Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures projects
Find out about Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) projects that have been funded so far.
Scale Up: Building a regional and sustainable high-value New Zealand sheep milk industry
- Project start date:
- Project length: 5 years
- MPI funding: $7,976,000
- Co-investment funding: $11,964,000
- Sectors: Dairy
- Sub-sectors: Sheep dairy products
- Project partners: Spring Sheep Milk Company
- Regions: Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, Southland, Taranaki, Tasman, Waikato, Wairarapa, West Coast
This programme is designed to take the dairy sheep industry from the piloting phase through to an established primary industry, following on from Spring Sheep’s successful 6-year pilot programme, Sheep Horizon Three. The next stage will involve expanding into the Taranaki region alongside Spring Sheep’s regional partners, Parininihi ki Waitotara. Several R&D projects are planned to improve industry understanding of sheep milk and refine best practice standards across the industry.
Outcome Logic Model [PDF, 199 KB]
Government supports innovative dairy sheep sector to scale up – Government media release
April 2023 to June 2023 – Scale Up progress report [PDF, 240 KB]
January 2023 to March 2023 – Scale Up progress report [PDF, 232 KB]
October 2022 to December 2022 – Scale Up progress report [PDF, 220 KB]
July 2022 to September 2022 – Scale Up progress report [PDF, 216 KB]
Scaling up production and application of norbormide for pest control in agricultural settings
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $125,000
- Co-investment funding: $125,000
- Sectors: Meat
- Sub-sectors: Other meat products/research
- Project partners: Invasive Pest Control (IPC) Ltd
- Regions: Nationwide
This unique project represents a crucial step towards enabling scaled-up production of norbormide for residue-free, safe and effective rodent control on New Zealand farms. This will be a world first.
Scaling up production of microalgal metabolites for commercial use
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $800,000
- Co-investment funding: $1,200,000
- Sectors: Nutraceuticals/medical, Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Aquatic plants (algae and seaweed)
- Project partners: Cawthron Institute
- Regions: Nelson
This project aimed to take a crucial step towards establishing commercial production of neosaxitoxin (NeoSTX), a potent toxin found in the microalgae Alexandrium pacificum, to develop the world’s first algal-based pain relief. Clinical development of NeoSTX has shown that it acts as a unique nerve-blocking compound and delivers extended pain relief in surgical patients. Cawthron has now developed a scalable process for producing NeoSTX to deliver clinical and commercially relevant quantities, and it’s hoped this will assist with taking NeoSTX through to Phase 2 clinical trials with Cawthron’s international partners.
Seabird-Safe Longline Fishing Toolkit
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $175,000
- Co-investment funding: $315,000
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Other fisheries research - Antarctic
- Project partners: Southern Seabirds Trust
- Regions: Nationwide
This project aims to develop a toolkit to reduce the impact of high seas longline fishing on New Zealand seabirds and to support a sustainable New Zealand fishing industry. The toolkit will provide information on where seabirds are vulnerable, and practical methods to avoid catching seabirds.
Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy implementation (Waves 1 and 2)
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $597,000
- Co-investment funding: $668,200
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Project partners: The Aotearoa Circle Trust
- Regions: Nationwide
This project will deliver the Wave 1 and 2 actions from the Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy. Waves 1 and 2 are focused on finding ways to enable the seafood sector’s proactive and effective adaptation to climate change.
Securing a resilient and sustainable future: strategic planning for the sustainable growth of the honey sector
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $225,000
- Co-investment funding: $158,500
- Sectors: Apiculture, Sector resilience
- Project partners: Apiculture NZ, Honey Industry Trust, Comvita, Manuka Health
- Regions: Nationwide
This project developed a strategic plan to revitalise New Zealand’s honey sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path for the long term. The plan is based on three key pillars – Sustainability, Quality-Led and Consumer Focus – which support a goal of doubling New Zealand’s honey export value by 2030. That goal will be enabled by strengthening industry leadership, creating a sustainable industry reinvestment model, making sure regulatory needs are met to enable future growth, and creating a unique and differentiating New Zealand honey story. The strategy also considers what the industry needs to do to protect bee health and support beekeepers.
