Seeking more profit in red meat

We catch up with Denise Bewsell, specialist extension manager for the RMPP, who explains how the $64 million, seven year programme aims to drive long-term, sustainable improvements in the sector.

A key focus for RMPP is extending the knowledge and improving the uptake of good practice on New Zealand farms. What are the key objectives behind RMPP's pilot farms?

We want profitability from greater sustainable productivity for sheep and beef farmers. The farms are enabling us to find different ways of working with meat processors/exporters to help improve productivity and profitability, and how we can develop an extension system beneficial to all involved in the supply chain; for instance, by developing relationships between the meat processor and supplier or mentoring and training farmers who want to develop extension activities.

How does the project work?

We have six partner meat processors: Alliance Group, ANZCO, Blue Sky Meats, Greenlea, Progressive Meats and Silver Fern Farms. They are running different extension projects with some of their sheep and beef farmer suppliers, all linking into the value chain. About 70 individual farm businesses are involved and a wide range of activities. Rabobank and ANZ are also running more business-focused extension activities. There's a lot of innovation and goodwill; for instance, meat companies are holding joint events or are organising visits for suppliers to other companies' pilot farms.

What's the progress like?

Progress has been good: about 60% of participating farmers have made some kind of change, achieving great results onfarm, and very good thinking has developed on extension. For instance, we had several farms working individually in the North Island, but the group work in the South Island is going so well that a farmer group is now being formed in the North Island. Farmers are learning from other farmers and meat processors are working together. There are groups, workshops and one-to-one sessions with rural experts, on topics such as body condition scoring, using software for feed budgeting, soils, forage and nutrition, gathering data on kill weights and benchmarking year-on-year farm results.

What are the challenges?

To be successful the project needs to be scalable. We are doing these smaller pilot programmes but need to be able to scale them up to an industry level. There are challenges to identifying benefits for all parties involved but we are working through these. Some benefits are long term, for instance, building trusted relationships with suppliers and other experts takes time but will provide additional benefits over time.

What are the opportunities?

This is an opportunity for NZ's red meat sector to go full steam ahead, increasing productivity and profitability by people working collaboratively, with benefits throughout the value chain. It's a means for people to work in extension and contribute in being part of a vibrant industry. And it is opening career possibilities across the red meat sector as we seek to build the capacity and capability required to assist the sector to move forward.

What feedback have you received from farmers?

We are getting good feedback from the pilot farmers through the processor representatives on what is working well and what isn't. The level of goodwill from everyone involved has been fantastic. Everyone is willing to get involved and share things. There is a big level of commitment and willingness to get in and do it. We are also just about to do our next round of evaluation and are excited to see what kind of feedback comes on where we are with the extension activities, and to get more detail on the highlights and challenges.

What feedback have you received from processors?

Some are saying this is a space they really want to continue in, building trusted relationships and facilitating improvements as farmers identify areas they would like to understand better. We have monthly meetings of all the companies involved in the extension work and it has been great to see people starting to get excited about things that are going well, but also sharing challenges and asking how others are addressing those. It is really humming at the moment.

To find out more about the RMPP and its six key projects visit www.rmpp.co.nz