Agribusiness and Trade: Drones transform NZ farms from above

Agribusiness and Trade: Drones transform NZ farms from above

  • Drone use is growing in NZ, with around 60 members now in the Agricultural Drone Association.
  • Drones fill a practical niche between ground-based equipment and helicopters.
  • The association is working with the Civil Aviation Authority to improve the certification process.

This year’s Fieldays included a new addition that drew steady crowds – the Fieldays Drone Zone. Run in partnership with the Agricultural Drone Association, it offered many their first look at how drones are revolutionising farm management practices, including spraying and targeted fertiliser spreading.

“The Drone Zone was incredibly popular – we had nine people on site and we needed all of them,” says Craig Simpson, president of the Agricultural Drone Association and founder of Aerolab, New Zealand’s largest supplier of commercial agricultural drones.

“A lot of people don’t know that drones are an option,” says Simpson. “Seeing one flying, they quickly realise they are big machines that can carry a significant spray pack, and gain a better understanding of how they work.”

The use of drones is reshaping how work gets done on New Zealand farms, with significant growth over the last few years. There are now hundreds of large agricultural drones operating across the country – up from around 20 or 30 three years ago. Simpson says Aerolab’s sales have doubled in the past year alone.

“Ag drones have been in the background for a couple of years,” he says. “But we have recently hit a sweet spot where they are able to carry enough liquid and fly long enough to make them genuinely effective. That’s when the market really took off.”

Drones fill a practical niche between ground-based equipment and helicopters, and their rise is changing how agricultural contractors operate. They can open up access to land that might previously have been too steep or too wet for traditional agricultural machinery, or that require immediate attention and more precision.

“If you’ve got 100 hectares to do, a helicopter is always going to be the best choice,” he says. “And if you’ve got lots of ground, it is dry, not steep, and you have got plenty of room to move vehicles, then a tractor or a truck is going to be better.

New Zealand’s geography makes drones particularly well-suited.

“We farm intensively and make the most out of small holdings,” says Simpson. “We’ve got a lot of arable land but not a huge amount of it is flat. Even with beef and sheep, we run stock on quite steep country. A drone is a real nice fit.”

This is opening up new possibilities. “Some farmers never dealt with gorse on steep blocks because the only option was spraying with a backpack. A helicopter wasn’t economical. Now a drone contractor can do the job at a reasonable rate.”

Urgency has also become a significant factor in the technology’s uptake. Simpson points to Wairarapa, which has had to deal with heavy rain this year.

“There is a point at which you can’t use a vehicle. In the past you might ring a helicopter provider and be told there is a four-week wait. Meanwhile, the fungus gets a foothold.

“A drone provider might be the same price, but they can be there the next day. You can deal with the problem faster and ultimately use less chemicals.”

Safety is another driver of demand.

“Why drive a quad bike or a vehicle across a steep hillside when you can instead fly over it with a drone and keep everyone safe?” says Simpson.

Given the compliance requirements, most agricultural drone users aren’t farmers themselves, but agricultural contractors.

“Since an ag drone is over 25 kilos, you need a certificate with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA),” says Simpson. “You’re also required to deal with the Environmental Protection Authority for chemicals, WorkSafe for health and safety, as well as local councils for regulations – that’s a lot for one person in a ute with a drone.”

The Agricultural Drone Association has grown to around 60 members – even more since Fieldays – and will play a crucial role in advocating for New Zealand’s agricultural drone operators and enhancing skills and knowledge within the industry.

“The association is aimed at drone users,” says Simpson. “They needed a community, and it means that we can speak to regulators with a collective voice.”

He says the CAA has been a constructive partner. Certification wait times have fallen from 18 months to about eight.

“That is a real improvement – but it is still a barrier. If the industry keeps growing, that bottleneck could get worse.

“We’d like to see the regulator continue working closely with industry so we can maintain momentum. This is a great farming technology, and it’s important we don’t let red tape slow down its potential.”

Simpson says that with their speed, precision, and ability to tackle challenging terrain, agricultural drones are on their way to becoming a familiar sight on New Zealand farms – not just a novelty attraction at Fieldays.

Agribusiness and Trade: New Zealand launches grass-fed standard

Agribusiness and Trade: New Zealand launches grass-fed standard

  • Official standard will increase demand for our products and enhance the credibility of our quality products.
  • Producers who meet the standard can be assessed and choose to display a licensed FernMark Grass-Fed logo.
  • The standard will be reviewed after one year, and then at least every three years.

New Zealand red meat and dairy producers can now be certified as producing grass-fed meat and dairy under a new standard introduced by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and launched at Fieldays.

The New Zealand Grass-Fed Administrative Standard provides a formal, Government-recognised definition of what constitutes grass-fed production. Producers who meet the standard can be assessed and choose to display a licensed FernMark Grass-Fed logo, issued by the government agency New Zealand Story.

“Industry has informed the Government that there are customer requests for Government backing of this important attribute in key markets,” says Jenny Cameron, Chief Transformation Officer at the Ministry for Primary Industries.

“By facilitating and coordinating a standard across the pastoral sector, we are able to demonstrate and prove our grass-fed credentials, which will help to maintain or increase demand for our products and enhance the credibility of our quality products.”

Cameron notes that there is significant and growing demand from consumers around the world to know how their food is produced, and to have traceability in the supply chain for products they buy.

“New Zealand can provide that,” she says. “We are proud of the way we farm in New Zealand with high biosecurity, sanitary, animal welfare and sustainable practices. We want to ensure these attributes are recognised and understood by the world.”

New Zealand’s temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall and sunshine, means our dairy and red meat sectors are largely pasture-based.