New Zealand Honey Strategy 2024-2030 - Thriving Together: Futureproofing New Zealand Apiculture
See you later Alligator - On-farm alligator weed impact and management
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $270,000
- Co-investment funding: $135,000
- Sectors: Arable, Biosecurity
- Project partners: AgResearch, Waikato Regional Council, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Horizons Regional Council, Wellington Regional Council, Kiwifruit Vine Health, Rural Contractors NZ, Foundation for Arable Research
- Regions: Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Manawatū-Whanganui, Northland, Taranaki, Waikato, Wairarapa, Wellington
This project will establish the on-farm impacts and costs of alligator weed. It also aims to provide practical mitigation and management advice, and education to farmers, growers and rural contractors. This will incorporate excluding, eradicating and/or the progressive containment of alligator weed on agricultural, horticultural and arable farms.
Seed certification information system
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $1,207,453
- Co-investment funding: $1,950,630
- Sectors: Arable
- Sub-sectors: Seeds
- Project partners: Seed Quality Management Authority
- Regions: Nationwide
This project developed a seed certification system to protect and grow New Zealand’s $400 million seed industry. Its deployment will be a significant milestone for the industry, and will completely change the way seed certification is administered in New Zealand. The system will enable New Zealand to be a leader in online data sharing between designated authorities for certified seed around the globe. A final stage is currently being scoped before the system goes into production to ensure it meets security and privacy control standards.
Seed Certification Information System capability realignment
- Project start date:
- Project length: 1 year
- MPI funding: $986,000
- Co-investment funding: $2,494,000
- Sectors: Arable
- Sub-sectors: Seeds
- Project partners: The New Zealand Seeds Authority
- Regions: Nationwide
This project builds on the ‘Seed certification information system’ project, which established an electronic platform and framework to protect and grow New Zealand’s $400 million seed industry. The new project will enable the system to be realigned to meet the needs of the industry’s contracted service provider AsureQuality, and to complete the development and rollout of the integrated electronic system for seed certification. The system will enable all parts of the production chain from grower, merchant, exporter, verifier, and regulator to enter and share data on a common platform.
Shell (kota) waste to value
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $170,533
- Co-investment funding: $255,800
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Sub-sectors: Other seafood/aquatic products/research
- Project partners: Transition Technologies Limited
- Regions: Nationwide
The project will investigate the potential for production of pharmaceutical grade Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC) from waste bivalve shell such as mussel and oyster shells from major New Zealand seafood processors.
Smart and Sustainable
- Project start date:
- Project length: 7 years
- MPI funding: $7,448,000
- Co-investment funding: $7,322,000
- Sectors: Agritech, Horticulture
- Sub-sectors: Apples and pears
- Project partners: New Zealand Apples and Pears Incorporated
- Regions: Nationwide
This research programme will develop innovative solutions to reduce spray and agrichemical use in New Zealand’s apples and pears industry through new technologies, data, and information solutions.
Spray-free target for New Zealand apples and pears to boost export growth – Government media release
January 2024 to March 2024 – Smart and Sustainable progress report [PDF, 194 KB]
October 2023 to December 2023 – Smart and Sustainable progress report [PDF, 191 KB]
July 2023 to September 2023 – Smart and Sustainable progress report [PDF, 195 KB]
April 2023 to June 2023 – Smart and Sustainable progress report [PDF, 195 KB]
December 2022 to March 2023 – Smart and Sustainable progress report [PDF, 194 KB]
Smart Ewes for Smart Markets
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $718,898
- Co-investment funding: $1,060,540
- Sectors: Meat
- Sub-sectors: Sheepmeat (including lamb)
- Project partners: Smart Shepherd NZ Limited, Horizon Farming, Hewett Farms, Panoptistar, Stag Valley, Lonestar Farms, Harper Agri, Smart Ewe, Auckland City Council
- Regions: Nationwide
The project involves attaching blue-tooth proximity tags to ewes and their lambs. These tags will collect detailed data on maternal behaviour of ewes from sheep farms over 3 years. The data and predictors will then be applied to farm systems to inform breeding decisions and improve mothering outcomes.
