B+LNZ farmer council sets future extension focus

These RDPs, set to be completed and shared with farmers in late September, will guide B+LNZ’s extension programme for 2024-25 and beyond, that it says will prioritise B+LNZ’s investments of both time and levy to meet regional farmer priorities and needs.

Each of B+LNZ’s seven farmer councils across New Zealand, alongside their extension team, produce an annual RDP to address the unique needs of farmers across the country and setting goals that will ‘shift the dial’ for farmers in each region.

This year, farmer councillors and the extension team adopted a new data-driven approach: they interviewed farmers and rural professionals, gathering a broad range of insights. This was combined with regional information and data from B+LNZ’s Insights team, including farm numbers, scale, type, land use, farm performance, cropping and nutrients, and environmental issues, to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced by farmers.

With all this information, the farmer council and extension team ‘workshopped’ their plan, from an overarching guiding statement through to five focus areas with objectives and goals for the extension team to develop the RDP.

B+LNZ’s general manager extension, Justine Kidd, says they want to ensure that before drafting the RDPs, each region has a solid understanding of farm and farmer demographics and performance in their area.

“It is important to directly engage with farmers to identify local priorities and their unique opportunities and challenges.”

While each region’s RDP is tailored to its specific opportunities and challenges and reflect regional farm systems, there were also common themes that emerged across the country.

“Some of the important areas identified by all regions was a focus on farm business performance, financial management and confidence, farmer wellbeing, production efficiencies, feed management and planning, staff management and innovation.”

These draft RDPs were discussed at the June B+LNZ Farmer Council Conference to provide a national view.

“The data provided by the B+LNZ Insights team enabled us to have some really insightful discussions at our RDP workshops and at the recent conference.

“The sharing of our farmer councillors’ ideas and perspectives from across all regions was really impactful. It highlighted the great work that is being done for our farmers across the country,” she adds.

B+LNZ’s extension team is now adding delivery detail to the plan, phasing delivery activity and budgets, and the proposed final plan will be presented back for regional B+LNZ farmer councils to review. B+LNZ will share the finalised RDPs with farmers in late September.

Refreshed Strategy

B+LNZ has launched its refreshed strategy that it says is a deliberate refocus on enhancing and sustaining on-farm productivity and profitability.

“These RDPs are critical to the partnership with our B+LNZ farmer council, ensuring B+LNZ extension work is guided by farmers, for farmers, focusing on and delivering regional needs,” says Justine Kidd.

B+LNZ established the farmer council to provide a pathway for farmers to lead, support and engage with B+LNZ’s regional extension by setting regional priorities, helping with identifying critical topics and supporting the extension team to deliver events and activities that farmers want.

“Farmer councils are a key sounding board for B+LNZ. They are our extension team’s critical partner, representing farmers and providing advice to guide decision- making and support us in delivering value to our farmers,” says Kidd.