TECHNICAL
SUSTAINABLE VEGETABLE SYSTEMS: CONNECTING WITH GROWERS Words by Gemma Carroll : Potatoes NZ Inc. communications & engagement officer
Plant & Food Research social scientist Toni White
Plant & Food Research social scientist Waka Paul
Field trials in Sustainable Vegetable Systems (SVS) are providing data that will better inform more bespoke vegetable-focused modelling and tools.
produced to guide nutrient management are informed by grower perspectives, experience and knowledge, and are practical and fit for purpose.
The SVS Project has a focus on delivering practical outcomes for growers, helping them to navigate nutrient management (particularly nitrogen), social licence to grow and the increasing complexity of environmental regulation. The project aims to advance vegetable growers’ ability to access and utilise information that supports them in making good nutrient management decisions on their properties. Vitally however, the team on the SVS project realise that there is more to growing vegetables than what their science alone can tell them. This is where it is important for us to have growers’ input to inform the project about the design of resources that growers can use on their farms to support decision making. A solution that doesn’t fit the needs of growers would be no solution at all. Therefore, two social scientists from Plant & Food Research, Toni White and Waka Paul, have joined the SVS project to ensure that the tools and resources
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Toni and Waka will be contacting growers in the next few months to participate in interviews or grower group discussions in the Pukekohe, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu and Canterbury growing regions. They will be exploring growers’ attitudes, values and beliefs around nutrient management, and whether there have been any changes in attitudes and practices. They aim to get an overview of current practices. Also, of the tools growers are currently using to inform decision making on nutrient management, what they like or do not like about these tools, and what they would like to see in any new tool that might become available – both in information content and functionality.
Toni and Waka will be contacting growers in the next few months to participate in interviews or grower group discussions in the Pukekohe, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu and Canterbury growing region
