the perspective of the International Seed Federation (ISF) and asked us to consider how to improve collaboration and communication between stakeholders throughout the value chain, in the face of changing European policy.

It has been a roller coaster of emotions; we are all so grateful for this amazing opportunity. Thank you to FoodHQ, Massey University, AGMARDT (The Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust) for supporting us to get here!“

Their group developed a proposal for a food alliance which was powered by data and a governance model to help the seed industry collaborate and deal with regulatory pressures, such as the EU green deal.

Alex travelled as one of the members of the Strategic Thinking for Agrifood Management Programme (STAMP), and initiative of FOODHQ at Massey University supported by AGMARDT. The STAMP programme focuses on accelerating emerging leaders’ strategic thinking, broadening sector awareness and helping build local and global personal and professional networks.

After spending time in Spain, the group has been travelling, including visits to a number of food producers in other EU countries, and

As Dr Victoria Hatton, CEO of Food HQ noted, “The value of this experience can’t be underestimated. The exposure the cohort have been given to a real world challenge is fantastic. I am so proud of this amazing group of young leaders.”

We share that opinion and are justly proud of Alex’s and colleagues’ achievement.

IFAMA is an international management organization that brings together current and future business, academic, and government leaders along with other industry stakeholders—to improve the strategic focus, transparency, sustainability, and responsiveness of the global food and agribusiness system.

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9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Friday 26 July 2024

PIA Event Centre, Pukekohe, New Zealand.

In person only, there is no online version.

The purpose of this workshop is to give a complete overview of non-chemical weed management as part of Integrated Weed Management (IWM) and will include addressing herbicide resistance.

Merf is head of the BHU Future Farming Centre and Merfield Agronomy Ltd and co-owner and director of PhysicalWeeding. He is also the OrganicNZ 2024 Organic Leader of the year for excellence in science communication.

The primary audience is cropping (horticulture and arable) farmers & growers as it is these production systems that have the largest challenge with weeds. Perennial crop (e.g. vines, apples) producers will also benefit with one section dedicated to perennial crops (see below). For anyone dealing with herbicide resistant weeds, this workshop is the start of your solution. There are also some benefits for livestock / pasture systems in terms of the overall concepts of non-chemical and integrated weed management.

Consultants and advisors working with farmer and grower clients, particularly in cropping, will gain considerable benefit, especially regarding the latest technologies. Scientists, especially those dealing with herbicide resistance and working on the transition to non-chemical weed management, will gain valuable insights. The content assumes a reasonable level of understanding and practical experience of commercial agriculture and horticulture systems including weed management. This is a really full on and intense workshop – bring your thinking head! Plenty of caffeine is provided!

Cost is NZ$391.30 excl. GST = $450.00 incl. GST.

This includes a colour handout printout of the presentations. It also includes full catering includes tea, real coffee and snack on arrival, morning and afternoon teas and finger food lunch.
Registration is essential as places are limited.

To register please email charles@merfield.com including:

• Your / your business name and address for the invoice.
• The number of people from your business who will be attending and their names and emails.
• A bit of your background, e.g., farmer, grower, consultant, farm system, e.g., veg, apples, so I have an idea of who is coming.
• Any dietary requirements.

More information at Charles Merfield – One day seminar-workshop on non-chemical weed management

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Many thanks to everybody involved in our 2024 Annual Conference! All up we had 99 registrants who heard from 23 amazing presenters and saw 9 different practical demonstrations. Our special thanks to everyone who contributed by sharing their knowledge and experiences, and to delegates for their active interaction. Thanks to Pure Catering and our hosts at the Havelock North Function Centre and at the Centre for Land and Water which hosts our MicroFarm and the demonstrations.

Many thanks also to our conference sponsors and supporters. These organisations support us through the year as well as for the conference and we are very grateful. They are the most loyal of partners we could hope for.

Ka mau te wehi!

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LandWISE 2024 – Rebuilding Our Soils

Havelock North – 15-16 May 2024

We are looking forward to our annual conference this week.
We will report on our current work with industry, researchers and growers
seeking out and trialing best ways to rebuild soil.
Our invited speakers will present alternative practices and novel ideas,
some perhaps fringe, but all looking to be mainstream, on a range of topics.

