Sarah's Country

California has regulations requiring dairy farmers and other producers to cut methane emissions by 40% by 2030 (New Zealand's CCC recommendation is a 13% reduction).

So what how can we adopt the superfood of seaweed that UC Davis scientists have found cuts methane emission by over 80%, into a NZ farming system?

As our Thought Maker brought to you by Multiscapes at Lincoln University, Prof. Ermias Kebreab, Director, World Food Center & Professor and Sesnon Endowed Chair | University of California, Davis.

His team have been studying how seaweed as a feed additive can reduce methane emissions in cattle by over 80% as only 1% of their diet.

But, does it affect the taste of meat or milk?

Sarah also discusses with Ermais the work he is doing in lifting milk production in his home country of Eritrea in Eastern Africa.

For more on the research, visit https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces-their-greenhouse-gas-emissions-82-percent

For more information on Multiscapes, https://www.multiscapes.co.nz/

With less water available in our changing climate, stock water systems are often overlooked so to get farmers off the farm can be as simple as giving them assurance that their water tanks are full and water is being delivered to their livestock.

Waterwatch’s technology of farm tank water monitoring it can all be done via an app on your phone. 

“One of the key things we know talking to farmers is that they spend a lot of time building their water schemes and they are hesitant to trust them to work so by putting that assurance in their pockets they can leave home,” explains Jesse Teat, Waterwatch.

One of this week’s Change Maker’s is Jesse Teat, a Dunedin-based ag-tech entrepreneur discussing:

• The real dilemma is that 96% of the water taken on farms can be lost from leaking pipes or animals getting into troughs so early leak detection can give farmers hours, even days, of their time back.
• Growing up on a kiwifruit orchard, Jesse realized from a young age the importance of keeping water infrastructure running at all times.
• Waterwatch works with regional council water scheme infrastructure as well to enable them to ensure water security.
• Waterwatch was a 2020 Fielday's Innovation Award winner.

For more information of remote water tank monitoring from your phone

For more information about Sarah’s Country, visit www.sarahscountry.com

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How do we move from status quo to game-changing innovation-led farming? 

How do we deal with the systemic silos across leadership, research and data-management? 

And when will we have purpose-driven leadership that is happy to prioritise the people it serves over themselves?

To download the report visit: sarahscountry.com/opinion 

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In a world of disruption and uncertainty from COVID, NZ has emerged with an unexpectedly strong GDP result but the sector this country are relying on is fatigued and people are operating very short term focused, living day to day from farm to executive level.

The disruption and uncertainty though has seen a $65 billion global food renaissance emerge so can New Zealand muster up the energy and courage needed to take bold steps to keep its seat at the table?

In the 12 years the KPMG Agribusiness Agenda has been published, Head of Global Agribusiness Ian Proudfoot said this was the most difficult to write due to the combination of immense regulatory pressure, the volume of change coming at the sector as well as trade negotiations and supply issues as well as mounting labour shortage.

Ian discusses the report with Sarah at the 2021 Fieldays after the launch of the report as our Change Maker and highlights: 

• We must invest and change the leadership mix with talent that is new, young and diverse and we need directors to govern for the future and growth, rather than for risk and what’s happened in the past.
• The only way we can have a seat at the global food table is based on our reputation for being innovative and being a good international citizen but the seat won’t be there forever unless we take action now. 
• We need the government to rethink the timing of their regulation and in a coordinated approach with time for the industry to implement the policy and also encourage farmers to get engaged in what is coming to make sure it works for them.
• He is worried about non-tariff barriers to our product from taking a different approach to managing our agricultural emissions so we need as much market access as we can get from a variety of markets.
• Food is an incredibly personal product as it is what we put inside us, so farmers need to understand who they are producing for and the reason they are consuming for health to capture the opportunities ahead.

Read the 2021 KPMG Agribusiness Agenda

For more information about the show, visit www.sarahscountry.com

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Agriculture innovation becomes successful when paired with investment to scale.

The Australian’s are not only investing in research at a faster rate of knots than New Zealand but providing transparency about what researchers are working all in one place, growAG.

“Researchers can collaborate with other researchers. Investors find innovations to commercialise into solutions for farmers. And it provides traction for our government-funded research - win-win!” explains Arianna Sippel, Senior Business Manager, growAG.

One of this week’s Sarah’s Country’s Change Maker is Arianna Sippel, Senior Business Manager at growAG who explains:

• The Australian government sees innovation as the foundation for a sustainable and resilient future for their agricultural businesses.
• AgriFutures is one of the 15 Research & Development Centres with funding from levy paying farmers and government that works across their National Research Initiatives.
• In an aim to provide traction for their funded research and extend the solutions beyond the lab to farmers in the paddock they have created growAG showcasing 2,000 innovations transparently presented online.
• growAG helps researchers to see who else may be working on a similar project to collaborate with partners to validate their project and investors that maybe interested in commercialising.

Visit growAg - A connected network bringing innovation into the spotlight

The ripple effect when women prioritise their own needs and establish boundaries has on the wider family and farming business is profound as this Norsewood farmer found out from a health prognosis that forced her to look at her own life.