“This is a key point of difference for New Zealand’s dairy and red meat production, as animals on most other countries’ red meat and dairy farms spend much of the year indoors or eating grain-based diets,” says Cameron. The standard applies separately to red meat and dairy, and is designed to strengthen international market access and validate New Zealand’s long-standing pasture-based farming systems.

For dairy, the standard requires that animals spend at least 340 days per year, for at least eight hours per day, on pasture or forage crops, and have a diet comprised of at least 90% qualifying grass-fed feed.

For red meat, animals must be predominantly fed grass-fed feed types and be permitted to graze outdoors on pasture or forage crops year-round. Feedlots are not allowed, and animals must be removed from pasture or forage crops only for animal management purposes or to safeguard them or the environment from adverse events.

The new standard is voluntary, and there is no requirement for red meat or dairy producers to use it, but MPI says it expects it to become a valuable tool for differentiation.

“We anticipate that China is a market this will be particularly relevant for, but we also know other markets have customers and consumers that make choices based on grass-fed or grain-fed for their own or family consumption, as well as for pets,” says Cameron.

“Only about 10% of the world’s dairy is grazed on pasture, and New Zealand has the greatest time outdoors of any country.”

An independent review commissioned by MPI compared the New Zealand standard to similar international frameworks in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. It found New Zealand’s requirement for 340 grazing days for dairy is higher than that of other standards.

The development of the standard has involved wide industry consultation. Cameron says dairy and red meat companies have been a part of the development of the voluntary standard, and have been strong proponents for it.

“Since the launch at Fieldays, we have received positive feedback from farmers and industry as a whole,” she says. “As of 27 June, we have had three grass-fed schemes listed as meeting the standard: Fonterra, Spring Sheep, and Westland Milk Products.”

The standard will be reviewed after one year, and then at least every three years, to ensure it remains fit for purpose as environmental and market conditions evolve.

Agribusiness and Trade: Sustainable food innovator seeks inspiration from NZ

Ray Poh from one of Singapore’s leading vertical farms talks with Tim McCready about what he can learn from New Zealand’s agriculture sector.

Artisan Green, founded in 2018 by Ray Poh, is a high-tech, indoor farm that uses stacked growing systems, precision automation and plant science to produce pesticide-free leafy greens in the densely populated city-state.

Poh didn’t start out in agriculture. After years working in the casino industry in Macau, he returned to Singapore looking for a new challenge that was meaningful and sustainable.

That led him to vertical farming, a sector combining climate-controlled growing environments with data and automation. With no prior experience, he began experimenting on a small indoor site with practical knowledge gained through site visits and workshops in Japan and Australia, and volunteering at other farms.

Now, Artisan Green is the country’s top producer of baby spinach as well as other leafy greens and herbs.

In land-scarce Singapore, space is precious. But so is food security.

Singapore imports more than 90% of what it eats, however, as part of its “30 by 30″ goal to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030, the Government tenders parcels of land for agriculture. Artisan Green won its plot by demonstrating the commercial viability and technical sophistication of its operation.

From its original 300 square metre facility, the company is preparing to move into a new two-hectare site in Singapore’s designated agriculture zone. The expansion includes a 5500sq m vertical farm, along with significant outdoor greenhouse space and a 4000sq m facility to support post-harvest operations.

This will lift production from one tonne a month to 30 tonnes per month in the initial phase. The second phase will see this increase to 90 tonnes per month.

Poh says the larger scale will allow Artisan Green to bring prices down and make the locally grown produce more competitive.

“Our aim is to price between overseas imports and imported organic produce,” he says. “People support us even though we’re more expensive than imports because we’re local, and our customers – especially younger families – want to avoid exposing their children to pesticides.”

In partnership with Siemens, Artisan Green has digitised its crop recipes: water and nutrient profiles, lighting cycles and temperature settings, allowing consistent yields without relying on a large team of plant scientists.

“We encapsulate the entire growing cycle into our recipes,” he says, “which means that anyone using this platform in the future will not have to be a plant scientist to operate it.”

Poh explains that the intellectual property developed will help make future expansion easier. With the science centralised and scalable, Artisan Green can replicate its model overseas using local workers, without having to bring in expensive technical talent.

He likens it to McDonald’s. “You don’t have chefs in McDonald’s. You just need operators, while all the R&D is done in the central kitchen.”

Poh was in New Zealand last month as part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative programme.

The delegation of 11 agribusiness entrepreneurs visited businesses around the country and attended Fieldays to learn about New Zealand’s agricultural sector, build local connections, and explore future business opportunities.

Poh says that for a city-based grower like him, seeing how New Zealand brings together science, industry and government in the agribusiness sector has been eye-opening.

“Agriculture is in New Zealand’s blood,” he says. “It’s not just individual farmers doing their own thing, you can see how industry and government work together to advance the sector.”

He points to New Zealand’s plant science research and downstream operations, including packhouses, marketing, and distribution networks, as areas that Singapore still needs to develop.

Too often, he says, small farms in Singapore fail not because they can’t grow food, but because they can’t get it to customers efficiently. It’s one reason why Poh started his own distribution company, which now handles produce from other local farms as well.

There are lessons New Zealand might take from Singapore too, particularly the value of investing in science to develop high-value crops that can command a premium.

“We can’t grow things like baby spinach outdoors in Singapore. It’s too hot. So we grow it indoors. But to make that work, you need margins, and you need to grow something premium,” Poh says.

And you need to know your science.

“A lot of people think AI or automation is going to revolutionise agriculture. But you can’t eat software,” he says.

“So you need to know your basics in plant science first, then automate from there.”

Poh sees both countries as coming at the same problem from different angles. New Zealand has deep-rooted farming knowledge and strong science institutions. Singapore brings innovation in urban food production.

If the future of food is global, then the best ideas will likely grow in both places.