SmartEWE: Good mothers, greener pastures and better products
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $39,875
- Co-investment funding: $59,813
- Sectors: Agritech, Meat
- Sub-sectors: Other meat products/research
- Project partners: Four Good Foods
- Regions: Nationwide
This project established that smart tag technology can be used to continuously record the proximity of all animals in a flock to one another. This provides a decision support system that can match lambs and ewes on the basis of proximity, enabling the maternal performance of individual ewes to be assessed in order to drive short-term (more lambs from fewer ewes, better product quality), medium-term (lifetime benefits of good maternal environment) and long-term flock benefits (genetic improvement in maternal traits).
Soil microbiome in regenerative agriculture
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $211,000
- Co-investment funding: $148,000
- Sectors: Dairy, Regenerative agriculture
- Sub-sectors: Cow dairy products
- Project partners: Auckland University of Technology
- Regions: Nationwide
This project will investigate the importance of microbial communities. It will compare microbial communities, ranging from conventional to regenerative agriculture. By better understanding the relationship between soil biology and soil health, this project is the first step in being able to identify biological indicators that can be used to monitor the health and productivity of our soil.
Southern Scallop Fishery Restoration Programme
- Project start date:
- Project length: 1 year
- MPI funding: $115,150
- Co-investment funding: $115,150
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Project partners: Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company Limited, Talleys Group Limited
- Regions: Nelson, Tasman
This project will determine the feasibility of re-establishing a commercial scallop fishery at the top of the South Island. The feasibility study will include identifying trial sites and seafloor restoration techniques, costing and analysis, consultation with interested parties, and developing a programme to implement the findings.
Spat nursery commercial pilot programme
- Project start date:
- Project length: 2 years
- MPI funding: $812,174
- Co-investment funding: $1,218,260
- Sectors: Seafood/aquatic
- Project partners: Clifford Bay Marine Farms Limited
- Regions: Marlborough
The project seeks to test and refine a submerged 20 line spat nursery in semi-open ocean. The project will develop and refine the growing of mussel spat in Clifford Bay. The project will start with 8 lines in year one, and add a further 12 lines in year two. The 20 lines represent around five percent of a commercial scale operation.
Spatial integrated farm plan
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $398,952
- Co-investment funding: $205,968
- Sectors: Arable, Dairy, Forestry, Meat
- Project partners: LandPlan Trust
- Regions: Nationwide
The project developed and tested to prototype stage a free online tool for farmers to help them meet the new greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets that will come into effect in 2025. The market ready version of the tool will help farmers and communities apply landscape planning and farm land-use modelling to produce farm plans and land use changes that tackle known GHG and other environmental issues, including water management.
Step Change 2.0 - Testing the Model
- Project start date:
- Project length: 3 years
- MPI funding: $655,003
- Co-investment funding: $450,000
- Sectors: Dairy
- Project partners: Dairy Trust Taranaki
- Regions: Nationwide, Taranaki
This project builds on the original Step Change project, with the aim of helping dairy farmers in Taranaki and across New Zealand increase profit while reducing their environmental footprint. It will test the modelled assumptions and provide the information farmers need to confidently adopt lower emissions farming systems.
Strong Wool Action Group project
- Project start date:
- Completed date:
- MPI funding: $2,800,000
- Co-investment funding: $700,000
- Sectors: Natural fibres, Sector resilience
- Project partners: Strong Wool Action Group Ltd
- Regions: Nationwide
This project undertook work to deliver a roadmap for the strong wool industry, including identifying new commercial strong wool opportunities. It recommended an enduring business model for the sector.
Strong wool speaks
- Project start date:
- Project length: 1 year
- MPI funding: $87,915
- Co-investment funding: $134,868
- Sectors: Natural fibres
- Sub-sectors: Animal-based fibres, Strong wool
- Project partners: Autex Industries
- Regions: Nationwide
This project aims to create a new product category utilising a novel 3D knitting technology, with strong wool as material.