Precis colin dargie

The Farmers Club Charitable Trust Travel Bursary The Supply Chain of Knowledge Transfer in New Zealand Agriculture Colin S A Dargie October / November 2008 In my role as an Agricultural Consultant with SAC Farm Business Services, I deliver a wide range of consultancy services to farmers and other rural businesses in Eastern Scotland. A key part of this role is helping these businesses learn about and adopt new ideas and technologies to improve their overall business performance. In order to carry this out effectively, knowledge & technology transfer must be delivered in an efficient, effective and cost effective manner.

New Zealand farmers have long been hailed as innovators with a thirst for knowledge, new ideas and new technologies to improve their business performance.

My Farmers Club Charitable Trust study tour afforded me the opportunity to come face to face with leading farmers, consultants, advisers & scientists across New Zealand and to learn about new and innovative methods of knowledge & technology transfer.

It was made clear to me throughout my study tour that New Zealand farmers have a thirst for knowledge to improve the overall profitability, viability and sustainability of their farming businesses. Theirs is an adaptable industry with the willingness to change to meet market requirements and meet personal and business objectives.

Business growth and change can only occur through the uptake of knowledge to allow effective decision making.

Until the late 1980s, New Zealand farmers benefited from a network of government funded extension officers providing a free advice service to farmers as a means of getting science and technology into practice on farm. Since then, methods of knowledge and technology transfer have changed and farmers are more reliant on private consultants and industry funded initiatives from which to gain knowledge.

My study tour looked to investigate different methods of delivery and evaluate the pros and cons of each.

The Monitor Farm Programme has been one of the great success stories of Knowledge Transfer in New Zealand agriculture and the concept has been adopted successfully in Scotland in recent years.

The concept has served the meat & wool industry well in New Zealand for over ten years now. The NZ deer industry has follow suit with ‘focus farms’ based on the monitor farm model. Like all good business models, change is inevitable and necessary to maintain impact and to continue to represent good value to funders and participants.

My study tour brought me face to face with Monitor Farmers, facilitators, scientists and others with an involvement in Monitor Farms. Through discussion with these parties, some shortfalls in the effectiveness of the Monitor Farm Programme were highlighted.

Monitor farms have tended to start out with an average or below average farms which can alienate those with a higher level of technical and financial performance who see little to gain from participation. One Monitor Farmer commented that while he could see the benefits gained by the community group of applying the activities learned on his farm, he himself was not seeing a significant improvement in farm performance from participation.

Raising the starting level of performance of the monitor farm may indeed have the opposite effect by alienating those with a lower level of knowledge and personal farm performance.

On a similar tack, Monitor Farms have been criticised for trying to implement too much change on one individual farm business, thus limiting the ability to measure impacts and correlate improvements in performance to one particular change in policy.

Furthermore, the commitment required from the Monitor Farmer to open up his or her business to the community group for a three year period and to implement change throughout is one which deters many from taking on this mantle and contributing to the continued success of the programme.

One respected NZ farm consultant and Monitor Farm facilitator has pioneered the concept of Monitor Groups to allow individual components of the programme to be implemented on different farms thus reducing the commitment required from the Monitor Farmer, ensuring business or enterprise modifications are introduced on the most appropriate unit / or within the most appropriate system and that individual strategies can be monitored and measured most effectively.

Monitor Farms provide a useful platform for discussion, social interaction and demonstration of new ideas and technologies. Choice of Monitor Farm and Monitor Farmer is critical to the project success and to avoid alienation of participants. The ‘one size fits all approach’ can still alienate participants and for some lack of ownership of the project limits commitment and adoption of technologies on farm.

Monitor Farms must evolve to continue to have an impact on the performance of the industry and the UK should learn from their evolution in New Zealand.

“In what other profession can you meet with your competitors once a month, scrutinise the business tip to toe, view profit & loss accounts & balance sheets and walk away with a fistful of good ideas?”

This is how one farm consultant summarised farm business groups and the potential benefit to members and the performance of their individual businesses.

Farm Business Groups are a long established concept in NZ agriculture and one which evolved through the extension services offered by MAF over 20 years ago.

The Farm Business Group affords like minded farmers the opportunity to meet on a regular basis with peers to discuss business performance in a closed and confidential group. Such has been the success of these groups that farmers were willing to fund the administration and facilitation in their own right following the removal of a state funded extension officer to perform these functions.

Farm Business Groups provide a more intimate forum for discussion than Monitor Farms and allow the sharing of information in a confidential manner and with standard levels of divulgence. With smaller numbers, the members can have more control over how the group evolves and take more ownership over its management.

Equality exists among group members and all are seen to be giving and taking information to the same degree.

The concept of Demonstration Farms is one which has developed from Monitor Farms and was first applied on the Lincoln University Dairy Farm near Christchurch.

In response to the success of this first Demonstration Farm, a further such farm has been developed in Southland, near Invercargill to replicate its success.

The Southland Demonstration Farm has been developed in response to the extensive conversion to dairying in the area and the desire for a focal point for knowledge and technology transfer. The farm receives support from Dairy NZ and a number of commercial sponsors and is operated on a commercial basis on a 15 year lease agreement.

Key benefits of the Demonstration Farm are.

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The farm is run by the community group for the community group. The farm employs a manager, staff and a consultant to oversee overall strategic management. In contrast to a Monitor Farm, the Demonstration Farm is not constrained by the personal objectives of the Monitor Farmer or his staff. The management team can take decisions on the future strategy of the farm without being influenced or constrained by the Monitor Farm business.

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The Demonstration Farm takes science and puts it into practice on a commercial scale. Research farms had often been criticised for the scale on which they work or the necessity for research protocol limiting the commercial potential of science. The Demonstration Farm concept removes this and puts proven science into practice in a commercial situation.

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The Demonstration Farm relieves pressure on the Monitor Farmer to reveal his or her business to the community group. Monitor Farms can be criticised for being a one way channel of information and the Monitor Farm can feel disadvantaged for opening up his or her business with no similar level of divulgence from participants.

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The Demonstration Farm provides a regular flow of information to the community group in the form of weekly “Farm Walk Notes”. These are designed to be a short, punchy report highlighting key performance indicators, successes and constraints for the week allowing community group members to benchmark themselves against the Demonstration Farm. These notes are emailed or available for download from the Demonstration Farm website from where number of downloads can be measured to give an indication of participation.

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Being run as a commercial farm, the Demonstration Farm must be seen to be making an above average financial return.

Sound cost control and transparency in financial data provides a sound financial benchmark for community group members.

This study tour afforded me the opportunity to come face to face with leading scientists, consultants and advisers across New Zealand and see first hand the approach of the country’s agricultural industry to Knowledge Transfer. In a short period of time, I had the chance to see innovative and successful KT techniques in practice and learn useful lessons for the application of KT in my profession in the UK. I am most grateful to the Farmers Club Charitable Trust, my employers - SAC - and the vast array of organisations and individuals in New Zealand who gave most willingly of their time and expertise to make the experience what it was.

On a personal level, the experience has broadened my horizons and developed key interpersonal skills applicable to my career. While difficult to measure, these skills will be of value to me in my working and social life for many years to come.

Knowledge Transfer is a constantly evolving technique and our industry must continue to strive to develop new and innovative techniques to ensure science is made available in a practical, measurable manner to continue to enhance the performance of farming businesses in the future.