The key topics in 2024 are:

Carbon Positive – Regenerative Cropping
Alternative Pest Management
A year on – Cyclone impacts
Data capture to understanding
New Zealand Agritech
Novel Technologies

We welcome presenters old and new and are most excited by
the breadth and depth of knowledge they offer on many topics.
We also have a great range of practical demonstrations lined up for
viewing at the MicroFarm.

The draft programme is available now, and registrations are open.

Draft Programme

Our Presenters

Registration

We are delighted that Apatu Group is continuing their sponsorship
to allow secondary students free conference attendance, and that
for 2024 they have been joined by Vegetables NZ and Onions NZ
so an even larger cohort can attend.

We view this as a vital element, as such students are indeed the future of our industry,
and feedback from previous years has been very positive.

Discount for our Financial Members = pay for one day, get the other free. See you there!

Thanks to BASF Crop Protection and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for continuing their Platinum Sponsorships. Both are long-term, loyal supporters and we are most grateful. Our other loyal supporters are also back with us, so please take time to look and give them your support in return.

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In the summer of 2023-2024, the LandWISE MicroFarm grew process tomatoes for Heinz-Wattie’s using three alternative management systems: conventional, regenerative, and a hybrid taking from each. One of the principles for a regenerative system is to build natural resilience rather than rely only on a chemical-based crop protection regime. Nothing new, of course, we’ve had IPM programmes for decades.

How can we apply these concepts in an intensive process vegetable crop production system? What are the elements we need to consider, and how do we bring them together? There are tried and proven approaches, there are ongoing developments, and there are new ways that are being explored. Come to the LandWISE Conference “Rebuilding Our Soils” and hear what experts have to say!

Bruce Mackay, Heinz Wattie’s agricultural manager, has been an agronomist for a long time and has seen and tried different growing philosophies in a commercial context. As a key partner in Carbon Positive, Wattie’s has been deeply involved since Day Zero, and doubly so through the 2023-24 cropping season as we’ve worked to integrate regenerative agriculture principles into an intensive crop programme. Why is Kraft-Heinz interested at a global level? Why is Heinz-Wattie’s investing in local research?

Tika Schellevis started working on assessment of regen ag practices in Canada as part of her master’s degree in climate studies at Wageningen University. Over the last two years, Tika has been part of McCain Foods’ Regen Ag journey. Since October 2023, Tika has been working with the McCain Foods agronomy team in Timaru. Tike will outline how the Environmental Impact Quotient, EIQ, can help understand the relative impacts of different agrichemical options, and help select an optimal programme.

Jessica Vereijssen will discuss integrated pest management, using our crops as examples, but presenting transferable principles. She leads the Insect Dynamics, Ecology, and Sustainability team at Plant & Food Research in Lincoln. Jessica specialises in Integrated Pest Management and sustainable management programmes, considering the biology, behaviour, and ecology of pests. Her current research delves into (invasive) insect vectors such as psyllids and aphids, as well as the potential transmission of plant pathogenic organisms, leveraging her dual background in entomology and plant pathology. 

Chris Thompson will describe the use of predatory insects. He is a seasoned professional in the biotechnology industry, and Managing Director of Bioforce, where he leads the development of sustainable agricultural products and environmentally friendly solutions for various industries. When we received a “bag of bugs” to help control Tomato Potato Psyllid, he’s who we rang with twenty questions. Where do we put them? What agrichemicals might be OK? Which ones should we avoid at all costs? etc.

Since we began the Carbon positive project, we’ve been introduced to a huge range of products described variously as crop elicitors, bioactives, biostimulants, natural protectors and more. Tony Reglinski is a Senior Research Scientist at Plant and Food Research where he investigates the use of plant defence inducers to enhance natural resistance against pathogen attack. His research has covered a broad range of crops including, cereal, radiata pine, wine grapes and kiwifruit. His aim is to is to improve our understanding of the benefits and potential limitations of inducers in order to facilitate their practical implementation as crop protectants.

Come along and hear these experts as they lay out options to increase our resilience and reduce reliance on single approaches to crop protection. The principles and concepts apply broadly, so there wil be gold nuggets regardless of your crop interests!

