From the farm gate to high-tech laboratories 

Very exciting things are happening in the New Zealand rural sector, and we can expect to see some very significant changes over the next 10 years.

Brian Ward, CEO of the biotechnology industry group NZBio, says a huge amount of research is underway spanning from the farm gate to high tech laboratories, usually involving partnerships between private sector groups and Crown Research Institutes or universities, and the results will be impressive.

"What we're seeing at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg,'' he says.

"A lot of things are happening that are not evident yet. But if you look at agricultural biotechnology, and particularly in the species that are really important to New Zealand, there're a lot of exciting things that will come to the market over the next 10 years.''

Ward says that applies particularly to those areas that are historically important to New Zealand, such as dairy and sheep production, in which we are already well advanced.

New Zealand has historically invested heavily in these areas and has managed to maintain a long-term investment in them. But we have also invested strategically he says, which is delivering benefits today and which will deliver benefits of even greater significance in the future.

"This will also ensure that our agricultural production system maintains its international competitive advantage.''

Mike Dunbier, former Crop & Food Research CEO and now an independent consultant to the agricultural industry, agrees and says the amount of research underway in the sector is huge, with most being undertaken on behalf of private enterprise.

And he says the research is vital as part of New Zealand's move away from being a commodity producer.

"The price trend for commodities over the last 50 years has been steadily downwards,'' he says.

"On the other hand cost structures continue to go up and eventually those two lines intersect, and no matter how much you crank up production volumes, you end up still being uncompetitive.

"To get goods into global markets is a very difficult and sophisticated exercise, and there are lots of things that you have to do right. But I think the objective for us is to try and go as far up the value chain as we can here at home, so we capture as much of the value that the ultimate customer spends on our products.''

He says there's still plenty of room for us to move, and "heaps of opportunities'' to capitalise on the industry infrastructure that has been established over a long period of time.

Mr Dunbier says the performance of New Zealand farmers has been a major contributor to the success of the move away from commodity products.

"Farmers are capable of shifting from one form of production to another, and to really meet high consumer specifications, for example being able to trace products back to individual paddocks and individual animals,'' he says.

"When you compare them to their counterparts in other parts of the world they're incredible flexible and versatile, and that's because they've had to live by what they earn, and not by what the government pays them in subsidies.''

Another industry leader who is quick to give credit to the farmer is the CEO of the Meat Industry Association, Caryll Shailer.

She says the evidence of the enormous improvements that have been made on the farm can be seen in the decrease in the number of sheep in New Zealand. While the number has almost halved over the last 20 years to around 40 million, yet the actual tonnage of sheep meats shipped overseas annually remains the same.

"There've been huge changes on the farm in areas like lambing percentages and increasing carcase weights, and that has been one of the real success stories of the industry,'' she says.

"Over the last 20 years, there has been a huge shift from largely frozen carcases to upmarket products like chilled consumer-ready portions, supermarket-ready portions, and even ready-to-eat products. The consumer at the end of the day wants things to be attractive, convenient, easy to prepare, nutritious, tasty, provide value for money and above all be within their budget, and that's what we give them.''

Ms Shailer says there has been a very rapid pick-up of new technologies in all parts of the processing chain, a move which has seen the industry go from the commodity-type environment, to a position where is it part of the contemporary food business.

She says one of the flagship technologies has been accelerated aging and conditioning which ensures consistent tenderness. Others have involved atmospheric packaging which extends the shelf life and improves the appearance of meat products, the introduction of robotics in areas like deboning and packaging which provides more consistency of products, electronic product tracking, and automated temperature monitoring and control.

The changes in the agricultural sector have been huge. Not too many years ago, the bulk of New Zealand's huge wool clip went into clothing and floor coverings. While carpet and clothing still consumes the vast majority of our much-reduced wool harvest, today products derived from wool are found in health products, makeup and in the near future will be used in treating painful damaged joints, and repairing broken bones.

Other innovations underway at places like Waikato's Innovation Park offer wide ranging benefits across virtually the whole primary sector from the possibility of dramatically slashing milk transport costs by removing the water content of milk, to better ways of managing animal and even human reproduction.

Other research has seen innovative end uses for former waste products, such as the use of hoki skin as a means of removing sediment from wine and beer.