Fieldays boost farmer innovation despite science reorganisation: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth

NZ Herald

09-06-2025

Sheep, also flightless, are decreasing 'thanks' to Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) settings favouring pine trees, but also reflecting changes in markets.
The field days, at least in the case of the National Fieldays held at Mystery Creek in June (except during the Covid disruptions), go from strength to strength, despite the fog that is common in June in Waikato.
The point about field days, whether national, local or on-farm, is that they allow farmer-to-farmer exchange of information, as well as farmer-to-researcher, rural professionals, policymakers and interested urban-dwellers.
They also allow researchers, rural professionals and policymakers to interact with each other – and the people who have left the big cities to embrace whatever the field days have on offer.
Field days are, to quote an advertisement for a popular car, a real charcuterie of activity and people.
It is the charcuterie that stimulates innovation – new thinking about a problem, challenge or issue.
Farmers might be there to gather information and kick a few tyres of potential replacement tractors, but the value of the conversation is often to the person listening.
Scientists, researchers and developers frequently get their ideas from farmers, saying that they've met a problem or explaining how they overcame that problem.
This stimulates the scientist to think about how the problem might be solved or how the solution might be tested more widely.
And then they do the research.
At least, that is how it has worked in the past.
The reorganisations in the science sector won't stop the ideas, but how the 'action' will follow has yet to be decided.
Dr Shane Reti, the Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology (coincidentally a good description of what can be seen at National Fieldays), and also the Minister for Universities, inherited the reorganisation in the Cabinet reshuffle at the beginning of the year.
Dr Jacqueline Rowarth says farmer innovation defines New Zealand.
Reti is clear that the reorganisation aligns with the Government's priorities of driving economic growth and will allow the new organisations to be 'in a better position to deliver excellent science'.
'It will also make sure they're adopting more collaborative ways of working with universities and seeking partnerships with private sector investors, sooner,' he says.
The focus is on generating money and it is hardly surprising that the new Science Advisory Panel, chaired by the Prime Minister's new chief science advisor, Dr John Roche, has members with a track record of investment, as well as engineering and science.
Comments have been made about the apparent predominance of dairy, but it is the track record of achievement behind current roles that should be examined.
Further, New Zealand should be reassured that people who have an interest in the greatest revenue-earning sector are involved in the future of investment.
The big question remains whether the investment will be enough to stimulate what is needed.
The budget-shuffling indicated an emphasis on commercially viable science, but the quantum of investment is still below what has been urged repeatedly by the science sector.
Reti has said: 'Clear direction for the science, innovation and technology sector will give the public and private sector confidence to forge ahead with critical research that will help grow our economy.'
This suggests that co-investment is expected from companies and from the levy bodies that support the different sectors in primary production.
This is not a new plan.
'User-pays' dominated the thinking in the creation of the Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) in 1992.
This was when most of the government funding became contestable.
Unintended consequences included bidding for safe science (outcome known) and reduced collaboration (explained in Dr Doug Edmeades' paper Is the Commercial Model Appropriate for Science?).
To encourage collaboration, the National Science Challenges (NSCs, 2014-2024) 'brought together the country's top scientists to work collaboratively across disciplines, institutions and borders to achieve their objectives'.
Getting going, however, took longer than anticipated because of the cross-party negotiations that had to occur before the collaboration could start.
Reti's statement on collaboration for the new system is important.
The lessons from the CRIs and the NSCs are the foundation for a better future and, knowing the focus is the primary sector, the National Fieldays are a great place to start talking with the farmers.
Along with clouds, kiwi, sheep and, more recently, cows, it is farmer innovation that defines New Zealand, allowing the country to have a first-world economy on the basis of agricultural exports.
That is an extraordinary achievement.
Whether the future continues in the same vein will depend upon how the science reorganisation plays out and the talks that are held with the primary sector.
Farmers continue to be the key.