Conducting R&D with a clear focus on sustainability has become imperative for New Zealand’s HortResearch.
Chief scientist Dr Ian Ferguson told freshinfo: “The move towards sustainability has been driven by European markets - the idea of food miles always hits those countries furthest away. This means that all our primary producers, whether they like it or not, will have to adapt to these issues.
“New Zealand already has a clean, green image, but if you investigate it, we can do better. There are targets around zero chemical usage and, over the last 10 years, chemical usage on top fruit has fallen by 85 per cent. There is a real opportunity to produce with the environment in mind, but exporters will need to brand their efforts somehow.”
But producing sustainably also offers a built-in economic argument, said Ferguson. “If a firm can irrigate using half the amount of water then not only is it environmentally sound, but it is also reducing its production costs. One of the biggest drivers at the moment has to be to keep production costs down.”
A potential merger between HortResearch and Crop & Food Research, reported recently in FPJ, would give the two New Zealand bodies a wider opportunity to explore new ideas, especially around environmental issues, said Ferguson.
HortResearch is also researching tree architecture as horticulture systems become more intensive. “We are looking to produce varieties that are more amenable to highly intensive agriculture systems,” said Ferguson. “Developing biological control systems and breeding for disease resistance are also important tenets of our work.”
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