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Massey master’s student Hayden Wilson with Massey’s artificially intelligent farm assistant.
Massey University is living the ‘future of farming’ theme at National Fieldays this year with robots, future foods artificially intelligent farm assistants, and a focus on health and wellbeing.
This is the university’s first year as a partner of the Fieldays event overall, and its second year partnering in the health and wellbeing programme.
Massey’s stand in the main pavilion will display an artificially intelligent farm assistant.
The screen-based prototype will allow people visiting the stand to ask farm-related questions of an avatar. Voice recognition technology and pre-loaded farm data will enable the avatar to quickly analyse the question and put forward answers and solutions.
The stand will also have plant-based proteins, including soy patties that look and taste like meat, and bread made from nut and cricket flour.
Massey’s College of Health will have a stand in the Health Hub, where they will be asking crowds to play a spin-the-wheel style health promotion game designed to engage people in conversations about health and wellbeing.
It will cover different health topics including nutrition, exercise and social life, to expand people’s knowledge so they can better look after themselves and others.
Two Massey dietetic students will run a ‘sugary drink’ activity, where people can try different drinks, like flavoured waters, to find out more about sugar in drinks and the alternatives.
Massey knowhow will also feature on other sites.
The C-Dax stand (site F25) will show the C-Dax pasture meter robot developed with graduates from Massey University and representing the future of smart farming.
The robot uses pasture meter technology to measure pasture, autonomously allowing for its optimum use while saving labour costs. Massey mechatronics graduates Mitchell Hampton and Tim Sutcliffe, now working with C-Dax on the next stage of field trials, will front the display.
The robot has been entered in the Fieldays Innovation Awards.
On the Massey Agritech Research Centre stand the professor of robotics, Johan Potgieter, will talk about the future of farming.
This talk and networking event will be hosted by Massey’s Alumni Foundation on Thursday June 14 from 5.30pm at The Verandah.
Bedford truck
Massey’s first exhibit was brought up on a Bedford truck by a young Ralph Sims, now a Massey professor at the forefront of climate change issues.
In that truck, Professor Sims had farm machinery teaching equipment and a tent.
In 1975, Sims also started the tractor pull competition as a way to educate drivers about good driving to save fuel.
Can discarded beef skins become premium dog food? Would camel milk work for your morning flat white? These are just two of the questions that will be answered next week at an international conference in Palmerston North.
Changing skill demands and new job opportunities in the primary sector have prompted Massey University to create a new degree course and add a significant major into another in 2025.
Always be on the lookout for new job opportunities and get outside your comfort zone.
She came all the way from a sheep station in Tasmania especially to be presented with the top prize in this year's Massey University agriculture, horticulture and environmental science award.
Massey University is tweaking the format of its agricultural courses.
Fonterra’s board has been reduced to nine - comprising six farmer-elected and three appointed directors.
Five hunting-related shootings this year is prompting a call to review firearm safety training for licencing.
The horticulture sector is a big winner from recent free trade deals sealed with the Gulf states, says Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg.
Fonterra shareholders are concerned with a further decline in the co-op’s share of milk collected in New Zealand.
A governance group has been formed, following extensive sector consultation, to implement the recommendations from the Industry Working Group's (IWG) final report and is said to be forming a 'road map' for improving New Zealand's animal genetic gain system.
Free workshops focused on managing risk in sharefarming got underway last week.
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