‘Dairy is the sharp end of our work’

While AgResearch has cut 78 positions it is planning to employ 27 new staff in different areas, one being dairy food research, a growing field.

"We are looking at joint capability with DairyNZ to support the dairy sector and they have said they will continue to invest more with us," Richardson says. "And there is a lot more focus on farm systems and forages. But the main area of growth is dairy food companies looking to extract extra value from their products – including from dairy goats and the emerging sheep milk sector."

AgResearch works with Massey University and Fonterra and is a partner in the Riddet Institute at Massey, on whose campus it is building a joint food science facility.

"There is still more science the sector wants done, that's why we have done well in MBIE contestable funding rounds in joint ventures with the Miraka Dairy company and others."

Richardson says feedback from the industry tells them they are doing the science that is wanted. And private investors continue to use AgResearch expertise. But he concedes there is less interest now in some areas because priorities change.

But a former director of AgResearch, Dr Jock Allison, remains unconvinced about the validity of the AgResearch strategy that has driven the changes in personnel. He questions why AgResearch is starting to get involved in the food area when Massey and Otago universities are involved, as is Fonterra which he says has 500 staff involved in this area.

"They are getting big in Maori agribusiness. Well what's different about Maori agribusiness? Certainly there are opportunities on Maori land, but that's a farm advisors role; you don't need more science for that, so that is a fictitious reason. And they are getting into areas of farm systems -- essentially a farm advisors job."

Allison says it seems that AgResearch and the science funding people are now 'discovering' the farm extension business, which he says he did years ago. In his day he forced his scientists to talk to news media, but now he sees very little interaction between scientists, farmers and media.

He says when a new breakthrough is announced, farmers and others seeking more information mostly are referred to 'head office' – not to the scientist who did the work.

"In my days at Invermay farm advisors got groups of farmers from all over Otago, and for that matter NZ, and they came up with priorities about what they wanted. Then they came to regional research advisory meetings and we had the top farmers, farm advisors and scientists meeting for a whole day and working out priorities. Today they are just reinventing the wheel."