New Zealand farmers have always been at the forefront of technological improvement in pastoral farming, and remain among the first to adopt new technologies into their farming systems. New Zealand's soil, climatic and topographical features have often demanded innovative solutions. Many of these solutions, in farming practices and processing technologies, or as outputs from plant and animal breeding programmes, have been adopted around the world.

SURVIVAL

The first New Zealanders migrated in large ocean-going canoes from Polynesia to the islands of Aoteoroa (New Zealand) as early as 1000 years ago. They brought with them five crops: kumera, taro, yam, gourd and paper mulberry. Only the kumera, or sweet potato is still grown commercially today. For the most part, Maori ate fish, birds, root crops and edible parts of native plants.

During the 19th Century Maori and European farmers sought to transplant British farming practices into this newly-discovered land, by removing the bush cover and planting crop, pasture seeds or fruit and nut trees into the exposed, fertile soils. This worked for a few decades, but required more and more land as pastoralism expanded.

Maori were particularly successful in this new agriculture, and established most of the market gardens to feed the early to mid 19th Century European settlers, and even exported food to Australia.

As more bush was converted and pasture land developed, settlers satisfied the food and clothing needs of their own families and expanded production for export. The first major pastoral export was wool. Sheep numbers expanded quickly, so that by 1881 there were 13 million sheep on farms, nine million of them in the South Island. Most sheep were Merino, imported from Australia, although British long-wool breeds like Leicester and Lincoln were crossed with Merino during the mid 1800s.

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PRODUCTIVITY

From 1882 onwards refrigerated shipping expanded the exporting options of farmers into frozen meat and dairy products, who found that the natural soil fertility and traditional farm management approach were inadequate. Cleared hill country was reverting to scrub and yields of milk, meat and wool were declining. This was because the initial soil fertility, due to organic matter and ash from scrub burning, was exhausted and nutrients were not being replaced.

In 1892 the New Zealand Government consolidated some smaller agricultural and research services into one Department of Agriculture. It was a big benefit to farmers to have a source of expert advice on the quality and quantity of production.

Among the first recommendations were the introduction of improved grasses and cereal varieties, which gave greater yields, and the use of phosphatic fertilisers to boost clover growth. In turn the clover "fixed" nitrogen from the air, which in the form of nitrates in the soil gave a big boost to grass growth without having to apply nitrogenous manures.

Soil analysis provided more specific recommendations for fertilisers, and demonstration farms were purchased by the Government to show local farmers what could be achieved with improved plant and animal genetics, fertilisers, fencing and modern farm management.

It also provided veterinary advice, which meant that more animals survived and were productive.

The origins of the border protection service in the early 1890s were to guard against the accidental introduction of livestock and human diseases, weeds and pests.

The Government also took on export product instruction and certification, to ensure that the country obtained maximum revenue from primary products.

Quality control through systematic grading and branding of export produce demanded a better effort at consistency and quality from the farmers on the land and they responded willingly.

An early Agriculture Department campaign eliminated anthrax, and another prevented fruit fly from becoming established in the country.

However, the authorities were not so successful in preventing the spread of noxious weeds such as gorse, broom and thistles, nor the four-legged pests like rabbits, wild pigs, wild goats, stoats and weasels, deer and opossums.

Various attempts to turn noxious weeds and pests into profitable industries have been tried, especially with the rabbit, the most successful transition being that of imported Red deer and Elk (Wapiti). New Zealand now has the largest farmed deer industry in the world, with more than 2 million animals behind high fences, producing venison and velvet (soft antlers). Feral goats also provide a cheap and readily available base for crossbreeding and upgrading of goat meat and fibre production.

Oppossum fur is now being blended with wool for knitwear production, and advocates claim it can produce a pelt with qualities to rival those of mink. 

Apart from farmed animals and exotic trees, other introduced species, which have eventually proved economically useful, include trout and salmon. Regulations to protect the high-health status of New Zealand brown trout as a sport fishery prevent trout farming, but salmon are farmed in sea cages and river ponds.

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MARKETING

The origins of the two biggest primary industries in New Zealand, dairy and meat, involved the development of co-operative forms of ownership of processing and exporting facilities. Small local farmer-owned co-operatives were formed to collect and first-stage process cream, lamb, beef and pork.

Sometimes these co-operatives would fail, amalgamate or be purchased by private companies, often overseas-owned in the case of the meat industry. However, a long tradition of public and corporate service by farmers began in the early 1900s with boards of directors and shareholder committees in the co-operatives.

Local co-operatives competed to try and generate better rebates for supplying farmers, and were early-adopters of new technologies from the Departments of Agriculture and Scientific and Industrial Research.

The co-operative principle extended to export marketing, and sometimes even local marketing, when industry bodies (usually called producer boards) were granted powers of acquisition and sole trading by the New Zealand Government. The New Zealand Dairy Board and the New Zealand Meat Producers Board were founded in the 1920s, while the New Zealand Wool Board began in 1944. Price pooling and single-desk marketing began in the dairy industry in 1936, and all food exports were Government controlled during World War II.