“I hear rural women say 'I feel like the dog's body' and that's how I felt. Living on a farm can be an amazing lifestyle but that comes when you recognise your personal boundaries because you can't take care of everyone if you don't take care of yourself first,” explains Charlotte.

This fortnight’s Sarah’s Country Sister is Charlotte Heald from Wealth of Health who shares:

• In her career as a rural nurse, Charlotte found her passion for health promotion and then after the diagnosis of an autoimmune disease whilst running a family and farm she trained as a health coach to support rural women with self-care.
• Boundary setting and recognising what you will and won’t tolerate is the first step. It can be really empowering to say ‘no’ from a place of integrity and respect for yourself.
• We train those around us how we want to be treated and when we shift the goalposts it can be an adjustment for everyone, but the energy of women with boundaries has huge value for those around them.
• Her and husband Russell’s journey into regenerative farming and changing their mindset that they are farming with the best practice for them and their land and they learnt to stop comparing themselves with the neighbours.

To get in touch with Charlotte for one-on-one coaching, workshop or speaking at your next event.

Award-winning artificial intelligence technology recognising sheep's faces via cameras in the paddock could provide a transformational leap forward in the Australasian sheep industry.

“Of the majority of the 23 million lambs born from 17 million ewes each year we don't know which lamb comes from which ewe, so facial recognition in the paddock will unlock massive potential for the sheep industry,” explains Mark.

One of this week’s Sarah’s Country’s Change Maker is Dr Mark Ferguson from neXtgen Agri who recently won the 2021 ChristchurchNZ Supernode Food, Fibre & AgriTech Challenge and explains:

• A pilot project with Australian Wool Innovation and the University of Sydney three years ago proved in a trial in the yards that the technology works. Now Genesmith, , focuses on taking the cameras into the paddock to help match ewes with their lambs.
• The ultimate way to reduce methane released per unit is by optimizing production, selecting ewes based on their ability to have a number of healthy lambs and take the efficiency out of the animal system.
• Currently, farmer’s ability to identify sheep at the moment is manually by humans via visual sheep tags and matching the parentage of the lambs via DNA is too expensive to be viable for commercial sheep farmers.
• By June 2022 they endeavour to have a commercial product developed with the ability to capture data on farm.

For more information on the Genesmith artificial intelligence technology

To watch the show, visit www.sarahscountry.com

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One of the most precious gems in New Zealand’s food & fibre sector is the family farm, so how do we ensure that the intergenerational business model can survive a changing world?

For information on the services of our guests visit, https://www.familybusinesscentral.com

https://nzab.co.nz/our-services

https://www.wynnwilliams.co.nz

Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review!

Contact the show: [email protected]

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The global lockdown of 2020 brought consumers closer to the source of their food and gave confidence to an NZ arable sector project that will see local chefs and pasta producers able to source the key durum wheat ingredient from their backyard.

“We have found that the taste profile of Wairarapa grown durum wheat presents a really interesting provenance story, as the wine industry tells. NZ pasta producers want to source all their ingredients locally - eggs, sunflower oil and durum wheat to tell their own provenance story too,” explains Ivan Lawrie, GM Business Operations at Foundation for Arable Research.

One of this week’s Sarah’s Country’s Change Maker, Foundation for Arable Research General Manager of Business Operations, Ivan Lawrie explains:

• Semolina the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat is mainly used in making couscous and Italian pastas and currently is all imported, but there is demand for NZ product by NZ chefs and food producers.
• MPI’s Sustainable Food & Fibre Future’s funding is enabling a project to create niche markets for the highly sought after durum wheat and providing a shining light for Wairarapa arable growers following the devastating biosecurity eradication of pea weevil eradication costing the industry close to $130 million.
• This is the beginning of many more specialty pulses and grain value chains which ultimately fill our New Zealand wheat mills operating at full capacity.

For more information on the MPI funded durum wheat project

For more information on Sarah's Country, visit www.sarahscountry.com

Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on podcast and if you love us, please leave a review!

Contact the show: [email protected]

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The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, 2,500 years ago said ‘we are what we eat' and Lincoln University in 2021 researchers are continuing to prove his adage that for food to be thy medicine we need to give our animals more choice in what they are eating.

Increasing societal demand for our products to come from happy and healthy animals may lead to more selective multi-species feeding of livestock that Lincoln University research shows can provide a more ethical story, more environmental benefits and nutrient-dense red meat from humans.

One of this week’s Sarah’s Country’s Change Maker, Lincoln University Pastoral Livestock Production Lab PhD candidate, Konagh Garrett explains their team’s research:

• Looking at the diet of the animal that we are consuming affects the quality and health benefits humans receive.
• By providing animals with choice, you're giving them some control over their environment and meeting their nutritional needs, lowering their levels of stress as they can express their preference and their likings to foods. By having those options, they're able to also consume more food and be more productive because they're able to create different plant combinations so that they don't become more satiate and become sick of eating the same thing over and over again!
• Increasing societal demand for our products has come from happy and healthy animals, so multi-species feeding can provide a more ethical story, more environmental benefits and nutrient-dense foods.
• Trials studying what ewes eat shows that lambs also prefer that same species of plants and so if you shift lambs to a different diet it can cause stress that affects eating quality.

To read the research “How Dietary Diversity Enhances Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being in Grazing Ruminants”: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00191/full