As part of that, their $300,000 grant, which was approved at a budget meeting in February, had a condition attached that the centre look at research outside viticulture.
At an economic, finance and community meeting last week, Marlborough Research Centre chief executive John Patterson presented its research allocations for the 2024-25 financial year to the council.
It prompted the mayor to ask if the centre had told anyone at the council they were investing $20,000 into New Zealand Dryland Forests Innovation.
“Because when you say MRC [Marlborough Research Centre] is an investor, it’s actually the council funding round that we give you that’s been invested, so I was curious about whether a conversation had been had with council to commercialise that?”
Patterson said he did not know.
He said the programme had been going for about 12 years, but was in the process of being commercialised in a partnership between MRC, Proseed (Ngāi Tahu), the University of Canterbury and Marlborough Timbers Ltd.
The programme bred hardwood, or XyloGene eucalypt, and sold about 400,000 seedlings in the 2023-24 year.
The $20,000 of council funding went to the commercial arm, and was for “ongoing research and development”.
It was subject to research applications to ensure the funding was leveraged.
“It doesn’t actually make a lot of money at the moment,” Patterson said.
“So 400,000 trees sounds like a lot, but the reality is in terms of getting a viable business we need to be in that three to four million trees per annum.
“What we are trying to do is substitute the importation of hardwood into New Zealand by growing it locally.
“It’s a long-term game.”
Other funding allocated was $30,000 for meteorological services, $115,000 for soil carbon research, $119,400 for winery wastewater research, $15,000 for a Charles Sturt PHD scholarship, $13,000 for a New Zealand Wine Centre internship and $7000 for herbicide trials.
Almost all of the projects had other funders and were signed off by the board of MRC, which included a council representative.
Taylor later said she was happy for the committee to sign off on receiving the report but wanted to add a couple of amendments to the agenda item.
She said while it took time to “turn a ship” she thought the centre’s KPIs needed to better reflect that the MRC needed to use its funding for more than just viticulture projects.
She thought the long-term plan working group was best placed to work on this.
“Also that we review the MRC funding agreement to the long-term plan group for review, to ensure that council investment is protected where ratepayer funding research is commercialised.”
This did not impact the amount of funding for MRC but would ensure there was better communication.
Deputy mayor and committee chair David Croad said reviewing some elements was important.
“I think the commercialisation end could potentially be a can of worms ... but look I think it’s nothing more than signalling we want to have further conversations.”
Patterson, who started the job on July 1, was also undertaking his own review on the function of the research committee and their funding processes.
This was expected to be completed by the end of the year.
- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air