As you may be aware, B+LNZ has been seeking to lease a hill country sheep and beef property to trial new technologies and farm systems.
The project is part of B+LNZ’s strategy to support farming excellence and lift farm productivity and profitability.
B+LNZ is in negotiations with a possible farm and we hope to announce the successful partner next month.
In the meantime, we know there has been a lot of interest about the programme, so we want to provide you with more detail.
The intention of the Future Farm is to demonstrate to farmers, and others, how new technologies and systems impact on performance, whilst maintaining the highest production standards within a leading environmental footprint.
The farm will feature state-of-the-art monitoring, measuring and communications technologies while maintaining and demonstrating strong commercial principles. Only those technologies proven elsewhere to work on farm will be applied.
Beef + Lamb’s intention is to partner in the lease of a property which will include capital investment in livestock and other necessary equipment, similar in structure to the Lincoln Dairy Hub. The residual value of capital investment will return to B+LNZ at the end of the programme.
In addition to oversight by the B+LNZ management and Board, we will also establish an Advisory Board, including specialist capability around environment, animal health, farm systems, animal productivity, people management and governance.
The advisory board will be the primary “gate-keeper” of new and innovation technology and practices to be implemented on farm.
A separate Stakeholder Group with more commercial skills around forages, agronomy, technology platforms and systems will also be established to identify and assess potential farm system options and technologies for application.
B+LNZ is also engaging independent experts to provide farm business and environmental due diligence
A key focus for the Future Farm will be ensuring any farmers looking over the property, observing operations and production outputs can relate these to their own business.
We will also be announcing a number of innovative ways farmers from other regions can also benefit from the Future Farm.
For more information, contact:
Richard Wakelin (Beef + Lamb New Zealand) on 0800 233 352
