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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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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In a special event after the LandWISE Conference “Rebuilding Our Soils”, we hosted a wānanga/workshop led by Erina Wehi-Barton, Taonui Campbell and Clare Bradley. Clare introduced the Our Land and Water project “Revitalise Te Taiao” at the conference, and it attracted considerable interest. They have been integrating Matauranga Maori, farming, and scientific knowledge to promote soil health in the Rere Ki Uta Rere Ki Tai project. 

We were delighted to join with regenerative agriculture and cropping research colleagues from Massey University’s “Whenua Haumanu – nurturing the land through exploring pastoral farming“, Leaderbrand’s “Farming for a Healthy Future“, On-Farm Research’s “Evaluating Regen Ag and developing farmer resilience on a dryland demonstration farm” and our own team from LandWISE and HB Future Farming Trust with “Carbon Positive – regenerative intensive process cropping“.

Each of the projects has commitment to mātauranga Māori and as largely pakeha researchers trained in Western science, we can feel somewhat lost. Taonui and Erina provided a structure to explore the threads of mātauranga and the commonalities and differences between the Māori and Western knowledge systems. There are many parallels and overlaps.

Te Taiao is a Māori concept that refers to the natural world, including land, water, climate, and living beings, and their inter-relationships. These are all elements in farm and orchard management and in agricultural and horticultural research, so are familiar to those trained in agricultural or environmental science. Perhaps though, our tendency to focus in closer and closer when using reductionist methodologies puts us at risk of forgetting the context within which we work. A farm input decision is based partly on agronomic research but always includes economic oversight. Increasingly we are conscious that application takes place in a regulatory and social licence context, and within limits set or expected by markets and by importers’ regulations. At another level, we know but can lose sight of the fact, that adjusting one factor is very likely to affect how other factors respond.

Mātauranga can be held by different groupings so exists at Māori level, at iwi, hapū and whānau and even individual level. Just as there is knowledge held by me, shared by my immediate family and with my cousins, among my professional groups and with the population generally. That knowledge is built over time as a result of many observations and understandings and it is everchanging over time and space. Like Western science. Our understanding at one point in time may be revised as new observations are made, lessons learned, and our synthesised understanding evolves. And as agronomists, we understand that knowledge of good agricultural practice that applies in one area or to one crop may not transfer to another.

As farmers and growers and Western science people, we are familiar with bodies of knowledge about physics, biology, chemistry and agronomy, and can extend that to law and finance etc. We know these as subjects we study at school and university. In a 2012 essay, Sir Hirini Moko Mead suggested that tikanga Māori, āhuatanga Māori, kaupapa Māori, manaakitanga, te reo Māori, waiata, tā moko, kapa haka etc. are subjects within mātauranga Māori.

It seems to me that there are many parallels between these knowledge systems – the same, but different.

We are most grateful to Clare and Agrisea NZ Seaweed Ltd for their support, and especially to Taonui and Erina for leading the wānanga. And we also thank the other participants who travelled to be with us and shared their stories, confusions and questions openly in a safe environment. While we had a very informative day, many more lessons await us. We look forward to following this wānanga with others as we grow our knowledge.

Dan

mātauranga: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, skill – sometimes used in the plural. Education – an extension of the original meaning and commonly used in modern Māori with this meaning.

wānanga: to meet and discuss, deliberate, consider. A seminar, conference, forum, educational seminar.

Te Aka Māori Dictionary

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Revitalise Te Taiao is one of the Our Land and Water projects, involving place-based research to develop evidence-based examples of how agribusinesses and communities can make enduring changes in land use, management, value chains, and market focus to revitalise our natural world, te Taiao. Containing the land, water, climate and living beings, te Taiao refers to the interconnection of people and nature.

If you would like to understand more, come to the LandWISE Conference in Havelock North on 15-16 May 2024 where Clare Bradley will outline the process and lessons from the project. The research involved pilots in three locations, working alongside agribusinesses and communities as they progressed land-use change, worked with value chains and connected with markets to revitalise te Taiao.

• Wānaka-based project Knowledge into Action for Te Taiao, led by WAI Wānaka, had research goals that include expanding traditional farm plans beyond tools of regulation, to enhance the vitality of te Taiao.
• Taranaki-based Te Kāhui Rau, led by Ngāti Tāwhirikura, aimed to revitalise hapū whenua and whānau.
• Based in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato, Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai tested farming methods that aim to enhance the mana and mauri of the soil across 10 dairy farms, led by AgriSea New Zealand.

