Red Meat Profit Partnership

Supporting farmers to adopt best practice

This programme focuses on supporting farmers in the adoption of best practice behind the farm gate and between the farm and processor.

There are 9 industry partners alongside Beef + Lamb New Zealand – meat companies Alliance Group, ANZCO, Silver Fern Farms, Greenlea, Blue Sky Meats and Progressive Meats, and banking sector participants Rabobank and ANZ Bank. All will work together, and with other stakeholders in the sector to support the adoption of best practice behind the farm gate, and between the farm and processor.

The challenge

The Red Meat Sector Strategy (RMSS) identified that sector collaboration was ad-hoc at best and generally driven by a particular issue or circumstance.

Farmers are currently subject to a vast array of information; however this information does not always provide tailored solutions that take a 'whole of business' approach. Farmer uptake of agriculture's considerable research and development outputs is generally low, resulting in missed opportunities for productivity gains.

A key component of the required sector change is the need to move the focus of the sector from one that is currently dominated by price, to one that focuses on productivity and profitability, where differences are significant and can be controlled.

The solution

This programme, for the first time, sees a significant collaborative effort by sector participants, uniting those who compete vigorously in the market, in a pre-competitive and unified approach to raise the performance and profitability of sheep and beef farm businesses. By doing so it seeks to better enable a range of proprietary and industry-good programmes, products, tools and services.

To achieve this vision, the partners, alongside the Crown, will invest $64 million over seven years. This Programme, underpinning other Crown funded PGP programmes within the sector, will change the way information and knowledge that supports best practice is developed and delivered within the sector. It will expand on current extension activities for farmers, and develop new information and technology transfer systems by taking a farmer focussed, partnered approach to the delivery of best practice information, developing networks incorporating communities of farmers, advisors, and value chain partners.

While focusing around the farm gate, the programme does not represent a traditional 'production push' strategy. Rather, it signals a move to a more capable, agile and responsive farm businesses better equipped to respond to market signals delivered by programme partners, other PGP investment programmes, and the wider agribusinesses involved in the sector.

Outcome Logic Model

• Outcome Logic Model for RMPP - August 2014