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Sustainable production through technology has been one of the key themes through the history of LandWISE Inc. We started with minimum tillage and strip tillage equipment, then rapidly adopted RTK GPS and autosteer, which we saw unlocked many opportunities for financial and environmental gains. We’ve looked a precision viticulture, canopy monitoring, crop mapping, soil sensing and more. We investigated agricultural robotics and options for management software. So much stuff to keep up with!

The 2024 LandWISE Conference has three components dedicated to agritech: an innovation panel discussing the experience of taking an idea to commercial reality, a group presenting technologies that automate data collection and help make sense of it all to support management decision making, and a practical in-paddock session where equipment will be demonstrated.

In the session, “Commercialising New Technology”, Andrew Cameron will chair a discussion between Tim Neale from Data Farming, Matt Flowerday from Landkind, Clare Bradley from Agrisea NZ, Hamish Penny from Croptide, and Richard Beaumont from AGOVOR. Different people, different technologies, different growth paths and different insights.

“Data Capture and Understanding” builds on the agritech theme, presenting technologies to capture data remotely and turn it into information to assist management. Tim Neale’s DataFarming platform presents satellite data and interpretations, Matt Flowerday capture aerial imagery and has a platform to plan farm management spatially, Hamish Penny and Croptide have a “smartwatch” for plants, collecting internal water status information and sending it straight to your phone, and Lia Willis helps clients pull different layers of data together.

The Horizons Regional Council Practical Session at the MicroFarm will display technologies and give opportunity to discuss details with the people with answers. Look for drones and robots from Airborne Solutions, AGOVOR and Robomate, cover crops and roller crimpers, pest predators with Bioforce and new irrigation technology from WaterForce!

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Thursday 1st Feb 2024

Our good friends from live2give in Palmerston North are hosting a summer field day to discuss mulch systems for commercial vegetable production. The field day will include a demonstration of the MulchTec-Planter in action. You may remember the MulchTec-Planter from our conference demonstration day last year. We had planned to use to transplant tomato seedlings into the Regenerative Treatment of our Carbon Positive trial. We are working on other opportunities to use the planter in the next four years of the trial, to experiment with direct mulch planting ourselves.

Live2give are in their third year of a Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFFF) project investigating “opportunities mulch direct planting systems hold for New Zealand vegetable growers and for our environment”.

Venue

Conference Centre‘Two36‘, 236 Broadway Avenue, Palmerston North 4414.

Thursday 1st February: 9.30 am – 5.00 pm

Field tour (starting at 1.30pm) will be held at live2give Organic Farm, 538 Aokautere Drive, Palmerston North 4471.

The cost is $40, due to co funding by MPI (SFFF fund ) and live2give. Regular price : $175 (incl. lunch and printed resources).

Please register by email before Friday, 26 January including names and business details: farm@live2give.nz

For more information about live2give Organics visit their website. Sign up to their mailing list to keep in touch with what they’re up to.

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Please register at Eventbrite

Once again, we are opening the gates and doors to the public for a Carbon Positive at the MicroFarm field walk to view and discuss the Heinz-Wattie’s process tomato crop.

We’ve been making nutrient, irrigation and crop protection decisions – come along and discuss our strategies and apparent effectiveness!

Please register at Eventbrite

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McCain Foods has a global strategy for implementing regenerative growing practices and the Carbon Positive project, now in its second year of crop rotation having successfully harvested a sweetcorn crop for McCain Foods last summer, is viewed as important work comparing conventional with regenerative and our “hybrid” systems.

People interested in the McCain Foods journey in regenerative practice can hear more on the Hot Potato podcasts. The Hot Potato Podcast | Podcast on Spotify. The Hot Potato series is a very interesting collection of discussions with influential people in the food industry. It is worth taking the time to listen if you want to understand how global businesses view sustainability and the concepts of regenerative agriculture, or in our case, regenerative cropping.

We are holding open walks at the beginning of each month. The December walk will be held on Wednesday 6th at 1 PM. The current crop is process tomatoes being grown for and in collaboration with Heinz-Watties. Plants are now well established, and different treatments are showing different growth patterns.

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