Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ), along with its partnering organisations, has launched a new website for the ground-breaking Hill Country Futures research programme.

The new site features key information about the programme, its partnering organisations and researchers and – in time – will host resources for both farmers and researchers.

Jenni Vernon, the Hill Country Future’s Chair says the Hill Country Future Landscapes research is an opportunity for alternative practices and pathways to be tested and shared among the wider rural community.

“Farmers are facing increasing challenges around impacts on freshwater, biodiversity, climate change resilience, and extreme weather events while at the same time needing to remain profitable.”

“To be able to adapt and continue farming sustainably for the long term we need to empower farmers, behind the farm gate, with different tools to transition and transform our New Zealand rural landscape function.”

Dan Brier, B+LNZ’s General Manager Farming Excellence says the website will provide key research findings to help advance a resilient future for our hill country farmers and their communities.

View the Hill Country Futures website at https://www.hillcountryfutures.co.nz/

About the Hill Country Futures programme

Hill Country Futures is a long-term $8.1m programme focused on future-proofing the profitability, sustainability and wellbeing of New Zealand’s hill country farmers, their farm systems, the environment and rural communities.

The Hill Country Futures programme differs from most pastoral-based research in that it considers the whole-farm system and, critically, the wider communities these systems exist within. The programme incorporates traditional science research, farmer knowledge, social research and citizen science.

The programme is co-funded by B+LNZ, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Seed Force New Zealand and PGG Wrightson Seeds.

The science providers are AgResearch, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, Cameron Ludemann Consulting, Ecosystem Consultants, Kunzea Ltd, Lincoln University, Massey University, Manaaki Whenua (Landcare Research), On-farm Research and Plant & Food Research.

Source:  Beef + Lamb New Zealand

Author: Bob Edlin

Editor of AgScience Magazine and Editor of the AgScience Blog

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