The project involved AgResearch | AgriSea NZ Seaweed | Heather Collins Consulting | Kia Ora Media Marketing & PR | Mārama | Ngāti Tāwhirikura Hapū Trust | Paemi Ltd | Pahemata Ltd | Rautāpatu Ltd | Simon Stokes Consulting | WAI Wānaka

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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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I have grown up in Hawke’s Bay. I have always been interested in the environment and the processes taken place around me. This is why I am currently studying a Bachelor of Environmental Science at Massey University. The main topics I have enjoyed learning about are soils and water quality. From working at LandWISE, I hope to get a better idea of what job I would like after I graduate.

Olivia has been running a soil aggregate slaking trial, drying peds, and capturing images over time to determine the degree of collapse in water. This is a relatively new test but the first we know of that can be done with minimal equipment using a standard methodology. A phone app “Slaker” does the image analysis and calculates the spread of peds. We’ll do a post on the results of this preliminary study once the number crunching is done.

Olivia is also becoming experienced in soil sampling, sample preparation and quick nitrate testing among other things! More to follow as the season unfolds.

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AGM Matters

The minutes are available to Full Members here

Financial Report

Key results were presented at the meeting – Full Members can download the Financial Report here

Chair’s Report

John thanked the Board for their involvement and contributions during the past year and thanked Sue for all her inputs while a Board Member. He noted that Alex had joined the LandWISE team as a staff member in addition to her Board role in which she will continue to serve her term. He wished Simon White a speedy recovery and hoped we would have him back on deck very soon.

John thanked Dan, Alex and Phillipa for their work over the year, and noted the start of the new Carbon Positive project and the partnership with the HB Future Farming Trust. He also gave thanks to the various sponsors of our projects and other activities, for which we are grateful.

Manager’s Report

Dan welcomed Alex to the staff and expressed gratitude for the impact she has already had, getting up to speed with projects quickly and taking on a lot of responsibility. Alex is the key contact for Carbon Positive operations, and also took on leadership of the Process Crop Nitrate trials and since February has been fully immersed in Cyclone Gabrielle site sampling work and coordinating efforts with AgResearch, Massey FLRC and Plant&Food. He also acknowledged Bridgette Haldane, the Callaghan Onnovation Summer Intern, and thanked her for her hard work especially helping out with the soil sampling for Carbon Positive and nitrate trials.

Dan summarised our various projects, noting all but one of the Process Crop Nitrate trial sites were wiped out by either Cyclone Hale or Cyclone Gabrielle despite three having been replaced. Carbon Positive has been a long time in gestation, and it is a relief to have the first season finally completed and the baselines set for the next 5+ of research. We were granted funding to pay for soil lab testing of a large number of sites affected by Cyclone Gabrielle, and have been active establishing sampling programmes in Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and Northland. Dan explained that the contributions by many people and organisations has been overwhelming, but absolutely needed to support those so severely impacted.He aprticularly noted the work done by Alec MacKay and colleagues at AgResearch, Alan Palmer and colleagues from Massey’s FLRC, and the Gisborne District Council staff who sampled not only Gisborne, Tolaga Bay and Ruatoria, but also volunteered and sampled sites in Wairoa. LandWISE is part of a large consortium of CRIs, universities, councils, consultants, sector bodies and farmers working on studies to learn from this disaster. We hope to attract resourcing to enable a longitudinal study following the site we have baseline-measured to date, to develop revised best practice guidelines for anyone impacted by future events.

Board Positions

Sue Blackmore chose to step down due to an extremely high workload with events at Te Kupenga/EIT Hawke’s Bay. Sue nominated Chandré Honeth to replace her as the Research/Education Representative – seconded by Simon White.

Simon White was due to retire by rotation and offered himself for re-election. He was nominated by Simon Wilcox and seconded by John Evans

The two nominees equaled the number of vacancies as were thus duly appointed.

Subscriptions

The Board did not recommend a change to Annual Subscription rates, but did ask past members to register again. There has been a marked drop off in membership in the last two years, partly due to missing conferences and partly due to the new subscription system.

Chandré Honeth – New Board Member

Dr Chandré Honeth is Viticulture and Wine Science Lecturer at the Eastern Institute of Technology | Te Pūkenga (Hawke’s Bay). Chandré has a Doctorate in Viticulture from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Her current responsibilities include the development and delivery of viticultural and research related courses, presented both in a “face to face” environment and online.

Her research career, focused by her interests in viticulture and the influence of terroir dynamics on berry characteristics, has included investigations into the impacts vineyard management practises, climatic factors and seasonal effects have on berry composition linking to wine organoleptic properties. 

