B+LNZ commenced work on the project last year recognising the need to modernise and future proof the core data infrastructure and systems that support B+LNZ’s Sheep & Beef Farm Survey (Farm Survey) and wider insights capability.
The Farm Survey is part of a critical evidence base that has supported on-farm and sector-wide decision-making for over 70 years. Farmers, and the wider red meat sector, will benefit from a modern and fit for purpose platform.
B+LNZ applied for industry-good funding from NZMB to support the design, build and scale and speed of implementation of the Project.
The total Project investment is approximately $4.5 million over seven years including capital build (around 25% of overall spend) and operating costs over that period.
NZMB’s contribution to the Project has been approved up to $1.3 million, spread across financial years 2026 (up to $300,000) and 2027 (up to $1 million) in August 2026.
FAQs
The immediate reason for the investment is to protect and modernise the Economic Service and Farm Survey capability that the red meat sector has relied on for decades.
The existing technology is ageing and increasingly dependent on specialist knowledge held by a small number of people. Modernising it protects the continuity of this important industry-good evidence base while allowing us to make better use of the information collected.
That information supports farm benchmarking and decision-making, but its value goes considerably wider. It provides in
B+LNZ recognises the concerns farmers expressed about large technology projects running over budget or failing to deliver. Considerable work was undertaken before committing to build the new platform.
This has included a competitive RFP process, two stages of discovery and solution validation, and development of a Business Case based on the Treasury Better Business Case guidelines assessing the need for investment, options, costs, benefits and delivery risks. The selected vendor managed to demonstrate; the best value for money, experience working with the agriculture sector and delivery in a competitive dual discovery process.
The project is also subject to formal governance via a specific sub-committee of the B+LNZ Board, and the full B+LNZ Board, staged decision-making and defined delivery milestones, with funding and progression dependent on satisfactory performance. This will include milestone reporting to NZMB as required under its industry-good grant funding conditions.
The Project cost of approximately $4.5 million is the total cost of developing and operating the new system over seven years, not just the cost of building the new platform.
This includes B+LNZ internal staff time, software licences, hosting and operating costs over the following years. The cost of the actual technology build is around 25% of the total Project cost. Presenting the investment on a seven-year whole-of-life basis ensures the ongoing costs of owning and operating the system are visible upfront rather than focusing only on the initial build price.
This is a critical investment that is overdue. The purpose of the investment is to replace ageing and vulnerable infrastructure with a mainstream, supportable platform that B+LNZ can operate sustainably over the long term.
The first benefit is protecting a trusted source of independent sheep and beef farm, production and red meat sector information. The investment safeguards more than 70 years of Farm Survey data and the systems used to turn that information into benchmarks, forecasts and sector insights.
Modernising the platform should also make it possible over time to provide more timely information, improve benchmarking and analysis, reduce manual processing, and make it easier to combine the Farm Survey with other useful datasets. This includes improving our understanding of the connections between dairy and red meat, such as dairy grazing, dairy-beef supply and cattle finishing, which are already an important part of many farm systems.
The value is therefore broader than replacing an internal B+LNZ system. It protects an important sector data asset, reduces the risk of disruption to existing farmer information, and creates the foundation for better and more timely farmer-facing insights in future.
We also heard clearly that farmers expect this investment to translate into useful information rather than simply a better internal B+LNZ system. Demonstrating that farmer and sector value will therefore be an important measure of the project’s success.
Data security, privacy and appropriate use of farmer information remain fundamental requirements. Modernising the existing platform gives us the opportunity to strengthen these controls.
Ensuring that farmers are confident that information entrusted to B+LNZ is appropriately protected and that access and use of that information is governed and managed responsibly is an absolute priority.
The purpose of the project is not to recreate commercial farm-management software or compete with existing providers.
We agree with feedback that the future should involve greater interoperability between trusted datasets and systems. The new platform is being designed so that B+LNZ can progressively connect with other relevant data sources and tools where doing so provides value and the necessary permissions and commercial arrangements are in place.
Reducing duplicate data collection and making better use of information that already exists is an important longer-term opportunity.
Feedback reinforced both the strategic importance of the investment and the need to deliver it carefully, successfully and on budget.
The message from farmers was not simply “build a new data platform”. It was: protect an important industry asset, demonstrate value for money, govern the project delivery risks well, protect our data, work with rather than duplicate the wider sector, and make sure the investment delivers benefit for farmers.
Those are appropriate expectations, and they will remain important tests as the Project moves from design into build and delivery.