A final shortlist of farms for the Future Farm project will be drawn up shortly by Beef + Lamb New Zealand.The organisation is working with Dunedin-based agribusiness company Abacus Bio to establish the project which would be used by B+LNZ to trial new technologies and farm systems.
B+LNZ wanted to lease a hill country sheep and beef property with about 6000 stock units and the response had been "excellent", general manager innovation Richard Wakelin said.
"There has been interest from farming families evaluating their next steps and from farm businesses looking to develop and support a closer connection to urban New Zealand.
"However, we still want to hear from farmers so they will need to get in quick," Mr Wakelin said.
The level of inquiry meant the project team had started evaluating the original model of a single farm and was considering how other farms might be connected to the primary future farm.