Industry collaborations include with the Hawkes Bay Vine group (part of New Zealand winegrowers), The Bragato Research Institute, Plant and Food, Thoughtful Viticulture and a number of local Hawkes Bay producers. Working in and collaborating with industry has given her broad practical experience in vineyard maintenance and management – ensuring optimal berry development and ripening and wine production. 

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Regenerative Cropping – McCain Foods
Allan Machakaire is McCain Foods Agriculture Manager based in Hastings. He has been involved in the cropping sector for two decades, involved in growing crops, canning, dehydration and frozen products. Alan has a PhD in agronomy and has published research on photosynthesis and water use efficiency, crop coefficients and on forecasting yield and tuber size of potatoes. He has been with McCain Foods for 13 years.

Allan’s presentation will outline the McCain Foods’ programme for regenerative agriculture, and McCain’s commitment to invest in our understanding of regenerative agricultural practices, costs, and benefits at our own “Farms of the Future” and those of partner organisations.

Lizzy Wicken

Lizzy Wicken is Fruit Agronomist for Kraft-Heinz at Watties in Hastings, taking care of the permanent fruit crops. Born and bred in Hawke’s Bay on an apple orchard, fruit growing is in her blood and is her passion. Lizzy has worked in various roles from on orchard activities to compliance and auditing to technical services and consultancy. She has a Bachelor of AgriScience and has completed her Advanced Sustainable Nutrient Management Course.

Lizzy will present the Kraft-Heinz perspective on regenerative agriculture and why it is seen as an essential component for the food sector from soil to kitchen.

Stuart Davis

Regenerative vegetable production
Dr Stuart Davis is a former Director of Vegetables NZ and former Chair of the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board. He has had a long involvement in vegetable industry research programmes particularly relating to integrated pest and disease management. Stuart is currently Sustainability Manager for LeaderBrand Produce and is based in Bombay.
Stuart will introduce a project led by LeaderBrand Produce, Countdown and Plant & Food Research, which is the first industry-wide collaboration to investigate the impacts of regenerative farming practices in fresh vegetable farming, particularly in relation to productivity, profitability, people and environment.

Alex Dickson

Carbon Positive – regenerative vs conventional cropping
Alex is Project Manager: Sustainable Systems at LandWISE. She will introduce Carbon Positive, which is a new LandWISE project run as a partnership with the Hawke’s Bay Future Farming Trust. The project is comparing conventional crop systems with a regenerative approach, and with a hybrid taking aspects of each.
To assess effects of the different farm systems, the six-year project has a comprehensive science programme, monitoring soil carbon stocks, labile carbon, nutrients, soil health, crop development, yields and financial gross margins.
Alexwill report on the first results following baseline testing, the harvest of process sweetcorn for McCain Foods, and establishment of winter cover crops in preparation for tomatoes for Heinz-Watties.

Dan Bloomer

Soil Health Indicators
Dan Bloomer is the manager of LandWISE and a consultant in areas including soil health, irrigation, drainage, precision farming and agritechnology. Having been at the heart of LandWISE since its inception, he is well experienced in the area of on-farm trials and assessing soil health.

Dan will describe the suite on soil health indicators that are being measured as part of the Carbon positive project, highlighting three identified by the Soil Health Institute as being of particular significance.

Syrie Hermans

Environmental DNA – indicators of soil function
Syrie is a lecturer and researcher in environmental microbiology at AUT. She has studied the biogeography of soil bacterial communities across Aotearoa New Zealand and is now investigating soil microbial communities as indicators of agroecosystem benefits associated with regenerative agriculture.

Biological communities in the soil, especially micro-invertebrates and microorganisms, are crucial members of the soil ecosystem, underpinning the productivity and sustainability of our agricultural land. Syrie asks, “How can we take advantage of this close association to monitor the impact our land use has on the functioning of soil ecosystems?”

Tobias Euerl

Heavy-mulch vegetable growing systems
Fertile soil with high yield security, environmental resilience, evaporation and erosion protection, and a significant increase in soil life are strong arguments for rethinking our approach to vegetable cropping. How can the key factors ‘permanent root penetration and soil cover’ become part of a functional cropping system?
Tobi is a project consultant at live2give Organic Farm in Palmerston North. In 2002 he started with live2give Germany, a not-for-profit organisation for health-related research and education. During his time there, he periodically supported CERES-Cert as an organic certification auditor. Pioneering implementation of mulch systems in vegetable cropping, live2give began distributing a specialised mulch transplanter in 2020 after ten years of development. Tobi is currently trialing the planter in NZ conditions.

LandWISE 2023: Normal Practice Revisited

Havelock North Function Centre 24-25 May 2023

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