Low international prices during the late 1970s forced both the Wool Board and Meat Board to use their reserve powers of compulsory acquisition of export products with price support from the Government, but these market interventions ended disastrously. 

Stockpiles of wool and beef resulted and both schemes became victims of deregulation in 1984. The producer boards themselves have also been substantially changed and now only cover activities such as research and development and information transfer.

Smaller producer boards for apples and kiwifruit, berries and even eggs, hops and pork have been disbanded and their assets and functions corporatised, usually with the majority of shares held by farmers and orchardists. 

The biggest and most important deregulation occurred during 2001, when the singledesk export marketing powers of the New Zealand Dairy Board were revoked and it was merged with the two biggest dairy processing co-operatives to form Fonterra Cooperative Group, the fourth-largest dairy company in the world. More than 13,000 farmers own the shares of Fonterra and the giant multinational still runs as a true farmer co-operative, continuing the tradition begun nearly 100 years ago. However, farmers are free to commit some of their milk supply to Fonterra competitors and can leave the co-operative and cash-in their share values whenever they choose.

Now all primary produce marketing activities are carried out by grower-owned or publicly-owned companies or co-operatives, with no Government support and limited in-market assistance. New Zealand farmers are champions of free agricultural trade.

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PROFITABILITY

When price supports and subsidies were removed from New Zealand agriculture in the 1980s, farmers had to restructure their operations, reduce their borrowings, amalgamate or sell their holdings and aim to become more profitable.

A transition which was forecast to take two or three years actually took more than a decade, until real profitability returned to dairying, sheep and beef farming, and deer farming.

However, farmers did have a reservoir of research results and industry organisations, including Crown Research Institutes (AgResearch, HortResearch and Crop & Food Research), the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Wool Research Organisation, the Dairy Research Institute, Federated Farmers, and the transformed producer boards.

These bodies continued to promote productivity and efficiency gains, through applied research work and technology transfer.

Numerous options were available to pastoral farmers to improve dry matter yield and metabolisable energy from grasses, legumes and herbs, and to lift their animal performance through better genetics, intensive grazing, irrigation, and animal health products. Most of this research work was carried out between 1945 and 1992 by

Government departments assisted by producer levies. 

A strong theme running through New Zealand agricultural development is the interaction between scientists and farmers. On-farm trials, demonstration farms, field days and conferences are all used to spread the messages and for researchers to ask what farmers really need.

Much technological advancement is based on low-cost options, such as new pasture varieties, so that farmers will apply the tools being offered. Official encouragement of high-cost, labour-intensive methods is almost unheard of, and New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of agricultural machinery use in the developed world.

The best example of increased productivity and profitability in agriculture in recent years has been lamb production, by using more fertile ewes, ovulation enhancers, easycare shepherding, improved lamb survivability and greater weight gains before slaughter. The weight of export lamb production from 30 million ewes today, is better than that from 50 million ewes only two decades ago. The national lambing percentage has risen from around 90% in 1980 to 120% now. The average carcase weight of export lamb has risen from 13kg to 17kg over the same period.

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SUSTAINABILITY

In 1992 the New Zealand Government restructured and created Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), which are corporate bodies with only one shareholder, the Crown (Government). Among the aims was user-pays research and development, including more responsibility for funding research on productivity improvement in agriculture falling on the ultimate beneficiaries, the farmers. They do this by levying themselves a small amount of the prices they receive for milk, meat, wool, cereals, seeds and fruit, which is aggregated and then passed by the relevant producer board to the CRIs, which must also contend for the available money against privately-owned research institutes and universities.

R&D funding for "blue sky" work still comes from the Government's Public Good Science Fund (PGSF), but that too is contestable between science providers. 

This is all part of a national drive towards "sustainability" in production, particularly land-based industries like farming. If farmers pay for the research work, then they will direct the search, take an interest in the process and value the outcomes. More importantly, they will implement the scientific recommendations, if appropriate for their farm. These days, recommendations may well be directed towards improving the quality of the produce, even at the expense of lower yields, rather than the productivity per hectare.

New Zealand agriculture in the sustainability era puts much more emphasis on the maintenance and even enhancement of natural values and resources, such as water quality, soil structure, biomass, air quality and landscape values.

The ecological changes brought about by the development of pastoral farming in the 19th and 20th centuries, principally because of the removal of the native bush cover, are now being addressed with bush reversion, native tree planting, stock exclusion fencing, pest management, riparian protection zones and the like.

Building on two centuries of development of pastoral agriculture, New Zealand has the regional climates, farms, orchards and knowledge to lead the world in producing the highest quality dairy foods, meats, seafoods, fruits, vegetables, grains and fibres.

Each region of New Zealand is different, and has its own characteristics for production.

Farmers in New Zealand lead the world in producing food which has the highest quality, free-from-chemicals and is sustainable. Not all farmers wish to go certifiably "organic" but the general standard of New Zealand food is "clean and green" and completely safe. New Zealand does not have food safety concerns such as E.coli contamination or bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE).