Over half of Maori male school leavers leave without any school qualification. To put this into context, in the future this group will be responsible for paying taxes to fund health and the rest of our superannuation.
The Ministry (MPI), meanwhile, estimates more than 50,000 workers (26,000 tertiary trained) will be required to meet future aspirational goals of increasing value of exports while sustaining our place as an agricultural superpower.
Maori are arguably predisposed to building a resilient farming sector. Traditional cultural values such as Whakapapa (genealogy), Whanaungatanga (tribal relationships) and Kaitiakitanga (land stewardship) embody what it takes to establish a profitable and sustainable business.
South Island iwi Ngai Tahu is well versed in these synergies with portfolios in forestry, fishing, tourism and farming.
Its business model has added resilience, with its farming arm collaborating with Lincoln University and Telford to produce graduates who progress to managerial roles after starting at farm entry level.
The Whenua Kura programme started last year, with on-farm training and study offering young Maori (aged 18-34) a certificate in farming (dairy). More recently, students were offered the incentive of achieving a tertiary qualification with a Diploma in Agriculture course.
Ngai Tahu pay tuition fees and students are also offered a cadetship on the farms throughout their holiday breaks. Those who gain the diploma can progress to degree level.
Programme manager Renata Hakiwai said the mainland iwi's ultimate aspiration was to establish "Maori as leaders in Agribusiness".
"With the increase in iwi settlements and the return of assets there is even greater opportunities for Maori, to grow revenues and develop our farming," he said.
At present there were 32 students including 12 women. Mr Hakiwai said dairy farming was the focus, though six students were learning about beef and sheep farming.
"The young women tend to be prominent in the more vocational field," he said. From the 10 students studying the diploma at Lincoln, five were women.
Otherwise, Whenua Kura training levels 3 and 4 were specifically geared towards preparing students for land based employment, "injecting cultural values, land stewardship with bringing communities closer together" the key aspects.
Since last August, the entry courses had achieved a "good strike rate" with 10 students already employed -- seven staying on at Ngai Tahu.
Mr Hakiwai said the programme had its challenges and it was a case of "going into the unknown". They had to build a workforce and there were logistics around getting out to farms and setting up accommodation.
Moreover, the Maori youth of today were generally urbanised and as a result, had grown up disconnected from the land and their culture.
"We've had to try and break that cycle," he said. The aim was to make students aware of the importance of traditional communities and how that builds resilience and protects assets.
Dairy farm manager and Agribusiness student Hemi Dawson looks after a 1000-strong herd at one of Ngai Tahu's Canterbury development farms. He also mentors and teaches students.
"They [students] are our future leaders and it would be really awesome to see them come through one day and manage the farms, and I've made that my personal goal -- I want all of the Whenua Kura students who come through to progress," he said.
Raised in Dunedin, Mr Dawson said rural life took some adjusting to, with its lack of facilities and services. But he and his whanau have no regrets.
"I couldn't go back to city life now. I much rather visit and return home to my rural surrounds," he said. The opportunity to work on his ancestral land had changed his life and outlook.
"There is always something to learn sector workforce in farming because it is a living entity. There is always a different way to do things and look at things," he said.
Next year the Whenua Kura programme would be expanded, with level six and seven courses dedicated to research. Mr Hakiwai said they would also be looking to add more beef and sheep into the existing structure.
Ngai Tahu Farming expects 300 students to graduate to employment in the farming sector over the next five to eight years.
Mr Hakiwai said "For us, it's about diversifying the options as well -- we can start with agriculture but the potential is there to move into other sectors of the primary industries such as apiary studies, forestry, horticulture, and environmental science and research options."
Maori farmers' willingness to diversify is not new, and is borne out of survival, rather than modern resilience measures against climate change or nitrogen output regulations.
In a paper published in the New Zealand Grassland Association, Dr Tanira Kingi outlines the often concealed strengths of Maori agriculture, saying the uniqueness of indigenous culture presents vast potential for the future.
A former Agresearch senior scientist, he proposes a vertically integrated whenua business model and discusses Maori culture's inherent tendency towards organisational resilience where Maori farmers take a long-term view with succession, development and assets.
Maori agriculture is "vibrant" he says, this in spite of land treaty grievances and the population shift to urban areas.
Those protocols around ancestral land, legislation and historical land loss made selling up unacceptable to the landowning majority.
"Generally speaking, Maori don't sell their ancestral land," he said.
In his paper, Dr Kingi relates Maori cultural values with modern agribusiness principles of investment, diversification and collaboration, and behind this, the iwi aspiration for landowners to manage their land more sustainably.
And, through trading and joint arrangements with other iwi the potential exists to develop an integrated business model surpassing individual farm units "through scale and to capture value chain opportunities".
