Growing our future

[Upbeat music plays whilst different scenes of people working in the primary sector are shown – packers on a farm, a woman in a laboratory, a man in a factory busy filleting fish and another man standing on a farm holding open a gate to herd in cows whilst a black utility vehicle (ute) with farm dogs on the back arrives on a paddock with sheep running in the opposite direction. Three metal spiral-shaped mixers attached to a metal bar are mixing fertiliser inside a building, a woman with protective glasses and yellow hard hat is holding a cutter and standing on yellow platform of a moving vehicle that moves through an avocado orchard.]

[To help give you an idea about the kinds of jobs people do in the primary industries, we've interviewed a range of people about their work and what gets them up in the morning.]

Richie McCaw: It’s something we all should be proud of.  The things that we are able to produce, not only for people in New Zealand but for people around the world, that people really love and need is a pretty cool story.

Craige Mackenzie: Well actually, some of the very best farmers in the world are right here. It’s not something that we always celebrate, but it’s certainly something that we should be more proud of.

Rangitane Marsden: The future is actually in the younger generation.

Hannah Wallace: There’s a lot of opportunities out there for people, they just need to grab them.

Ian Proudfoot: Any job you want to do, you can do in the primary sector in New Zealand.

Erica van Reenan: There’s huge opportunities for pretty much any career.

Emily Tasker: It’s this perception that agriculture is just farming, and it’s not. You get to start businesses, it’s got so much potential to use all these new technologies. It’s really cool.

Shay Wright: It’s more than just the business. It's actually about how do we create better opportunities for communities, as well as better opportunities for our environment.

Gabi Michael: For me that’s sustainability. I’m building something that’s not all about returns.

Sonia Waddell: We are caretakers of the land, and that’s something that both Rob and I are really passionate about.

Sir Peter Gluckman: The world needs food, the world needs better food, the world needs healthier food, produced in an environmentally sustainable way.

Dr Cather Simpson: We really need to take advantage of the fact that we have not just really strong primary industries here, but we have absolutely fantastic high-tech, innovative researchers.

Dr William Rolleston: What’s going on with precision agriculture, with the use of robotics and drones and all the technology around big data, that’s really exciting stuff.

Traci Houpapa: That uplift in performance, productivity and profitability is going to come from our research, and technology is going to come from innovation.

Dave Maslen: We can innovate and change very, very rapidly, far more rapidly than a lot of our other, competing countries can.

John Wilson: The world’s quickly moving to fresh dairy solutions, far more innovation required, traceability what we call trust in source.

Volker Kuntzsch: What I feel very passionate about is, with my scientific background, to be able to make a difference in this industry and create a great name for New Zealand.

Dr Mark Harris: I’m trying to make farming life better, and I want to be able to look back and say, “Hey, we did those things, and that was pretty worthwhile”.

Aaron Gunn: We’re not looking at what we’re harvesting just next year, we’re looking at what we’re harvesting 50 years into the future.

Lindy Nelson: So if you want something dynamic and exciting, and challenging and growing, something that adds real value, providing food and product for people, I say pick agriculture.

Sir David Fagan: There’s never, ever going to be too much food in the world. So there’ll be ups and downs, but long term, farming is a really great place to be in.

Caleb Dennis: You never quite know exactly what the next day is going to bring.  You continue learning and growing, and what you’re doing is making a difference.

Holly Tonkin: Finding your work purpose once you find it you know. I just love my job.

Matt Bell: I know I have found what I want to do because I probably would do it for free “maybe not quite, but pretty close”.

[Music: Alive by Graeme James]

[End of Transcript]