Please see the below responses to the Official Information Request
received on 18/12/2023

 

Re the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge (NSC)

 

The OLW NSC objective, set by Government, is to enhance the production and
productivity of New Zealand’s primary sector, while maintaining and
improving the quality of the country’s land and water for future
generations

 

Response: Our Land and Water’s (OLW) mandate also includes making all
information generated by the Challenge publicly accessible and readily
available.  Consequently all of the information requested is on our
website at:  [1]https://ourlandandwater.nz   or [2]www.ourlandandwater.nz
. The information can be accessed either via the tabs at the top of the
main website, or by a search using the “Explore our tools …” box. I have
referred to the former method below, as this would capture ALL projects of
relevance to the broad questions being asked. 

 

Please can you supply this information:

 

Which programmes are funded, funding amount, and timescale for:

 

1. Research looking at relationships between the nutrient profile of
soils, the bioavailability of nutrients, microbiological activity and farm
practices which might enhance nutrient uptake, reduce input costs and
reduce plant or stock disease or vulnerability to drought conditions. This
might apply to cropping, market garden/vegetable growing, horticulture
and/or dairy and meat production.

 

Response:

The information of research projects addressing these topics can be found
on our website under the “Our Science” in the first of our three science
themes: Future Landscapes.   There is a webpage dedicated to each of the
27 projects in this theme, and this page gives the cost of the project,
the research team and collaborators on the research as well as a
non-technical summary of the research and its purpose.  All outputs from
the research are linked to this webpage and can be easily accessed if more
detail is needed. 

 

2. Programmes such (1) above which are working directly with farmers and
growers (as case studies) either in cropping, market garden/vegetable
growing, horticulture and dairy and meat production to track nutrients in
soil, microbial health of soil, soil management and crop, plant or stock
health over a period of 3-7 years (to allow for seasonable variability).

 

Response:

Again, this information is given in the project webpages for the Future
Landscapes Theme.  Many projects are working directly with farmers and
growers, and this should be evident from the collaborators listed, but we
are happy to provide more information on specific projects if this is
unclear. 

 There are also nearly 50 shorter  (6-9 month), farmer- or rural
professional-led investigations described under the Rural Professional
Fund scheme.  These are research projects commissioned to test new ideas
for improving productivity while also addressing sustainability issues.
Over the course of OLW’s lifetime there have been 4 rounds of this fund,
each with 10-15 projects.  The results have been published in various
rural and public publications and these are linked to the webpage for each
project. Rural Professional Fund projects can be accessed on our main
website by selecting the “Our Science” tab,  and the “Pathways to
Transition” theme  - which will bring up the webpages for the four Rural
Professional rounds. 

 

3. You state that ' developed an interactive WebApp to help detect
improvements in rivers, lakes and groundwater, and to help select
appropriate monitoring technologies that enable early detection of
improvement. The research explores which monitoring designs best
facilitate a te ao Mâori-framed approach to detecting the effects of
whenua-based mitigation actions on wai Mâori.'

 

These technologies appear only for pasture-based farming. Horticulture,
for example, may emit as many as ten times the chemicals into the
environment as pasture-based farming.

 

Response:

The monitoring design tool referred to here is not specific to a
particular agricultural activity, and can be applied to detect
contaminants emanating from any land use, if they enter freshwater
systems.  Currently the focus is on the most common contaminants from
agricultural land (including horticulture): sediment, E Coli, nitrate and
phosphate. 

 

There are indeed additional chemical contaminants that leach from
horticultural activities  (such as copper and synthetic pesticides etc)
that do have the potential to reach the waterways. However,  NZ research
in recent decades has shown that, outside urban areas and specific
chemical spill sites, these contaminants are generally at very low levels
in our streams, rivers and groundwater systems.  Therefore this has not
been a priority for research funding. 

 

i. Which monitoring technologies are being developed to monitor
industrial, agricultural and waste-water synthetic chemical and trace
metal runoff into freshwater.

 

Response:

Firstly, in relation to both questions i and ii, AgResearch works in the
pastoral agricultural research space and does not work with industrial
waste or wastewater.  AgResearch does not work on synthetic chemical
runoff into freshwater.  The only trace metal that we have worked on is
cadmium which is a contaminant in phosphate fertiliser.  The technology we
developed is a Cadmium balance model for the fertiliser industry.  This
model uses information on inputs from fertiliser, soils and leaching rates
to predict long-term changes to cadmium levels in soils from different
fertilisers.  This model includes our knowledge of cadmium leaching rates
to groundwater.  This project is completed and no further research is
occurring at this point in time.  

 

ii. How much funding does AgResearch have to develop technologies designed
to facilitate monitoring of industrial, agricultural and waste-water
synthetic chemical and trace metal runoff and accumulation and review
pollutant mixtures in freshwater from industrial, agricultural and
waste-water sources outside of 'nutrient' fertiliser-based emissions and
bacterial emissions.

 

Response:

As stated above, AgResearch works in the pastoral agricultural research
space and does not work with industrial waste or waste-water.  We
currently do not have funding to develop technologies designed for the
above query.

 

 

 

Kelly Mitchell  
Executive Assistant to
[3]http://g10.agresearch.co.nz/support/comm...
Director of Finance
and Business
Performance &

Director of
Information Technology

 

Finance and Business
Performance
 

T  +64 3 321 8601   

M +64 272111676
[4]Based at Lincoln
Campus
  [5]agresearch.co.nz 

 

 

 

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