He also suggests Maori farming collectives are at lesser risk than single-enterprise farms when coping with adverse conditions or environmental challenges. Moreover, they had different motivations for driving business performance and efficiency.
In a typical catchment, Maori farming operations will be backed by multiple enterprises. This meant landowners and shareholders were obligated to ensure consistent returns with dividend on shares or owners' investment.
"Those [Maori] corporations generally have solid structure and ready access to capital to deal with recurring issues around erosion, sedimentation or leaching. It forces trustees to think more specifically about portfolios and long-term planning."
Also, because of the intergenerational stewardship, there is less likelihood of debt and more focus on healthy balance sheets, he said.
Historically Maori were less reliant on one aspect of farming, choosing instead to utilise natural land assets in times of hardship. Being able to harvest forestry plantations early or when it suited, and the ability to move stock from milking platforms to other dairy support or even drystock areas of the farm, was an advantage that smaller scale farms did not have.
Taratahi is the country's largest agriculture training provider, with a suite of courses which cover all aspects of farming from entry to diploma level in partnership with Massey and Lincoln Universities. Students have also the option of continuing their training with the Primary ITO.
The Wairarapa-based organisation receives the majority of funding from the Tertiary Education Commission and, with campuses throughout the country, it has been in existence since 1919.
Taratahi Trustee Chair Mavis Mullins said Maori accounted for around 30 per cent of students (584 out of 2100) across all course disciplines, with a fifth being young women.
"Our Maori students are attracted by the deep connection with the land which Taratahi's hands-on immersion in farming offers. At all levels the Taratahi experience teaches teamwork and self-reliance in a wide range of skills that build confident farmers," Ms Mullins said.
As with many tertiary programmes leading to satisfying careers, costs can be prohibitive for Maori students and their families. However, a recent initiative with the Government's Maori Pasifika Trade Training Scheme is making a difference.
Since the establishment of an MOU with the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), Maori enrolling in Taratahi programmes has climbed an unprecedented 60 per cent since last year as a result of closer affiliation.
"We're able to offer competitive scholarships to Maori young people wishing to take up agricultural trades training via Taratahi," said Ms Mullins.
Funding and subsidisation of study fees and travel was a big incentive and students were understandably taking up the advantages on offer.
The training provider was building relationships with iwi, Maori trustees, schools, youth organisations while also establishing marae based training.
"We see not challenges but immense opportunities to attract more Maori students into agriculture and agribusiness."
Taratahi "was a partner [of] choice in this endeavour", with the progression of students to positions of leadership in the primary sector being a high priority for iwi.
However, Maori are not flocking to our traditional tertiary institutions. The National Farming Review contacted the University of Waikato Agribusiness faculty who were reluctant to discuss rolls, but a spokesperson said numbers were notably small despite the institution "bending over backwards" to attract Maori.
Massey University, meanwhile, did provide figures and they showed Maori accounted for just 7 per cent of the 1104 students enrolled for semester 2 across all Agri-science disciplines.
Massey senior lecturer Dr Nick Roskruge, conceded numbers were disappointing but the university was soon launching a Maori Agribusiness major with their commerce programme which was open to all New Zealanders, and this reflected a growing interest.
He said: "There is no lack of effort, but it's a slow process with Maori and it takes time for anything to gain traction." Massey was attracting urban Maori, even from Auckland, and those students were "keen and generally doing well", he said.
A future primary sector reliant on Maori was conceivable, though the pathway to achieving that might come in other forms.
"The skill set required to participate in future Maori agriculture and horticulture and other primary sectors is varied, and of course we have other programmes such as food science, engineering etc. all of which can provide skills relevant to the sector."
Nevertheless, the agriculture sector should be targeting all youth, as the majority were urbanised and generally would share the same peer influences regardless of ethnicity.
"Young people have to be keen and genuinely interested. It's not a case of 'there you are, do this'. Our biggest problem has always been convincing people of the importance of agriculture and getting those smarter kids involved."
Farmers could do more to encourage youth to get interested, especially with farms likely to come more under corporate management with the decline of the family farm model.
"They [youth] need to be exposed to the environment and have that positive experience at a much younger age. It's about building relationships and that can be done through cadetships or hunting or youth clubs even," he said.
Dr Kingi, meanwhile, believes the Te Ture Whenua land reforms could be the trigger that awakens Maori to the potential of agriculture.
The land reform legislation was introduced in 1993 with the purpose of promoting the retention, use, development, and control of Maori land subject to the Treaty of Waitangi.
It would benefit Maori in two ways. Landowners would be granted more control over how they utilise their land. And, as a support system it would enable better structures, improving governance and ownership.
The transfer of individual trusts to essentially corporate entities would raise the profile of Maori farming and create more certainty with banks.
"It's always an aspiration to get more Maori into agriculture and building a capable workforce is linked to the land reform, though it does not always follow," he said.
